Images Hidden in Story Editor

LiveWhale
1

Hello,

I have an editor who has encountered this: when they add images to a story, the image never appears in the editor. They have to save the story and load the preview in order to see the images. When they return to edit the story, they still cannot see, edit, or remove the images in the normal ways. [They are on Windows, Chrome]

Editor Page

View of the story editor.
View of the story editor.697×643 57.2 KB

Story Page

View of the story page.
View of the story page.840×792 83.2 KB

Live Story Currently Affected: In the business of building a better world • Impact Beloit • Beloit College

When I view the saved story, I am seeing the same things: no visible images in the editor. Looking at the source code, I’m seeing a stark difference between what the editor adds and what I add. [I am on Mac, Chrome.]

Editor’s Image

<!-- Comment to force HTML preview styles. -->
<widget type="image">
<arg id="id">14400</arg>
<arg id="format"><img width="{width}" height="{height}" alt="{alt}" class=" lw_align_left lw_column_width_half" data-alt="{alt}" data-caption-enabled="false" data-credit-enabled="false" data-caption="Woman poses in the balloon arch."/></arg>
<arg id="width">0</arg>
<arg id="height">0</arg>
<arg id="cache" valid="f9f87268955f7eb48f1b9dbea1495974">
<picture class="lw_image lw_image14400  lw_align_left lw_column_width_half">
	<source media="(max-width: 500px)" type="image/webp" srcset="/live/image/scale/2x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.webp 2x, /live/image/scale/3x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.webp 3x" data-origin="responsive"/>
	<source media="(max-width: 500px)" type="image/jpeg" srcset="/live/image/scale/2x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.jpg 2x, /live/image/scale/3x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.jpg 3x" data-origin="responsive"/>
	<source media="(max-width: 800px)" type="image/webp" srcset="/live/image/scale/2x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.webp 2x, /live/image/scale/3x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.webp 3x" data-origin="responsive"/>
	<source media="(max-width: 800px)" type="image/jpeg" srcset="/live/image/scale/2x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.jpg 2x, /live/image/scale/3x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.jpg 3x" data-origin="responsive"/>
	<source media="(max-width: 1200px)" type="image/webp" srcset="/live/image/scale/2x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.webp 2x" data-origin="responsive"/>
	<source media="(max-width: 1200px)" type="image/jpeg" srcset="/live/image/scale/2x/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.jpg 2x" data-origin="responsive"/>
	<source media="(min-width: 1201px)" type="image/webp" srcset="/live/image/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.webp 1x" data-origin="responsive"/>
	<source media="(min-width: 1201px)" type="image/jpeg" srcset="/live/image/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.jpg 1x" data-origin="responsive"/>
	<img width="3200" height="2133" alt="Woman poses in the balloon arch." data-alt="Woman poses in the balloon arch." data-caption="Woman poses in the balloon arch." src="/live/image/gid/135/14400_2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40_1.jpg" title="2025-08-20-mischlern-Move-In-Day-40 1" data-max-w="3200" data-max-h="2133" loading="lazy" data-optimized="true"/>
</picture>
</arg>
</widget>

My Image

<!-- Comment to force HTML preview styles. -->
<widget type="image">
<arg id="id">14400</arg>
<arg id="format"><img width="{width}" height="{height}" alt="{alt}" class=" lw_align_left lw_column_width_half" data-alt="{alt}" data-caption-enabled="false" data-credit-enabled="false" data-caption="Woman poses in the balloon arch."/></arg>
<arg id="width">500</arg>
<arg id="height">333</arg>
</widget>

It appears that something for this user is leading to the editor adding and saving a 0x0 image with an additional cache argument. I’ve poked around some, and I don’t have many ideas. The release notes don’t seem to have anything relevant, the editor doesn’t have any extensions likely to cause a conflict, etc.

The only thing that strikes me is that I have caching off in my editor settings, whereas they wouldn’t. However, I’ve not heard or seen of anyone else having this issue.

Ideas? Has anyone else encountered this issue?

Thanks,
Nick

2

Hi Nick,

Thanks for reporting this – if you’d like us to try to reproduce this on our servers, could you let us know what browser the user is using? Haven’t seen this exact scenario before. Also might be worth checking out browser plugins; I know sometimes things like Grammarly or the like that interfere with contentEditable areas can sometimes have unexpected effects on TinyMCE editable areas. Might be worth seeing if the user this is happening to has anything installed at a browser level that could be causing issues?

Karl

3

Hello Karl,

They are on a Windows laptop, using Chrome. I initially asked about extensions and got a puzzled look. I asked to check the browser quickly: nothing but Google Docs Offline.

We just tried to disable that extension: an image added normally. We reenabled it: an image added normally. It seems to be working again now, and we’re not sure what may have changed since late this morning other than making this post. (Gotta love unsolvable issue irony.)

I also don’t see any evidence of something off in the debug logs. Our Style Checker module may have been a suspect, but it runs on save, and the editor reports the images were added by the Insert prompt already malformed.

We’ll keep an eye on the issue, should it return.

Thanks,
Nick