Images vanishing randomly

  • OK, this is a really odd one.

    From time to time images are disappearing from WordPress posts. Not the whole image, including thumbnail. The large version of the image vanishes from the server, leaving behind the link to the image in the HTML, and the thumbnail.

    The image clearly existed on the server at some point because the software managed to make a thumbnail of it (and anyway, you can see it when you create the page).

    This doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s happened a few times now, and I’m pretty sure it’s not just finger trouble – I don’t think you can delete an image from the server via the control panel without deleting the thumbnail as well anyway?

    Site is https://www.oldies.org.uk/, and here is an entry where a large version of the image vanished: https://www.oldies.org.uk/?p=2083

    https://www.oldies.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/mrsj1_manytears.thumbnail.jpg
    is still on the server, but

    https://www.oldies.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/mrsj1_manytears.jpg

    has gone AWOL for no obvious reason.

    Any ideas would be much appreciated!

    I am afraid that we are still on WordPress 2.07, as it’s a really busy site maintained by a team of editors and is constantly changing – taking it down for long enough to apply upgrades and test them all is a bit of a nightmare. We will do it soon though, honest!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Thread Starter cycad

    (@cycad)

    Nobody seen anything like this at all?

    this is not normal behaviour of wordpress or servers.
    seeing you also have accidentally deleted posts, may be it’s worth to check with the team of editors if they had ‘accidentally’ removed something.

    Thread Starter cycad

    (@cycad)

    I’ve just come back to this because it’s happened again. I assume nobody else has seen this issue?

    I have 2 images in a post, 1 and 2.

    In the thumbnail editor view, both are correctly displayed.

    The large version of image 1 has vanished from the server. It simply does not exist, even though the thumbnail is still there, and the large image was there when the post was made.

    Macbrink, clearly you suspect this is user error. I am happy to believe this and deal with it through training, as I usually do if we have a user error problem.

    However, in this case, I simply cannot see how my editors could be doing this. I cannot train them not to do it if I don’t know how it is being done! I am really hoping someone will have some idea how this could happen: we can work around it if we can get some idea of how it is happening.

    The editors don’t have FTP access. The only way they could delete or rename an image would be via the control panel, and that would delete or change both the thumbnail and the larger image. I’ve even changed the FTP details in case someone was somehow logging in accidentally.

    If I wanted to produce this effect deliberately I don’t know how to do it.

    I have about 40 other sites on that server,running various different content management systems, and the only system where images are doing this random vanishing thing is this one, which leads me to think that it must be a WordPress thing.

    To clarify Macbrink’s post, I don’t have entire posts disappearing from the server. I think he/she must have got this impression because I responded to a question from someone else who did have that problem, because I hoped I might be able to help that other person – not because I have the problem too.

    If I ask for help on a forum, I like to look round at the same time and see if there is anyone asking stuff that I might be able to help with. Kind of a do as you would be done by thing.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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