# What to do with images during release merges
**URL:** https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227
**Category:** MusicBrainz
**Tags:** cover-art-archive, image, merging
**Created:** [December 22, 2024, 9:57am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227 "2024-12-22T09:57:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@biocv](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/biocv)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2024, 9:57am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/1 "2024-12-22T09:57:19Z")
For some time now a banner is displayed at the top of the MB page:
> Images are currently not being copied over after event or release merges. For now, please make sure to upload any images that should be kept to the merge target beforehand.
And indeed, after a release merge i only get empty “_Image not available_” boxes from the source release. However, it is not quite clear to me what course of action is now required of me. I did download the original images to my machine, so should I upload them now and delete the empty image boxes? Should I already have uploaded them to the target and am I too late? Something else?
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### Author:  [@Beckfield](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Beckfield)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/2 "2024-12-22T16:18:02Z")
I think you’re probably too late. I was among those who reported the problem when it occurred. I uploaded images after a merge was completed, and, as the banner suggests, they aren’t being processed correctly at the CAA. I tried replacing one of those images, but it didn’t work. We just need to wait for CAA to resolve the problem.
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### Author:  [@Bitmap](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Bitmap)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2024, 1:57am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/3 "2024-12-23T01:57:03Z")
You should be able to upload them to the target release and delete the broken images. @Beckfield can you link to the release you had trouble with?
I tried contacting the IA again earlier today to see if I can find out any new information…
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### Author:  [@Beckfield](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Beckfield)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2024, 2:46am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/4 "2024-12-23T02:46:56Z")
Sorry if I misinformed. I haven’t re-tried any of this for a few weeks.
[https://musicbrainz.org/release/1851c70d-9a3c-4fed-9ca0-40c3ace1c837](https://musicbrainz.org/release/1851c70d-9a3c-4fed-9ca0-40c3ace1c837)
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### Author:  [@biocv](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/biocv)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2024, 9:05am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/5 "2024-12-24T09:05:17Z")
OK, so it’s just manually transferring the images by download and upload and deleting the broken image boxes from the source? I can do that 🙂
Out of curiosity; What happens to the source images that are not transferred like that? Will they eventually re-appear or are they lost in limbo?
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### Author:  [@biocv](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/biocv)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2024, 2:00pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/6 "2024-12-26T14:00:18Z")
> [@Bitmap](#):
>
> You should be able to upload them to the target release and delete the broken images.
Alas, it seems I am plagued by the same problem as @Beckfield. Newly uploaded images to the target do not appear. All I get is a sad _Image not available, please try again later_ box.
[https://musicbrainz.org/release/6fdc601f-bda6-4451-98be-c559a6017661](https://musicbrainz.org/release/6fdc601f-bda6-4451-98be-c559a6017661)
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### Author:  [@Bitmap](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Bitmap)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2025, 4:16am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/7 "2025-01-04T04:16:25Z")
Sorry for the delayed response here. After some back-and-forth I finally got word from the IA that the issue with copying images between buckets has been fixed! 🎉
I just spent a few hours writing some gnarly queries to re-queue the broken image events. Unfortunately I did this at a bad time because the IA is currently experiencing other unrelated load issues (that is, the total number of tasks queued exceeds their global limit at the moment). So we won’t actually see things fix themselves until a bit later. 😩
> Out of curiosity; What happens to the source images that are not transferred like that? Will they eventually re-appear or are they lost in limbo?
Any image that wasn’t removed will eventually re-appear. (So, if you manually transferred the images to the target but didn’t remove the broken source images, those will have to be cleaned up still.)
No need to do anything for releases where the images weren’t copied. Those will fix themselves automatically.
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### Author:  [@biocv](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/biocv)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2025, 9:39am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/8 "2025-01-04T09:39:01Z")
Excellent! Thanks for your answer and your work.
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### Author:  [@aerozol](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/aerozol)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/9 "2025-01-04T20:24:44Z")
Amazing, thank you @Bitmap! It must have been annoying having to hassle a third party to get things moving, for so long. Success 🥳
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### Author:  [@Beckfield](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Beckfield)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2025, 8:49pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-to-do-with-images-during-release-merges/733227/10 "2025-01-04T20:49:29Z")
Thanks, @Bitmap ! I see the one I’ve been waiting on has fixed itself.