Image src not updated when site address is changed in Simple Sites with custom domain

[jartes]

Quick summary

When a site primary address is changed from a custom domain to another domain or free WordPress.com address, the image src is not updated.

In some scenarios, the original domain is detached from the site (domain is transferred or expires), making the images not being displayed.

Steps to reproduce

1. On a Simple site with a domain, upload an image and add it to a post/page.
2. Change the site address to another domain or the default site address.
3. Check the image src.

What you expected to happen

Having the image src updated

What actually happened

The image src is not updated, and as mentioned, is not being displayed if the domain expires, or is not connected to the site anymore.

Impact

All

Available workarounds?

Yes, difficult to implement

If the above answer is "Yes...", outline the workaround.

The only workaround for now is editing the image src manually in cases where there are a few images.

Platform (Simple and/or Atomic)

Simple

Logs or notes

More context: p1724328833178529-slack-C03TY6J1A

[jartes]

• 8610585-zd-a8c
• 8698141-zd-a8c

[github-actions]

Support References

This comment is automatically generated. Please do not edit it.

• 8610585-zen
• 8698141-zen
• 8706995-zen
• 8713408-zen
• 8821879-zen
• 8912525-zen
• 8977510-zen
• p7DVsv-lsR-p2#comment-51649
• 9037230-zen
• 9044892-zen
• p58i-ivB-p2#comment-65160
• 9067342-zen
• 9130817-zen
• 9145495-zen

[fluiddot]

Findings

After debugging and investigating the issue, we confirmed the following:

• It only happens on Simple sites. On Atomic, changing the primary domain updates the image URLs.
• The image URL points to the domain where it was added. It's not updated when changing the primary domain.
• The image tag contains extra attributes that contain the image URL like data-orig-file. The values of these attributes point to the expected domain, as they are calculated dynamically when rendering a post/page.

Next Steps

Following the Atomic API implementation, we could explore rewriting the URLs when changing the primary domain.

[pauljacobson]

This may be useful: In 8698141-zen the customer mentioned that posts published before 31 July 2024 don't display images. I thought I'd mention this in case this date is significant.

[fluiddot]

This may be useful: In 8698141-zd-a8c the customer mentioned that posts published before 31 July 2024 don't display images. I thought I'd mention this in case this date is significant.

Thanks @pauljacobson for sharing this 🙇. I presume that the date (31 July 2024) is relevant as the user changed the primary domain around that date.

[supernovia]

In this case it's happening on Atomic. Site editor images have the wpcomstaging address, which caused them to break when the user switched to their normal address:
8706995-zd-a8c

@jartes do you want to update to say it's happening on Atomic too?

[supernovia]

Also is this related to this issue?
#94034

[dragstor]

8713408-zd-a8c

They have about 19.000 affected posts. They canceled the domain three days ago (2024-09-09), so they're now using *.wordpress.com as a primary.

Simple site.

[p-jackson]

A proposed fix for simple sites D161259-code

[daledupreez]

We also had two separate changes that aim to solve this problem using slightly different approaches:

• D161419-code - this patch focuses on solving the problem for core/image and core/cover blocks and is much more focused
• D161437-code - this patch was written to perform a very similar operation, with the goal of addressing Site Editor & Blocks: Navigation and other page links aren't relative anymore & can break with changes to primary domain #94034

[fushar]

We don't think there is an easy fix. We need decide whether to dynamically fix the wrong URLs, or to fix them in the database.

We are now counting how many such events are happening in production, to help assessing how to proceed further:

• D161733-code
• pMz3w-kKl-p2

I think this issue needs shaping, moving this issue to that column.

[fushar]

I think this issue needs shaping

This is a related issue which should ideally be solved together (in the same shaping initiative), once and for all:

• Site Editor & Blocks: Navigation and other page links aren't relative anymore & can break with changes to primary domain #94034

[mrfoxtalbot]

@daledupreez, I see you are working on this. Let's please prioritize this as much as possible. The bug breaks sites badly and generates quite a few support requests (that we cannot really provide any help for).

Thanks!

[daledupreez]

Noting for reference that I am tackling this on two fronts:

• I deployed D161733-code earlier today to track how often we're seeing mismatched image URLs on a 10% sample of sites
• I started work on D162965-code to create an internal tool for fixing this issue on Simple sites - that's still in progress, but I should be able to test it tomorrow.

