After updating to Discourse version “2.9.0.beta1”, pinkd reported that the number of clicks on image URLs is not being counted. They provided examples of affected and unaffected links, and attempted troubleshooting steps such as rebuilding the app. codinghorror requested an investigation, and pinkd offered additional context and debugging attempts.
However, tshenry revealed that this change is likely a side-effect of a deliberate update to remove hot-linked image links from user summaries. They argue that this change is an improvement, as click counters on images can be distracting and look out of place. JammyDodger agrees, having previously hidden click counters with CSS to avoid disrupting image grids. The discussion has been recategorized to a feature discussion by codinghorror.
Works in old posts.
However, the post after the update does not count the number of clicks on the image URL.
for example, https://i.imgur.com/example.jpg
Note: I haven’t converted to a local image in my forum.
Just in case, I tried rebuilding, but it didn’t change.
The hot-linked image links were showing up in the Top Links section of user summaries and looked pretty awful. I didn’t realize it would take the click count off of hotlinked images in posts too, but I personally think that is an improvement as well for reasons like what @JammyDodger illustrated. The click counter was often distracting and felt out of place on images.