Bug in Image Compare block

  • Hello,

    The “Image Compare” block always attempts to use “Photon” to serve images — even when Photon is disabled.

    I’m not using Photon (in fact, I’m blocking it actively, to prevent AI scrapers from accessing my photos through this backdoor) and the “Image Compare” block only works when I manually edit it as HTML and remove the i0.wp.com etc. URL from the photos.

    This is turn results in a “This block contains unexpected or invalid content.” warning, which is nonsense. The block works just fine with my local image URLs.

    This is new and undesirable/unwanted behavior. Older image compare blocks on my site work just fine. When Photon is disabled, the Image Compare block shouldn’t enforce its usage.

    I’d appreciate a fix.

    Thanks,
    Alexander.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Support Alin (a11n)

    (@alinclamba)

    Hey Alexander,

    Thanks a lot for flagging this!

    You’re absolutely right that the Image Compare block tries to use Photon when it’s active on your site. If Photon is off, the block should be using your local image URLs, as it always has. There haven’t been any changes to that setup since the block was first introduced. However, it looks like the issue might be happening because those images were saved with Photon URLs back when you were using it, and now that you’ve disabled Photon, they’re still stuck using those old URLs. That’s what’s likely causing the behavior you’re seeing.

    I totally get how frustrating this must be—especially with the “unexpected or invalid content” warning. The block should work just fine with your local URLs, so the only workaround for now is to manually update those posts where Photon was still enabled. It’s definitely not ideal, and I’m sorry for the hassle.

    We’ve logged the issue and are actively looking into it. You can follow along or chime in with any thoughts on this GitHub issue: https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/39295.

    Again, thanks for your patience and continued support over the years. I know things like this can be annoying, but we’ll keep you posted with updates as we work on a fix.

    Best!

    Thread Starter Alexander S. Kunz

    (@antermoia)

    Hi Alin!

    Thanks for logging the issue and the potential explanation, I appreciate it. I don’t think it could be images stuck in Photon’s cache in this instance — I haven’t been using Photon for a really long time now, and I noticed this with new photos that I had just uploaded to my site.

    Cheers,
    Alex.

    Plugin Support Paulina H. (a11n)

    (@pehaa)

    Hi again Alex,

    I don’t think it could be images stuck in Photon’s cache in this instance — I haven’t been using Photon for a really long time now, and I noticed this with new photos that I had just uploaded to my site.

    You are right, it’s not the Photon’s cache but the Photon’s links once generated that got stuck in the post and did not refresh to local URLs when Photon got deactivated.

    We were able to reproduce this behavior and the issue that Alin linked addresses this behavior https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/39295.

    Once again thank you for your patience and for bringing this problem to our attention!

    Plugin Contributor Stef (a11n)

    (@erania-pinnera)

    Hey @antermoia,

    I’m going to mark this thread as solved. You’re welcome to follow how the bug report (and fix) is going directly from the GitHub link we shared earlier.

    If you have any further questions or need more help, you’re welcome to open another thread here. Cheers!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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