WP images not loading up after migration.

Andreas

Hey guys

I moved 2 WP sites over today from same provider, and one of the sites, the images will not load up.
I can see the images in file explorer and have the correct permission.
But in WP in the media folder they are all blank.

I'm googling it now to try to fix it. But thought I would reach out here to see if anyone has any ideas or dealt with this before.

twest

Check browser console for clues, see what error code the images are throwing in the network view (404 or 503, etc). If it's 404 the. WP can't find the images, look at the error to diagnose where WP is expecting to see the images, then figure out if the images are actually there or not. If it's 503, check folder permissions everywhere again.

ordinary

@Andreas check that the there's nothing defined in the wp-config or theme functions files to set the media location: https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/wordpress/wp-config/#moving-uploads-folder

I think Installatron and some other "install wizards" have a habit of doing this for uploads and plugins folders... it's caught me a few times.

cosmoshosting

Deciphering my unhinged notes:
1) Try to open the image file directly with the URL (ie https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/example.jpg ). The media folder image is different than the actual full image file inserted into the page

Do you get an error code? 503 = File Permissions need to be reset, 404 = funky things happening in .htaccess (reset it back to the wordpress default .htaccess )
If the image loads perfectly, check wp-config.php for something like define('UPLOADS', 'wp-content/im_different');
Check the browser console to see if anything weird is going on the page
2) If you are still stuck, disable any caching plugins, particularly image optimising ones and wordfence
3) Check the images or site are set on http, but you have rules forcing https
4) If its JUST the media library, sometimes you need to re-generate the image library thumbnails. I've heard of some migration tools deleting them. There is a tool for this
5) Check the images are actually loading from the server, not a CDN.

Andreas

Hey guys

thanks for the replies

I tried to open just an image url and it takes me back main main site.
It looks like a redirect is on for everything or something.
I moved the site off enhance to a Directadmin server and there im getting ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS error

adil

Andreas

I would check the .htaccess file, try the default one for WordPress :
https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/server/web-server/httpd/

Andreas

adil Yeah I tried that already. one of the first things i did.
what odd, is all image links redirect back to main domain URL while all page/post links work, but just missing images

Andreas

OK this is interesting, I created a staging site on enahnce for this WP site., and there when i try to load it up I get the error HTTP ERROR 500

But using the domain, I get a site, but all images are missing.

adil

Andreas
I would help if I can have access to the site, but did you try to go inside the wp-content/uploads and see if there is a .htaccess there ? or try to disable all plugins by renaming the plugins folder ?

How about the way you migrated that website, did you use some plugins or you had done it manually ?

Andreas

Yeah check for htaccess file there, nothing, yeah disabled all plugins

Copied over fresh WP files,

I did not migrate this. the previous hsot gave us the files.
The client did not have admin access to his own site with the host

twest

Andreas you didn't mention what http code the images are returning, that's one of the biggest clues to troubleshooting.

Andreas

twest I apologize. The status codes are 301. They are not 200 like the rest. So why are my images 301. Makes sense why when I try to open just the images it redirects back to main page.

I can not see where to look to remove that.

twest

Andreas that's really interesting indeed, a rogue redirect somewhere is causing the images to not load properly.

Redirects can come from many places, the .htaccess file, redirect plugins, seo plugins, cdn services, Cloudflare type services. They could even have a script in their theme or a code inserter plugin that's redirecting images.

The fix will be to look in all those areas to find the redirect and disable it.

MediaServe

Andreas I'll weigh in too. From my experience, if you duplicate a WordPress website to a staging site, the database and database username will be unfortunately set in wp-config.php with the prefixes duplicated. You have to correct that by removing the duplicate prefixes on both. It's been a pain for us for so long I don't know why this still hasn't been fixed it, just like redirects set in Enhance are sent to the .htaccess in the home directory, not the proper document root.

But you probably don't need a staging site anyway. The things I would check:

First access the shell for the website container, cd ~/public_html (if that's the WordPress doc root) and run "grep -lr [original doc root] *" (of course replace [original doc root] with the actual value which is the doc root of the website from which you originally migrated WordPress from.

Second, if these are corrected or not present (usually WordPress doesn't need paths corrected, but sometimes the wp-config.php might have one or two, or other config files especially for WordFence will need tweaked.) After this is done, access the WordPress dashboard and visit Settings > Permalinks and resave them without changes. That will often correct weird problems.)