# How to find any missing images?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 23, 2019, 3:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672 "2019-04-23T03:52:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 3:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/1 "2019-04-23T03:52:14Z")
I chose to move our site to a new host, and restored from backup after setting up a new DO droplet w 2gb ram and doing a stock install.
I didn’t see any errors, and didn’t think to check all the images before shutting down the host.
As it turns out, images were missing and no amount of rebaking would help. (Initially posted [here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/error-killed-while-running-rake-posts-rebake/111943) & [here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/images-lost-after-restore-from-backup/112289))
The damage was more easily visible when I ran this command, to remove all empty folders:
`find /var/discourse/shared/standalone/uploads/default -type d -empty -delete`
About 1/2 the folders were were removed, then I uploaded from the backup. Once that was done, I see many of the missing images.
My question is.. how do I find any other posts with missing images?
EDIT Quite possibly related to [https://meta.discourse.org/t/my-forum-old-images-not-see/97123/](https://meta.discourse.org/t/my-forum-old-images-not-see/97123/)
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 4:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/2 "2019-04-23T04:04:35Z")
I know @tgxworld has worked on this a lot recently, maybe he can advise?
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 4:16am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/3 "2019-04-23T04:16:45Z")
Try running
```plaintext
./launcher enter app
rake posts:missing_uploads
rake uploads:missing
```
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 4:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/4 "2019-04-23T04:41:27Z")
ok.. this is what I got
```plaintext
# ./launcher enter app
root@community-2019-app:/var/www/discourse# rake posts:missing_uploads
xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.......x..x.....xx.....................
105 post uploads are missing.
103 uploads are missing.
100 of 103 are old scheme uploads.
70 of 2962 posts are affected.
root@community-2019-app:/var/www/discourse# rake uploads:missing
root@community-2019-app:/var/www/discourse# rake posts:missing_uploads
xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.......x..x.....xx.....................
105 post uploads are missing.
103 uploads are missing.
100 of 103 are old scheme uploads.
70 of 2962 posts are affected.
```
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 5:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/5 "2019-04-23T05:01:36Z")
Can you check if the files are in the tombstone of the previous host? That or a previous backup will be our only hope of recovering the images.
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 5:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/6 "2019-04-23T05:03:49Z")
The old host is gone, I’ve uploaded folders from the numbered folders from /default, but not everything.
What other folders should be checked?
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 7:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/7 "2019-04-23T07:37:54Z")
Do you have numbered folders from the tombstone folder?
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/8 "2019-04-23T20:38:07Z")
Here’s a cropped screenshot of what I see
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2019, 1:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/9 "2019-04-29T01:47:28Z")
I know @vinothkannans is working on something that will recover the missing posts to uploads link. He’ll let you know here when it is ready.
---
### Author:  [@vinothkannans](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vinothkannans)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2019, 6:29am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/10 "2019-04-29T06:29:28Z")
Upgrade to the latest version of Discourse and run the task `rake posts:missing_uploads` again. The task itself will try to recover the missing **old scheme** uploads from local “uploads” and “tombstone” directories. At the end it will display the count of the uploads which are not found both in database and local storage.
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 1:18am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/11 "2019-04-30T01:18:07Z")
Thanks, seems like a lot of progress
```plaintext
:/var/www/discourse# rake posts:missing_uploads
.............................................................................x.....xx.....................
3 post uploads are missing.
3 uploads are missing.
3 of 2965 posts are affected.
```
I’d be interested to know which 3, but that’s way better than the 105 which had problems before!
---
### Author:  [@vinothkannans](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vinothkannans)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 1:43am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/12 "2019-04-30T01:43:08Z")
If you run the below command in rails console then you can get the list of missing uploads.
`PostCustomField.where(name: Post::MISSING_UPLOADS)`
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 4:42am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/13 "2019-04-30T04:42:27Z")
here we go..
```plaintext
[1] pry(main)> PostCustomField.where(name: Post::MISSING_UPLOADS)
=> [#,
#,
#]
[3
```
This is very useful.. I can probably work it out from here.
I guess the problem was that the move was never done, and the backup script stopped backing up the old location?
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 6:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/14 "2019-04-30T06:10:46Z")
for the record, of the 3 remaining..
