Missing graphics for some recipients in Outlook

[CellucomGroup]

Is anyone else all of a sudden not seeing graphics in CC sent emails?  Last Thursday we had 3 (maybe more) employees all using different OS and outlooks just stop being able to see the graphics of our company emails from CC.  We've googled and looked at security settings and enabled features, etc.  Can't seem to figure out why suddenly some stopped being able to view graphics. 

Anyone else experiencing this?

Has CC changed some settings?

Any advice on what to look for?

help!  I have no idea if any of my 3000+ customers are also experiencing this from our emails.

:)Audrey

[CellucomGroup]

Hello all. We understand this issue has been ongoing for a period of time and we apologize that we have not provided a timely update. As previously mentioned, there was a change made to our SSL certificate configuration back in June that we believe had solved the issue with missing images in Outlook and Mac Mail. After further research, it appears that the issue goes beyond our initial fix. We assure you we have been looking into the reasoning why this keeps happening to our customers and your contacts.

We'd like to gather some specific information to see if we can narrow it down to some specific programs or settings. This brings us to our next step in fully tackling the issue. In order for us to keep track of these items and escalate them to the appropriate team to further research, we need some help from you.

Please email us at communitysupport(at)constantcontact(dot)com with the subject line "Outlook/Mac Mail Image Issue Information" and include as much of the following information as you can (the more the better):

• Your username
• The names of some affected email campaigns, as listed on the Campaigns tab
• Email client/program type and version. Here's how to find the version of your affected email client:
  • 2003, 2007: Help > About Microsoft Outlook
  • 2010: File > Help
  • 2013, 2016, 2019, 365: File > Office Account
  • If using Outlook webmail, please include the browser type and version. Most browsers list their version under Help > About.
  • Mac Mail: Mail > About Mail

• What is the exact behavior of the images? Red X, "Linked image can't be displayed" message, "Right-click here to download pictures" message, etc?
• Rough timeline of events, if known. Did it work previously? If so, when did the problem start? Does it seem to be all campaigns or just specific ones? If you have an email that used to successfully display images, does another test or resend still look good, or is it also affected now
• Screen shot of the issue in the email client
• If possible, save the email as a file and attach it to the email. 
  • In Outlook Desktop, open the email so that it's in a separate window. Next, click File > Save As. > Outlook Message Format - Unicode (*.msg). HTML is also fine.
  • In Mac Mail, open the email and select Choose File > Save As and select Raw Message Source as the format (.eml)

Once we receive the information attached, we will forward it to a team that will gather all of the information and further address the issue.

We understand that this is a lot to ask of you, especially with the issue persisting for a while. We again apologize for the lack of an update on our end.

We are locking this thread for the time being while we gather information. We don't want this action to be perceived as us ignoring the issue but instead allowing us to focus and put our resources towards a solution. We will check in and provide updates as we find out more.

[MichaelD6303]

Interesting distinction.    Campaigns originating from Constant Contact customers embed images from Akamai enpoints host behind the CNAME files.contactcontact.com, but campaigns from Constant Contact themselves use the CNAME click.c.constantcontact.com to store images.

The TLS configuration behind click.c.constantcontact.com has much broader platform support than files.constantcontact.com.   See https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=click.c.constantcontact.com.

Can the cipher configuration at click.c.constantcontact.com be configured at files.constantcontact.com?

[FGCC]

I have confirmed that CC is to blame for images not being displayed in outlook for Windows 8.1 Pro Computers (2010, 2016, 365). Other campaigns with embedded images work perfect. Please fix this, we use CC multiple times daily for both internal and external news and etc.

[CristinaC958]

Previously, I was always able to click the 'Download Pictures' options at the top of my emails from Constant Contact to see the pictures within an email. As of about 2 weeks ago, this stopped working. It seems something has changed with the connection to Constant Contact because I don't have this issue when receiving emails from other people, companies, services, etc.

I've gone through my email settings with our IT department and they were unable to find a solution. I've also gone through the suggested solution articles from Constant Contact here, here and here. The only thing I have not done is safelist Constant Contact's IP addresses. I will be working with my IT department to try this today, but I am wondering if there is any other solution to this problem? Any help would be appreciated.

[FGCC]

That is exactly the problem we have. the only common factor is windows 8.1. 

[MarleneU27]

Hello,

Since the updates changed on March 10th, I have had to create brand new blasts for our buildings. I have noticed that when the eblasts get sent out, photos do not appear/load on the recipient's end in their inbox. I did a send test to myself & photos are not appearing. There is a small red x in a box and it says "The linked image cannot be displayed. the file may have been removed, renamed, or deleted. Verify that the link points to the correct file and location." This has never happened to me before. Any input as to why and how I can fix this? Thanks!! 

[Kyle_R]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update on this; we've been investigating the issue with our cloud host to identify the root cause and see what solutions are available on our end to get this resolved. As more updates become available we will post them here. 

In the meantime, we just wanted to summarize some of the workaround provided in this thread for anyone just finding it:

• Here is a workaround for a setting change that can be done in Outlook 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019.
• Here is a different workaround that can be used in the above versions of Outlook and Outlook 365.
• As previously mentioned, you can also change the image URL's used in an email to start with HTTP instead of HTTPS. I'll paste the steps Kara previously listed below:

For each image that is not showing:

• Click to open the image as if you were going to change it
• Right click on the image
• Copy image address
• Go to the Image URL tab
• Paste the URL
• Remove the "s" from the https, leaving the image as http
• Preview the image and insert it.
• Repeat for all images
• Test to outlook client

[LoriP74]

Has there been any update? I'm still experiencing this issue.

