Hi, I’ve got an author with “disappearing” media attributions. Recently she noticed only some of them are showing up at the end of the chapter, despite the metadata being in the media files and the correct box being checked for the Media Attributions to appear (under Global Theme Options). Has anyone experienced this?
Hey @SteelWagstaff !
I just returned from a year leave and this problem is on my to-do list. Can I trouble you for your thoughts?
Looking at communications it also seems that these authors can’t see anything in their media library, while as network admins we can see the 313 items.
We are in the processing of transitioning to a hosted network with Pressbooks, but I’d love to help these authors out in the meantime if it’s possible.
Thanks for your time!!
Best,
Michelle
Hi all, @SteelWagstaff is out of office currently but I have a theory about this. Were the attributions added in the Media Library for media items that had already been added to chapters? If so, this could be the explanation.
Updating metadata for an item in the Media Library doesn’t simultaneously update metadata for existing instances of that item in a book. For a media item in a chapter, the place to add metadata is the chapter editor (clicking the media item in the Visual editor with the pencil edit icon).
The only scenario where attribution details from the Media Library are pulled in is through auto-fill at the moment of initially adding a media item into a chapter. Once added to a chapter, though, the media item is treated as a discrete item, which can be surprising.
From what I understand, the reason for this is to support multiple instances of the same media item in a book with different metadata (the same image with different captions, for example).
Also, to @MichelleB, re: the other issue you mention where authors aren’t able to see anything in their media library – this is a fairly recent, rare bug we’re looking into though we haven’t found a way to reliably reproduce it yet.
Each time it has happened, removing the affected user from the book user list and then adding them back in has been an effective workaround. I hope this helps for the time being before we have a full fix in place.
You are our hero! The authors can now see their media library again!
The only outstanding issue we have nos is their media attribution.This book was published in 2020. When teaching in fall of this last year the authors noticed their attributions were missing.
For example: 1.1 – Willkommen: Deutsch für alle
There are only 3 media attributions now on this page when there were previously for all the images. As we already talked about, in the media library all the content is there.
If that information sparks any insight, let me know! I can poke around further and will maybe test in our hosted network as we set it up.
Thank for your time Thomas!
@MichelleB Glad that worked!
For this one, I’d be curious to know what happens if one of the images without a displayed attribution is removed from the chapter editor, then added back in with the Add Media button in the chapter editor (selecting the existing image from the media library).
After saving changes here, I think the attribution for this image will appear at the end of the chapter. But either way, seeing what happens here may narrow down the issue.
Darn, removing and adding the images sadly did not work. But I appreciate your suggestions!