Images missing in translated posts when using Mistral as translation model

Support
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When a post contains images and a user switches language, the translated version shows text only — images are not rendered. Switching back to original language restores images.

This issue appeared after switching translation model from OpenAI to Mistral. Images were showing correctly with OpenAI.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Set Mistral as translation model

  2. Create a post with an image

  3. Switch language via the toggle

  4. Images disappear in translated version

Example: https://madeira.community/t/topic/199

Version: Discourse hosted via Communiteq

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Here’s the version number so not everyone has to look it up individually: Discourse 2026.1.3

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“Confirmed: This bug is specific to Mistral. The same posts translated correctly with OpenAI (GPT-4 mini) — images were preserved in all languages. After switching to Mistral, images randomly disappear in some language translations but not others. English :white_check_mark:, German :cross_mark:, Portuguese :white_check_mark: — inconsistent behaviour.”

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Possible solutions, and I am interested to learn if these help:

  • enhance your prompt and tell it to explicitly leave these kind of links untouched

  • use a better model (try Mistral Large for instance)

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Switching from Mistral Small to Mistral Large fixed the issue. Images are now preserved correctly in all translated versions.

It seems Mistral Small does not follow the prompt instruction to preserve upload:// links, while Mistral Large does.

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Thank you Richard! Switching to Mistral Large worked as a workaround. However, I wonder — is there a plan to fix this on the Mistral Small side as well? And if a fix is released, will I be notified in this topic?

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Given there are dozens of models named “Mistral Small” can you specify which one you mean?

Given there is basically no reason to use Mistral Small today, given it’s outperformed by both Qwen 3.5 and Gemma 4 at it’s weight class, both which can handle the task, I’d suggest using a better model.

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“Thank you! I’m using mistral-small-latest via Mistral API. Which specific Qwen 3.5 or Gemma 4 model would you recommend for translation tasks, and are they supported in Discourse AI?”

The reason I chose Mistral specifically is GDPR compliance — Mistral is an EU-based company with servers in France, which is important for our platform (madeira.community) as we serve users in Portugal/EU.

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There is a very long list of AI inference providers with zero data retention, like Models | OpenRouter for example.

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Thanks for the pointers! :+1:t3:

(Zero data retention is not per se equal to GDPR compliance though)

This is not a Discourse issue but a matter of (third party) LLM capabilities in combination with your specific prompt.

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By refining the prompt and testing different variations, I got Mistral Small to stop removing images. Now everything works smoothly, fast, and reliably.