Lost images (which I did not delete!)

  • Unknown's avatar
    aosanders · Member ·

    Hi,
    I noticed today that images have disappeared from my wordpress hosted blog. I have not deleted any of them from the medial library, but they are gone. Also, there are still some images available on my blog that are gone from the media library.
    My blog is textpatwives.com and it is hosted by wordpress. Here is one of the broken links that has no image: https://textpatwivesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/cockroaches1.png
    I tried to upload that image back into the media library, which was successful, but I have not re-linked it. I do not have many of the images that have been lost, so I don’t have the option to re-upload. Can you help me figure out what happened?
    Thanks!

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • stefmattana · Staff ·

    Hello there,

    From the site’s latest history it looks like all the missing images have been deleted by another user of the site. That explains why you can’t see them anymore in the Media Library.

    To replace the image that got deleted in the post or page where it originally was added to, you may need to re-add the same image there as it’s a brand new one. Full instructions can be found also here, in case you need them:

    https://en.support.wordpress.com/add-media/

    I hope you find this information useful. Please let us know if there’s anything else we can help you with :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    aosanders · Member ·

    That is really weird. Is there any way to tell who deleted them? How would another member of the site be able to access my images?
    Thank you!

  • stefmattana · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    All the images you added in the Medial Library are accessible and editable by all the users whose roles allow them to access and edit media files.

    In your case, the other user of the site is an Administrator like you, so they can take the same actions as yourself. Moreover, the other user owns the two domains mapped with your WordPress.com site.

    If you go to Dashboard>Users>All Users you can see who is the other person that have deleted the images:

    https://textpatwivesdotcom.wordpress.com/wp-admin/users.php

    Please feel free to reach out if you have any other questions or need some more help :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    aosanders · Member ·

    Thanks for this. I think the issue is, neither I nor the other user of the site has deleted these images (at least not intentionally!).

    Just to be clear- if we remove anything from the media library it will simultaneously be removed from the blog? That doesn’t make sense. Is it not the case that the media library is simply a platform for uploading media, and it can be cleared once the documents have been uploaded?

    In any event it doesn’t explain why only some of the posts have disappeared while others remain – because the media library is cleared after almost every post. Also, some of the disappeared posts are partially visible.

    I’m very confused by all this and grateful for your clarification. Thank you!!!

  • stefmattana · Staff ·

    Hi there, I’m going to reply to your queries one by one :)

    if we remove anything from the media library it will simultaneously be removed from the blog? That doesn’t make sense. Is it not the case that the media library is simply a platform for uploading media, and it can be cleared once the documents have been uploaded?

    The images are added on pages and posts by using their own URLs. Eevry media you add on the Media Library gets a specific URL that’s used by the system to display the media on pages and posts.

    So when you manually “add” an image hosted in the Media Library on a post by using the image icon tool, you’re essentially adding the image’s URL. The URL then renders into the actual image.

    With that said, if you delete the image from the Media Library, you also delete its specific URL. Hence, the image can’t be displayed on the post as the anchor URL is missing.
    I hope this is clear to you :)

    In any event it doesn’t explain why only some of the posts have disappeared while others remain – because the media library is cleared after almost every post. Also, some of the disappeared posts are partially visible.

    Could you send me the link of specific examples on the above? I can see a lot of ‘movement’ in your recent blog history, so I will be probably able to explain what happened–and hopefully help you retrieve something that’s missing.

    Thanks!

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