Cache page background images keep disappearing

[+edexter]

I spend a fair amount of time and creating and updating my cache pages and can't help but notice that over time some of my background images have disappeared.  Does anyone know why this happens?  The images used are all mine and located on my computer.  I can upload them again easily enough once I notice it, but I'm wondering why it happens.  Thanks,

edexter

[+kunarion]

Do you also see broken image icons and text errors?  Some of my cache background images vanished, where the associated URL mysteriously became not valid.  Maybe it was something that affected files at a certain point in time.  Here's the thread about it.  The mystery was never solved. 

 

There were theories and clues.  Most caches have no "background", and I suspect that there are many that once had backgrounds, and where the COs haven't noticed the disappearance.  I have since uploaded images again and all is well.

 

As an example, here's one of several of my caches where the background disappeared.  There doesn't seem to be anything in common with the vanishings.  Some caches were active, most were previously archived, some old, some new, and a bunch from each category were unaffected.

 

Edited June 24, 2023 by kunarion

[+barefootguru]

They’ve disappeared off my unpublished caches recently.

[+kunarion]

4 hours ago, barefootguru said:

They’ve disappeared off my unpublished caches recently.

 

What's the most recent disappearance?  My unpublished cache from May 13th still has its background.  A lot of my affected cache pages were active.

[+RCH65]

On 6/24/2023 at 8:13 PM, kunarion said:

As an example, here's one of several of my caches where the background disappeared.  There doesn't seem to be anything in common with the vanishings.  Some caches were active, most were previously archived, some old, some new, and a bunch from each category were unaffected.

 

 

The link http://img.geocaching.com/user/21ca6899-ba86-4ba8-a4a1-68bcc8cfbd95.jpg to the background image s still part of the HTML code... but the image itself is gone (Error 404).
I can't remember that I've ever seen an URL having img.geocaching.com/user/something... they usually contain img.geocaching.com/cache/something...

Maybe they have removed some conversion/forwarding of old style URLs...

[+kunarion]

14 minutes ago, RCH65 said:

 

The link http://img.geocaching.com/user/21ca6899-ba86-4ba8-a4a1-68bcc8cfbd95.jpg to the background image s still part of the HTML code... but the image itself is gone (Error 404).
I can't remember that I've ever seen an URL having img.geocaching.com/user/something... they usually contain img.geocaching.com/cache/something...

Maybe they have removed some conversion/forwarding of old style URLs...

 

That's a possibility.  I noticed the effect in January.  I'm guessing that this time it's something that happened all at once to some URLs or files in December of 2022, that it's not on-going.

[+barefootguru]

3 hours ago, kunarion said:

 

What's the most recent disappearance?  My unpublished cache from May 13th still has its background.  A lot of my affected cache pages were active.

A week or so ago.  I’ve since reinstated it.  Wasn’t the first time.

[+barefootguru]

Just happened on a newly published cache of mine GCA9EB7.  Editing the cache page shows

 

Your current background image URL is invalid: https://img.geocaching.com/70fd4ba4-4c38-44e7-ab01-a2a31372f358.jpeg
Please upload a new image.

 

Have re-uploaded it.

[+kunarion]

6 hours ago, barefootguru said:

Just happened on a newly published cache of mine GCA9EB7.  Editing the cache page shows

 

Your current background image URL is invalid: https://img.geocaching.com/70fd4ba4-4c38-44e7-ab01-a2a31372f358.jpeg
Please upload a new image.

 

Have re-uploaded it.

 

Save your new valid image URL for further research.  Does the file before you upload it specifically have the extension ".jpeg"?

 

Where's the line of code on any cache page that shows the link to its background image?  I have a lot of such broken images on my archived caches, but no convenient way to find that URL.  It's available when editing a cache page which I can't do on an archived one.  This cache, for example.  Never mind, I think I can eventually figure out where that line of code is by referring to previous replies.

 

All of my active caches are retaining their backgrounds at the moment.  But here's what I've noticed (actually it was mentioned previously):

 

On a cache with a valid background image, copy its image address (URL):

https://img.geocaching.com/2c1082d0-5de1-4ee6-9d1d-b994368c72ca.jpg

Paste that image address into browser, and a redirect occurs.  Note that the image file actually resides on a different server:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/2c1082d0-5de1-4ee6-9d1d-b994368c72ca.jpg

 

Perhaps the file move or the redirect has caused a (delayed) problem in some cases.  The file name has not changed in my example, and I thought I could reconstruct the URL of an invalid one to view the image, but I've had no luck.  That may indicate that the file was deleted or the name or URL has changed beyond recognition. 

 

It's notable that the "invalid file" URL doesn't redirect.  If the file is always stored on a server that is not "img.geocaching.com", the redirect must exist.  That is, the address should first redirect to the storage server and then display the "image can't be found" error.  But it doesn't.

 

I can upload images to the cache page in a couple of ways.  Is it possible that more than just background images are disappearing?  Why would the effect be limited to "backgrounds"?

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by kunarion

[+barefootjeff]

1 hour ago, kunarion said:

Where's the line of code on any cache page that shows the link to its background image?

 

On my latest cache, I'm seeing it on line 141 in the html source:

<body background="https://img.geocaching.com/2dbc913f-e3f3-4651-ad3a-9645812bd0b8.jpg" class="CacheDetailsPage">

It's in the same place in a couple of other caches I tried so hopefully it's consistent.

[+kunarion]

10 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

On my latest cache, I'm seeing it on line 141 in the html source:

<body background="https://img.geocaching.com/2dbc913f-e3f3-4651-ad3a-9645812bd0b8.jpg" class="CacheDetailsPage">

It's in the same place in a couple of other caches I tried so hopefully it's consistent.

 

Thanks!  I may whip up a way to monitor all my background images.

I also have a cache (now archived) where I used to store images to display in the Forums (before the Forum had upload capability).  Many of those are redirecting to "amazon" as the background images are.  A bunch also have a slight difference in the file naming convention.  Not sure that an uploaded background image is typically identical to other file uploads.  But the invalid thing seems to be most obvious for backgrounds for some reason.

 

Without direct access to file servers, all we can do is look for clues and guess.  This would be an ideal thing for TPTB to look into. 

Edited July 28, 2023 by kunarion