Dear @MemriseSupport & @James_g_memrise could you please explain why several Community courses have had their images removed.
Is it a format issue and all images that aren’t with the right extension have been removed?
I have not seen an announcement about this and would have expected a personal email to warn me.
Please can you access your database and restore the images to these great courses (or at least put them in a folder and I’ll access them and attach them appropriately).
As these are courses I support as a Contributor (or even a Custodian of an abandoned course) I do not have access to the originals.
@MemriseSupport@James_g_memrise - Regarding the OP in this topic, when informed by users that a significant number of images had disappeared from my World Geography course (2nd link in OP above), I reloaded the original images for the missing items from my image library file where possible and, so far, all is well again. No action is required in respect of my course, thanks. I have no idea why the images disappeared as other images of the same format remained visible. I have other image-based courses which, so far, have not been affected in the same way.
It would be helpful to know what the reason is for the disappearing images in case it happens again.
Thanks @Alanh, sadly as I said elsewhere, as I only support the course I never downloaded images (unless I had to do something on them) and I’ve no idea where the creator obtained his images.
PS What does OP stand for - Original Post perhaps?
PPS Lots of courses with images still have them. Odd.
Hi, thanks for raising this. Our team investigated and it looks like these courses served mems as pictures - since we removed support for mems earlier this year, I’m afraid the link to the images was broken.
This isn’t any different from e.g. having broken links for images hosted on third-party sites.
Sadly we won’t be able to restore these images or provide a backup for you. However please rest assured that courses whose pictures have been uploaded to the course directly should still be working as expected.
I’m not wholly convinced that the explanation you have given above to DW7 regarding the Art & Painting Courses, was the reason why a significant number of images recently disappeared from my maps course (linked in the OP above). I took over that course several years ago and uploaded the majority of the images in it. All of these were .png images sourced from the internet and not mems. The images that were already in the course when I took it over looked similar and looked to have been sourced from the wikimedia commons site, which is where I obtained many of the ones that I added. I don’t think they were previously mems. They are very similar to the images in the “Country Mapping” course by azrael42.
I believe that many of the images that disappeared were ones I had added, copies of which I had retained in my image library. I was therefore able to re-upload the same ones from my file.
Since repairing my course, everything appeared to be OK but I have just gone through all the entries again and found 3 others that are now not displaying their images. These are:
Level 9 - Cambodia (the 1st of 2 image files is now empty)
Level 9 - Canada (ditto)
Level 10 Rwanda (the 1st of 3 image files is now showing empty)
In all 3 of these cases, I have copies the remaining images in my image file but not the missing ones. So I can’t confirm the origins of the ones that have recently ‘disappeared’. I’ll not take any repair action for a few days in case your team want to take a look. I can repair the course easily enough in these cases by simply deleting the empty image files from the course database. As DW7 says, he can’t do that with the course he is supporting.
Thanks both, I’ve relayed your messages to the team.
Sadly I can’t confirm if this will be looked at further as course creation is not on our list of priorities. I know this is not the answer you wanted to hear, so sorry about this!
It’s not about “course creation” Alessio. These are long-established courses that people put a lot of effort into developing and which a lot of people have learned from and enjoyed over a long period of time. We didn’t ‘break’ these courses. The issue stems from actions taken at your end.
Adding to what @alanh has posted above, we (as Contributors/ Custodians) have also spent hours supporting these courses too.
It is totally illogical that some images from the courses have gone but many have remained, unless it’s a result of some sort of automatic function that has been implemented recently - ie an unknown and unexpected consequence.
I think this is one of the saddest thing that has happened to our courses - on a par with a loss of the Mems (that many people have created to help them and us remember items) that have been stripped.
I noticed today that a number of people had left my geography course. On checking, I found that 9 more images have mysteriously ‘disappeared’ from Levels 9 and 10 of the course since the last ‘outbreak’'.
The previous explanation that “course creation is not on your list of priorities” is not acceptable. If you provide for course creation, it has to be supported. Learners affected by this bug are voting with their feet and leaving the course. Possibly other courses, too.
Other creators of image-based courses should check their courses to see if they have been similarly affected.