1 was really missing
2 had their images.. i wonder if what was listed as missing was from previous edits (cropping, etc)
_Edited.. I had been looking at topics, not posts._
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 2:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/15 "2019-04-30T14:21:09Z")
I’m interested to hear the experience of others.. I found the image mentioned in the first entry ( `da27c8c7525666c20b7e04bfd53ccb24647530c6.png`) on my local backup.
It’s an image from another post ID `1604`, not `2396`. Post 1604 also references that same filename, and is not missing its image.
I don’t have `022705388395c48c415d699d2332bc58d44346c0.png` on my local.
I do have the third image `27bfa704ffb22c4a1afe28c8956dc5ed41731bec.png` on my local, and while I can’t guess what post it’s from, I don’t think we’d have deleted that post.
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2019, 6:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/17 "2019-05-06T18:02:27Z")
@vinothkannans what does `post_id: 2396,` in the output mean?
---
### Author:  [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/18 "2019-05-06T18:40:19Z")
The `post_id` field give you the unique ID of the post. Probably the easiest way to find the post’s topic from the `post_id` is to enter
```plaintext
Post.find(2396)
```
in your rails console. That will return the post’s `topic_id` and `post_number`. You can use those values to find the post through your site’s UI.
---
### Author:  [@vinothkannans](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vinothkannans)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2019, 6:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/19 "2019-05-06T18:43:53Z")
Also, you can navigate to the post using that `post_id` in below URL
`https://discourse.example.com/p/[POST_ID]`
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2019, 8:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/20 "2019-05-06T20:45:21Z")
> [@watchmanmonitor](#):
>
> 2530 topics in this discourse, total… maybe I’m mis-interpreting `post_id` in the output?
Ah, got it.. I was confusing `post_id` with `topic_id`
If you expect more people will be using `rake posts:missing_uploads ` more.. printing the post’s position as `site_fqdn/t/topic_id/post_number` at the end of the output would help a lot.
PS this edit’s [my reply earlier](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/14), but still, the remaining damage is quite small
---
### Author:  [@kansaichris](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kansaichris)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 6:02am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672/21 "2019-05-17T06:02:29Z")
Thanks for continuing to work on this, @vinothkannans! ✨
I just tried running the `rake posts:missing_uploads` task on my site (currently at [v2.3.0.beta9 +484](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/compare/1ab0f0ccb4ba8a2feefb2f1c7076080e79e4c162...beta)), and this is what I got:
```plaintext
# rake posts:missing_uploads
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx.xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxx..........................x...........................................x.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................x.................................................................................................................................................................................................................
451 post uploads are missing.
255 uploads are missing.
244 of 255 are old scheme uploads.
139 of 8812 posts are affected.
```
In other words, it looks like I have:
- **244** missing old scheme uploads
- **11** missing uploads
- **196** missing post uploads
Just as an aside…what’s the difference between a missing _upload_ and a missing _post upload?_ (If I’m reading the output correctly, I have _196 more_ of the latter.)
Anyway, because I appear to have _a lot_ of missing images, I decided to do a bit more spelunking with `PostCustomField.where(name: Post::MISSING_UPLOADS)`. Consider the first result:
```plaintext
#
```
I navigated to `https://SITENAME/p/43` and, sure enough, upon examining the post’s Markdown source I found a link to an image at `/uploads/default/35/4608d96d1b27846f.png`. Interestingly enough, though, the image displays fine and even exists at `/var/discourse/shared/standalone/uploads/default/35/4608d96d1b27846f.png` on the host server.
So…Discourse appears to think that this image is “missing”, but it’s not—it just hasn’t been migrated to the new upload scheme yet. Is this expected behavior and, if so, is there any way to migrate the other (200+) images like this to the new upload scheme?
Thanks!
* * *
**Update:** I think I may have identified the 11 missing uploads mentioned above…and they really do seem to be missing. Here’s what one of them looks like:
```plaintext
#
```
Note that this particular image was stored under `/uploads/default/original/1X/` rather than `/uploads/default/{SOME_NUMBER}/`. It’s from a 2015 post and I can’t find it in any of my backups, so it—and the other 10 images like it—appear to be well and truly gone. 😢
Still not sure why I have 196 more missing _post uploads_ than _uploads_, though…
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-find-any-missing-images/115672.md?page=2)