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I just tried to add an image to my post and it said, file format not supported. It was a link to a .jpg file on Wikipedia.

That's a pretty common format on the net, especially for photos. Does SE have something against .jpg?

EDIT: here is the link i tried: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soyuz_rocket_ASTP.jpg and on that page it claims it is 1.55 MB.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks @TildalWave, your evaluation of the problem is correct — the page is simply not an image. $\endgroup$ – Thomas Orozco Jul 24 '15 at 9:59
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Actually, file size (my original guess) doesn't seem to be the limiting factor here. Using the "link from web" option I was able to embed this 4.5 MB file.

Saturn rings

If I download it and try to upload it from my computer it rejects it with the error message "Your image is too large to upload (over 2 MB)".

Based on your last comment I'm guessing you were trying to upload the wikipedia media page, not the image itself. That means you're trying to give it a web url that serves an html page (and happens to end in .jpg even though it's not actually a link to an image). One hint of this fact is that the title of the page is "File:Soyuz rocket ASTP.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" - it containing text after the .jpg extension means that it's not just a jpg file. You can also check this by pressing ctrl-s to save the page - if the extension it provides is .html the url isn't an image.

To get a link to the image itself from a wikipedia media page you can click on the displayed image or copy the url of one of the links displayed under it.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hmm, that is .jpg, but when I hover my mouse over that image, it shows a link to i.stack.imagur.com , not Wikipedia. I edited my OP providing the link i tried. $\endgroup$ – DrZ214 Jul 23 '15 at 4:11
  • $\begingroup$ I added the image you referenced to my response, I don't know why it didn't work for you (ctrl-g, click "link from web", paste link in and hit upload). The link to i.stack.imgur.com was because that's where it uploads the image to when you add an image and I forgot to fix the link to where I got it from. $\endgroup$ – 1337joe Jul 23 '15 at 4:20
  • $\begingroup$ Your second link is still different than mine, although it appears to be the same photo. However, I see now that if you're on wikipedia and click the picture twice, you get to the link you inputed. If you only click it once, you get my link, which has a "File:" in it. Maybe SE doesn't like the colon? $\endgroup$ – DrZ214 Jul 23 '15 at 4:32
  • $\begingroup$ It's not that "File:" is in the url, it's that the url points to a web page, not an image. Editing more of an explanation into my response now. $\endgroup$ – 1337joe Jul 23 '15 at 4:47
  • $\begingroup$ Yea it must be a web page since it has more than just the .jpg in it. This clears it up and now I can post my question, thanks! $\endgroup$ – DrZ214 Jul 23 '15 at 4:58
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As a further proof, I'll upload the image you suggested:

enter image description here

What I did to do this (Using Firefox):

  1. Open up the website.
  2. Right click on the image, and select "Copy Image Location". https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Soyuz_rocket_ASTP.jpg/408px-Soyuz_rocket_ASTP.jpg was copied to my clipboard.
  3. In Stack Exchange, click the image button, then click "link from the web".
  4. Past the URL exactly as included.

Bottom line, you provided a URL that ended in .jpg, not an actual image. Wikipedia does that frequently, but there are other sites that do similar things.

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  • $\begingroup$ As a caveat, again I see when I hover my mouse that the image is actually coming from i.stack.imagur.com. Why does SE copy it to another image hosting site when you've already pasted in a URL link and thus is already exists hosted on the web somewhere? I'm sure imagur would appreciate their saved bandwitdth (although wikipedia might not!). It just seems like it should automatically copy it to imgur only if it's something you're uploading from desktop, but the URL link option seems to execute the same algorithm. $\endgroup$ – DrZ214 Jul 23 '15 at 20:18
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    $\begingroup$ That's another question entirely. I think it's to stop images from disappearing $\endgroup$ – PearsonArtPhoto♦ Jul 23 '15 at 20:26

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