[Mary_S]

Hello @LoriP74 , Thank you for checking in on the issue. I am sorry your images not displaying as you expect. Unfortunately there has been no update or change in the situation.

At this time the same workarounds are being suggested:

• Here is a workaround for a setting change that can be done in Outlook 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019.
• Here is a different workaround that can be used in the above versions of Outlook and Outlook 365.
• As previously mentioned, you can also change the image URL's used in an email to start with HTTP instead of HTTPS. I'll paste the steps Kara previously listed below:

For each image that is not showing:

• Click to open the image as if you were going to change it
• Right click on the image
• Copy image address
• Go to the Image URL tab
• Paste the URL
• Remove the "s" from the https, leaving the image as http
• Preview the image and insert it.
• Repeat for all images
• Test to outlook client

[BethH43106]

This thread is incredibly informative, but one thing we noticed was that when we changed all the URLs the photo quality was greatly diminished. Is there a way to prevent or improve this in our future contacts?

Additionally, do you think there will be a solution to this problem any time soon?

[RFTMarketing]

I am also experiencing the same greatly diminished picture quality when I switch from https to http on the images. 

[Siena10525]

Hi Mary,

Is your team aware of any other domains experiencing this issue besides Outlook? I have a contact with a cox.net email address and they informed me that they have been experiencing this for a few weeks now. At first, I thought they just needed to right-click and download the photos, but they sent me a photo with the same error message described above. I have the "workaround" instructions and am curious to see if this fixes their issue. 

It also might be worth mentioning that I used the "workaround" on an email that went out a few minutes ago. I have an Outlook email address and did not notice any change in the photo quality when I received the email. I was also not experiencing the above issue in my Outlook.

[RFTMarketing]

Any update on this issue? I'm surprised the number of people who have found and commented on this thread as still having the issue. I posted 5 weeks ago.

[MeritageVocalArts]

I don't use outlook and I'm having the same issue. No pictures.

[IconKoolTrends]

We just sent out a CC eblast consisting mostly of an image - which does not show up in Windows recipients' email. The test emails - sent to a Mac user & Mac recipients showed up fine, but not for Windows people.

I saw lots of other peoples' complaints about the very same problem  - dated about a month ago. The upshot of those complaints is that it is a problem on CC's end.  Why is this still an issue a month later?? Is there something we can do on our end, or is CC still working on it? 

Please let us know if you have any information about this issue. Thanks!

[Mary_S]

@IconKoolTrends 
I apologize your images are not being seen by all of your recipients of your campaigns. Let me gather a bit more specific information so that we can check to see if there is anything we offer to improve the Windows users experience.
* Do you happen to know what email client the Windows users are  using? (For example Outlook 2010)

* What is the name of a campaign or campaigns where you have noted the missing images?

If you could email communitysupport(at)constantcontact(dot)com with the information requested, we will investigate further.

[roemerind]

Hi Mary, 

I am also experiencing this issue with my customers using Outlook 2013 on Windows 7. It also turns out that my team mates are not able to download images as they are using Outlook 2013 on Windows 7. I'm using Windows 10 with the same Outlook version (2013) and the images display just fine. Have they found a fix for this yet? I am frustrated as this will impede our marketing efforts for our clients who are using Windows 7. I have no idea how to track how many of my 5000+ recipients are using Outlook 2013, but I would imagine that our emails are just being deleted if the images do not show. Let us know if and when this issue will be resolved. 

[RFTMarketing]

Any update on this issue?

The 2 Microsoft links provided by Kyle_R did not apply or help resolve for my organization. In both cases the settings called out were not turned on.

I did try the the http vs. https image links. The images did come through, but this is not a solution and defeats the purpose of an easy to use tool. The image quality dramatically drops when using this http link method. 2 screenshots of the before (https) and after (http) are provided.

Before with https linkAFTER with http (S removed)

[Anusara]

when you get the link for the URL -- sometimes -- you have to delete the word "thumbnail"  -- in the URL and then "preview the image" --- 

i found this solution on my own to this ongoing issue that is highly disappointing. 

[user989115]

Big huge unexpected problem for an email that just went out to 107K subscribers.

Ultra disappointing Constant contact for not fixing this since it has been reported in March. 

I have outlook 365 as do many customers we rely on for this pre-memorial-day email.  The trust center settings in outlook are set to NOT block images. All other emails via competing businesses are showing images just fine.

What are the other email list service providers doing that Constant Contact is NOT? This could easily be an outlook 365 bug BUT its not an issue for the competing business email campaigns so I am counting on CC to resolve

[InsMarketing2237]

I have having issues with images not appearing in email & not allowing me the opportunity to view/unblock. Has anyone has a similar issue?

Using Outlook 

[DebbieC227]

Images Not Appearing in an Email is an issue that has been going on for about 3 months - I have called, I have contacted online support, and nothing has been fixed. They state "Our Network team is aware of this issue and are determining the root cause of the issue. We are looking into what we can do from our end to implement a fix. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. This would appear to be an issue on our end.  It affects Outlook clients in all operating systems." 

I have a lot of questions about how an email marketing service pushes changes to production that break emails on all versions of Outlook, and I have even more about how they can be in production for three months with no timeline for a resolution.  I'm also interested in knowing why status.constantcontact.com only reflects issues beginning on 5/20 when the issue was reported here on 3/2.  But mostly, I just want to know when this issue will be resolved, so I can make important decisions regarding my business.

Talk to your developers and get us an answer.