Images randomly disappearing and showing privacy error in WordPress
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Hi, I’m a junior web developer, and I developed a website using WordPress for a client.
I’m facing an issue where images on the homepage and About Us page frequently disappear. When I try to open a disappeared image in a new tab, it shows a privacy/security error, and the image URL changes to an IP address instead of the domain.
I have already tried several solutions, including Better Search Replace, regenerating thumbnails, and purging all caches using LiteSpeed Cache, but the issue still occurs.
Sometimes, when I randomly activate or deactivate a plugin, the images reappear. Also, if I remove a missing image and upload it again, it works temporarily. However, the issue keeps happening again.
I have spent a lot of time trying to identify and fix this problem, but I haven’t found a permanent solution yet. My client has given me one week to resolve this issue.
I would really appreciate any help or guidance to solve this problem permanently. Thank you in advance.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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We can’t help as that site isn’t running on the wordpress.com platform – https://wordpress.com/site-profiler/http://www.longlife.lk
To get help for a selfhosted site, you must take a look in the documentation at https://wordpress.org/documentation/
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Hi there,
Thanks for taking the time to explain the issue in detail. Based on what you’ve described, this does sound very much like a mixed content issue, which is one of the more common problems we see on WordPress sites, where parts of the site load over HTTP while others load over HTTPS. That often explains images disappearing, security warnings in the browser, and image URLs resolving to an IP address instead of the domain.
That said, I do want to clarify one important thing up front. Although you’ve reached out on the WordPress.com forums, the site you shared, http://www.longlife.lk/, is not hosted on WordPress.com. You can confirm that here: https://wordpress.com/site-profiler/http://www.longlife.lk
Because the site isn’t hosted with us, we’re not able to directly troubleshoot or make changes for it here.
Even so, I do want to point you in the right direction. There’s a very relevant discussion on the WordPress.org support forums that walks through fixing mixed content errors step by step, which should closely match what you’re seeing: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fixing-mixed-content-errors/
If that doesn’t fully resolve it, I’d strongly recommend posting your question directly in the WordPress.org support forums, where folks can dig into self-hosted setups, hosting environments, and server-level behavior: https://wordpress.org/support/forums/
If it helps, this short guide explains the difference between WordPress.com (hosted by us) and self-hosted WordPress.org sites, since the support paths are quite different: https://wordpress.com/support/com-vs-org/
And if you ever decide to bring this site over to WordPress.com, we can help with the migration and you’ll have 24/7 access to our support team. This guide walks through how that process works: https://wordpress.com/support/import/import-an-entire-wordpress-site/
I hope this helps point you in the right direction, and I wish you the best of luck getting this resolved for your client.