cloud missing images
Asked by Kelvin A Hill:

On one of our spaces, a number of pages have lost their embedded images. They are PNG files that have been drag and dropped into the page. Previously, the images displayed inline in the page(s) and the images were listed as attachments.

All of a sudden, the images show as missing and the page reports that there are no attachments. The attachments have not been manually deleted.

I can create the images again with a little effort, but it is alarming to find they have disappeared.


Answers:
author: Kelvin A Hill
body: Thanks for your response, James.

Here's a screenshot of a page that has a mix of retained and missing images (the first image with a red border is present, the second with a red border is missing):

image2016-8-15 11:4:45.png

As it happens, I believe I have identified the source of the issue, and you will probably say, "well, that's obvious."

When I examine the image path for each image on a given page, the images are in the format: [https://virtualtrader.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/121864221/image.](https://virtualtrader.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/121864221/image2016-5-12%2013%3A45%3A42.png?version=1&modificationDate=1471254698014&api=v2).. with the attachments folder (121864221 in this case) being consistent for all images on the page. I have tried copy/pasting images to the page in a variety of ways, but the images all end up being called from the same attachments folder specific to that page. Essentially, any type of copy action results in the image being copied to the attachments folder of the new page.

In cases where the image links are broken (as in the example above), the attachments folder is DIFFERENT from the good images.

Now then, I have just tested inserting an image from a different page using the "Insert files and images" macro, and I can see that this could cause such a disconnect because it doesn't copy the image to the current page's attachments folder, so if the original page is deleted, BANG, the images are gone:

image2016-8-15 11:18:4.png

However, I have never used that approach, but I accept that the issue may have been caused by my colleagues who have contributed to our pages over the years. I suspect the copy image/files macro should have a big red warning message alerting users to this fact. Better still, inserting an image from another page should still make a copy of the image in the target page's attachments folder. That would sort it out. :smile:

[](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/cloud-missing-images/qaq-p/424062?attachment-id=9553){#link_119040d8015504}  
[](/tnckb94959/attachments/tnckb94959/confluence-questions/71864/1/image2016-8-15%2011%3A4%3A45.png){#display_119040d8015504_0}  
[](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/cloud-missing-images/qaq-p/424062?attachment-id=9554){#link_119040d8015504_0}  
[](/tnckb94959/attachments/tnckb94959/confluence-questions/71864/2/image2016-8-15%2011%3A18%3A4.png){#display_119040d8015504_2}

comments: author: James Dellow
body: Copying a page will duplicate all of the original page's attachments. Otherwise the safer way to do this is to download the file and attach, not copy and paste (as counter intuitively this may not actually paste the actual image).

Another way to do this could be to create a specific page to store all your images, and then just link to the images on that page.


author: Kelvin A Hill
body: Thanks for your additional comments, James. I don't think I'll adopt the approach wherein we would have a specific page for storing images. We maintain several versions of a user manual, each of which extends to over 100 pages with each having at least 500 images all told. Trying to keep track of 500 images on a single page would be unwieldy at best.

I'll continue copy/pasting, but checking each time that the number of images on the page matches the attachments count.

Thanks!


author: James Dellow
body: Are you seeing this where the image should be or something different?

Screenshot 2016-08-15 at 11.33.38.png

There have some issues with pasting images seen over the years that be the route cause. However, this happens immediately - as soon as your save the page and view it again.  
[](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/cloud-missing-images/qaq-p/424062?attachment-id=1767){#link_119040e5fd8948}  
[](/tnckb94959/attachments/tnckb94959/confluence-questions/71863/1/Screenshot%202016-08-15%20at%2011.33.38.png){#display_119040e5fd8948_0}


Tags: cloud

confluence-cloud