Images Not Displaying

Your WordPress site is live, everything looks fine in the editor, and then you check the front end — broken image icons everywhere. Or maybe thumbnails are gone in the Media Library. This is almost always a file path or permissions issue, and the fix is straightforward once you know where to look.

What Causes Images Not Displaying?

1. Incorrect file permissions — The wp-content/uploads/ directory or its subdirectories don’t have the right read permissions, so the web server can’t serve the files.
2. Wrong Site URL or upload path — After a migration or domain change, WordPress still references the old URL in image src attributes stored in the database.
3. Hotlink protection or.htaccess rules blocking images — Overly aggressive server rules can block legitimate requests to your own image files.
4. Missing files on disk — The database references images that were never transferred during migration, or files were accidentally deleted.
5. Mixed content blocking — Your site runs on HTTPS but image URLs in the database still use HTTP, so browsers refuse to load them.

How to Fix It

Step 1: Check if the Image Files Actually Exist

Start with the obvious. SSH into your server or open your FTP client and navigate to:

Related reading

• media-library