If anyone following has a specific site that they'd like corrected, please let me know! (That can be directly and not only via this GitHub issue.)

[donnapep]

@daledupreez Given your comment above, can this be moved from The One Board to Serenity's board?

UPDATE: I'm going to go ahead and do this. 😉

[yashitamittal11]

Another case -8821879-zd-a8c

[galakhyati]

I have a case (8912525-zd-a8c), which I believe @daledupreez worked on to apply the fix. The user reported 100+ instances where the image URLs with a custom domain aren't updated. They only open when accessed from the site's default URL.

This works: https://thethoriumnetwork.wordpress.com/2022/03/31/episode-12-the-dismay-of-radiophobia-unintended-consequences-chapter-5-part-2/

This doesn't: https://thethoriumnetwork.com/2022/03/31/episode-12-the-dismay-of-radiophobia-unintended-consequences-chapter-5-part-2/

[daledupreez]

@galakhyati, thethoriumnetwork.com is no longer connected to the WordPress.com site, as the A records are pointing to an IP address managed by Infomaniak , so that URL won't work.

Are there still internal links pointing at those URLs? Or how are they determining that these links are not working?

[galakhyati]

Are there still internal links pointing at those URLs? Or how are they determining that these links are not working?

Yes, the user reported saying "There still appears to be many links on the site pointing to the old website: TheThoriumNetwork.com.
It was thought that you would be moving them all over to (http://thethoriumnetwork.wordpress.com/)?"

I've asked the user for the site URLs to be thethoriumnetwork.com instead of thethoriumnetwork.wordpress.com (their default site URL) and screenshots of where they're seeing them not being updated. I'll share it here once we have an update.

[mrfoxtalbot]

We should get back to users affected by this bug once it is resolved @jartes.

[ckmccoy2]

I have another case in which this issue appears to be present: 8977510-zd. Custom domain was cancelled, but image src is still using the custom domain. It's is and always was a simple site.

[daledupreez]

@ckmccoy2, would it help for us to use the tool we've been working on to fix the image URLs for your customer's site? See p7DVsv-lsR-p2 for more details.

[jartes]

Followed-up with affected users - p7DVsv-lsR-p2#comment-51649

[ckmccoy2]

One more case here: 9037230-zd. The site has over 1,000 media files, most of which appear to be images which broke when they removed their custom domain.

[supernovia]

We had another case here. Site was relatively small, thankfully.
9044892-zd-a8c

[arthur791004]

Followed-up with affected users - p7DVsv-lsR-p2#comment-51649

We've run the command to fix the affected sites mentioned, and here is the latest updates - p58i-ivB-p2#comment-65160.

[supernovia]

Another case here but it's also links in the menu; should that be noted elsewhere?
9067342-zd-a8c

[jp-imagines]

Another report in 9130817-zd-a8c. I've manually fixed up a handful of broken images on the homepage and checking with user if there are any others, but they're fairly frustrated, so a full dev fix would be appreciated just in case there's other issues across their various content.

Added info to https://github.com/Automattic/dotcom-forge/issues/9883 for this site.

[supernovia]

Here's another particularly rough case: the site is private, so this is causing image breakage:
9130817-zd-a8c

[hacchism]

Another report in 9130817-zd-a8c. I've manually fixed up a handful of broken images on the homepage and checking with user if there are any others, but they're fairly frustrated, so a full dev fix would be appreciated just in case there's other issues across their various content.

Added info to Automattic/dotcom-forge#9883 for this site.

Update on this. @allilevine ran the fixer as seen in p1733508392557109-slack-C03NLNTPZ2T, but images are still broken, so further look on this is appreciated.

[ash1eygrace]

Another user reported this happened to their last 5 posts: 9145495-zd-a8c (Ping: p1733591320795359-slack-C03TY6J1A )

[aisajib]

Another user reported this happened to their last 5 posts: 9145495-zd-a8c (Ping: p1733591320795359-slack-C03TY6J1A )

Just adding that I've gone ahead and manually updated the image URL in the last five posts (as of now).

[arthur791004]

9067342-zd-a8c
9130817-zd-a8c
9145495-zd-a8c

I've run the fixer for the above issues. Could you help to check whether all images display correctly? Thank you!