Automattic / Automattic/jetpack

Images break when there is a space in the filename

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#40,862 5 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
[Feature] Search [Platform] Atomic [Plugin] Search [Pri] Low [Status] Auto-allocated [Status] Needs Author Reply Bug Triaged
Dominant language
PHP
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Forks
898
Avg merge
1d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
774

Description

### Impacted plugin

Search

### Quick summary

Images with spaces in their filenames do not appear in Jetpack Search results when Jetpack's image optimization (Photon) is disabled. The issue seems to arise due to improper encoding of Unicode characters in the image URLs, leading to mismatches between the stored image URL and the URL generated for search results.

### Steps to reproduce

To see an example, go to https://walkingmiller.wpcomstaging.com/ and perform a search for "try".

To reproduce on a fresh install:

1. Disable Jetpack's image optimization (Photon).
2. Upload an image with spaces or special characters in the filename.
3. Perform a search in Jetpack Search for posts containing the image.
4. Observe that the image does not appear due to a malformed URL.

### A clear and concise description of what you expected to happen.

Images with spaces in their filenames should have shown up in the search results.

### What actually happened

Images with spaces in their filenames did not show up in the search results.

### Impact

All

### Available workarounds?

Yes, easy to implement

### If the above answer is "Yes...", outline the workaround.

If you enable JP Image Optimization, it will correctly encode the filename of the image before JP search accesses the photo.

### Platform (Simple and/or Atomic)

Atomic, Self-hosted

### Logs or notes

Internal reference: p1735855987401589-slack-C018UMRUN3V

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reproducing the issue on the linked staging site or a fresh install with Photon disabled, then trace how Jetpack Search stores and generates image URLs for filenames containing spaces or special characters. Done means those images appear in search results with correctly encoded URLs.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php, wordpress
Domain
backend, search
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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