How to fix images that are missing after publishing

You published or pushed a document to WordPress and the text arrived, but one or more images are broken or missing on the live post. Work through these checks in order until the image appears.

Workover uploads a document’s images into the site’s WordPress media library at the moment you publish or push, not continuously. If one image fails to upload, the push still succeeds and that image keeps pointing at Workover instead of your site. That is why a missing image usually comes with no error message.

Before you start: the document must be linked to a WordPress post. You need access to wp-admin to check the user’s role and the media library.

1. Confirm the image is in the document

Open the document in Workover and find the image in the body. If it is broken there too, the problem is the image itself, and pushing again does not fix it. Remove the image, add it again, then continue.

2. Push the document again

If you added the image after the last time you sent this document to WordPress, it is not on the live post yet.

Open the editor’s WP tab.
Press Push. If the document has never been sent to WordPress, the button follows the post’s Status field instead, for example Save draft to WordPress or Publish.

Workover uploads each image stored in Workover that is not yet in this site’s media library, then sends the body.

3. Check that the connected account can upload files

Uploading to the media library needs a WordPress user that is allowed to upload files. A Contributor cannot, so WordPress accepts the post but refuses the image.

In wp-admin, go to Users and find the user Workover is connected as.
Make sure the role is Author or higher.
Push the document again so the upload is retried.

4. Check that nothing blocks media uploads

Workover uploads images to your site’s /wp-json/wp/v2/media endpoint. A security plugin rule or a host upload size limit that blocks that endpoint makes each upload fail silently, the same way as a missing permission. Check your security plugin’s log and your host’s upload limit, allow the request, then push again. See allowlisting Workover in your firewall.

5. Replace an image the paste could not copy

When you paste content that contains images hosted elsewhere, for example from a Google Doc, Workover copies those images into its own storage so it can upload them later. It cannot copy an image when:

the source is unreachable
the file is larger than 25 MB
the file is not a JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP image, for example an SVG
it comes after the first 60 images in a single paste

An image that was not copied stays linked to its original address. Right after the paste, the editor warns “One pasted image still links to its original source and may expire.” With more than one, the warning gives the count. Workover never uploads it to your media library, so it breaks on the live post whenever the original source goes away, needs a login or blocks other sites from showing it.

To fix it, delete the image from the document, add the file itself by dragging it in, pasting it as a file or using the / menu, then push again. If the file is an SVG or another unsupported format, convert it to JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP first.

6. Re-add an image that was deleted from the media library

After an image has been uploaded to a site, Workover reuses that media library file on later pushes instead of uploading a duplicate. If someone deletes the file from the WordPress media library, Workover does not notice, and the live post keeps pointing at a file that no longer exists.

Remove the image from the document.
Upload the image again as a new file.
Push the document.

Still broken?

If the push itself fails, the WP tab shows a red WordPress did not accept this box, and the post is not updated. See How to fix a push to WordPress that failed. Otherwise, contact support with the document and the image that is missing.