Subsite images do not load after Update to WP5.8 or subsequent updates

Have you already solved this? Because I think I can see all the pictures on your website. I also can’t see that any of them are not loaded in the frontend.

@threadi No, the issue is not genuinely resolved. (More below.) I tried the suggestions at https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/multisite-images-dont-load-due-to-url-change/ because my issue *appears* to be precisely the same.

I was in the process of switching servers. I was checking sites on the original server to ensure they worked, but images on SabbathIssues.org were missing. There were a number of glitches in the setup, and that’s why I’m just now getting back to this.

Although most of the images now appear, the issues are not fully fixed, and I have the same issue on another site. A server support person implemented what he called a “band-aid solution.” When I asked what he did, he wrote that he set up a redirect. Since he was going beyond the call of duty in doing this, I didn’t ask for more details. I assumed he set up a redirect in the .htaccess file, but I can’t find it there.

In fact, I cannot find a redirect re the images anywhere in my WordPress setup.

I’m thinking that if we can figure out why most, but not all of the images load on this site, perhaps I can fix the other sites with similar problems.

Keep in mind the following:
In an earlier attempt to fix the missing images issue, I uploaded 2012 and 2013 images to both the /public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/12/files directory AND the /public_html/wp-content/sabbathissues/files directories.

I re-uploaded some images in 2023 and 2024, and they did not show up either.

Here is a post in which neither the “feature image” nor the main image/banner header show up: https://sabbathissues.org/eden-day-line-theory/ It is still the same issue as before the “band-aid” by server support:

The images show up in the Media Library as blank boxes. However, they show up perfectly in “Edit” mode inside the library. “Editing” and saving makes no difference re visibility. (The other images magically reappeared after the “band-aid” fix. I think I will have to see if I can get a more precise answer re the fix.)

If you click the space for the main image (blank on top left), you will see a badly distorted version of the image that belongs there. But it shows up beautifully in the “Edit” mode in the library.

I tried creating new posts and uploading images, but I get the same results of missing images after I upload an image.

This post has a different issue re images: The images show up fine in the post. However, the “feature image” that is supposed to show up on the front page does not show up. Furthermore, clicking on the images (which should lead to the attachment page) yields a 404 error.

I figure that the differences between the posts that show images and those that don’t might offer a clue as to what happened.

Your example shows that the problem lies in the generation of the thumbnails. This image is embedded on https://sabbathissues.org/eden-day-line-theory/:

https://sabbathissues.org/files/1902/01/bible-echo-banner-150×150.jpg

This is a thumbnail that was generated by WordPress with the help of image libraries in the hosting to display it in the desired size. The original of this image is here:

https://sabbathissues.org/files/1902/01/bible-echo-banner.jpg

This can be loaded without any problems.

I therefore suspect that there is or was a problem with the image generation in your project. Have a look under Tools > Site Health to see if anything is mentioned there.

Although I have clicked on dozens of pages on your website, I have not found any other examples.

To solve the one problem, you would have to regenerate the preview image. You can do this relatively easily with this plugin: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/

Thank you very much for this! I will work on it.

[Later] Ouch! That didn’t seem to work. But I think you are correct in that it is a thumbnail issue. Unfortunately, I *lost* some thumbnails after specifying to “Regenerate featured Image thumbnails only.”
I checked the server to see where they are stored:
They are not at https://public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/12/files/2024/02
They are not in alternate directories I created: https://ssnet.org/public_html/wp-content/sabbathissues/files (no 2024/02 directory there)
https://ssnet.org/public_html/sabbathissues/files (no 2024/02 directory there)

There’s another issue with the second instance which I failed to post: https://sabbathissues.org/leauvaa-uta-church-members-continue-meet-sabbaths-opposition/ This post has a different issue re images: The images show up fine in the post. But clicking on the visible images (which should lead to the attachment page) yields a 404 error (Sorry, no such page).

Am checking on more options. Sure would appreciate more help!

I found another uploads directory – something possibly initiated by WordPress 5.6.1? It is certainly different than the original upload paths: https://ssnet.org/public_html/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/ But I found it specified in WordPress multisite documentation. I thought maybe that’s where the thumbnails regenerator plugin put the thumbnails…. but no luck.

I changed some settings in the Site Settings:
WAS
siteurl https://sabbathissues.org
home https://sabbathissues.org
Changed to
siteurl https://ssnet.org/sabbathissues
home https://sabbathissues.org

Well, that didn’t work. The SabbathIssues site still showed up, but the wp-admin URL took me to the ssnet.org (main site) admin pages. So I changed it back to siteurl https://sabbathissues