Hello,
A few days ago, I uploaded 10 photos and a video in a single review. Since then, even when I try to upload a new review with just 1 or 2 photos, they get stuck in “Pending” or “Not Posted.”
Strangely, when checked on other devices like my husband’s phone, the photos appear for a minute, then completely disappear, and then reappear later. It seems to be a severe system syncing bug or an accidental spam restriction by the AI filter.
I am a level 5 local guide approaching level 6, and I have never violated any community guidelines. Could a moderator or the technical team please investigate my account and fix this photo visibility issue? Thank you.
When you upload videos with a review you can expect delays in going public because videosvtsje longer to approve.
When you see pic not showing consistently it could be related to the fact that not all media servers are yet aware of the photos.
You have uploaded more reviews within the past 2-3 days. So please share the link to the place.
Thank you for your reply. You are exactly right. The issue started right after I uploaded the review for Hamburger Dom. Although the photos and video for that post look fully uploaded on my end, the system seemed to restrict my account from that point on. Today, I tried posting two new reviews with just 2 photos each, but they are glitching—showing up for a minute and then disappearing on my husband’s phone. Here is the link to Hamburger Dom where the restriction triggered:
Hello @jiyoon_95, welcome to the Local Guides Connect community!
Just be patient. Something changed about two weeks ago with the process for approving and publishing media. For photos, it can take up to an hour while they alternate between appearing and marked as “Not posted” or pendingunder My Contributions until they finally stay public. I also saw cases, where the photo appeared in public on the listing, but not yet under My Contributions->“Photos”->“By Date”.
For videos, there was always a delay up to a day or even more. For more information see here: All photos posted since yesterday marked with "Not posted"
Note, if you attach media to a review, the entire review might not be published until all attache photos or videos are published. They might stay hidden forever, if one of the media is rejected by the SPAM filter.
I can add that I have seen photos in my contribution list marked with the ! in a triangle and greyed out despite they are public under the places. But @WilfriedB is right: Give it a few more days, then check if the problem persists.
Thank you so much, @MortenCopenhagen and @WilfriedB for your detailed explanations and for confirming that this is a system-wide syncing glitch. It is a huge relief to know that my account is safe and that even experienced moderators have faced the same warning icons. Following your advice, I will stop uploading photos and videos for a week and only focus on writing text reviews to give the system enough time to clear the backlog. I truly appreciate your support and help in looking into this!
Just to clarify one important point, @MortenCopenhagen My case seems a bit more severe than yours. In your situation, the photos were still public on the listing. However, in my case, the entire review and photos completely disappear and are invisible to others, including on my husband’s phone. It’s not just a display error under “My Contributions”—the public cannot see my reviews at all. I will still pause uploading media for a week as advised, but I would really appreciate it if you could look into my account restrictions. Thank you!
Let’s see what happens. Please clear the cache on both devices to make sure you are not just seeing old fragments on the devices.
Not need to stop uploading media, @jiyoon_95. Just keep watching those you did upload and you will see after a while, they got published.
I am not convinced it is temporary “glitch” and rather expect it to be the new normal. But again, we all need to watch it.
I generally prefer to keep reviews and photos separate and always upload the photos directly to the listing instead of attaching to a review.
A warm welcome to Connect, @jiyoon_95
I can confirm what already explained by @MortenCopenhagen and @WilfriedB .
In the last 10 days I made an extensive test, uploading reviews almost every day, all with media attached.
The new process is to keep the contents pending during the automated check. It may take minutes, hours or even days, depending on the amount and type of the media attached: the check of the video(s) is much longer than the check of the photos.
Once the check is completed the review is generally published and it’s visible to others, while on our private profile it may appear “pending” for more time. During this transition time the media can appear and disappear again, even more than once. This is caused by the synchronization of the servers where the contents are stored. When Maps is picking our contents, the server they use is not always the same (it depends on the resources available in that moment) so what was visible a minute ago may disappear when you reload the page, till the servers are fully synchronised.
So waiting a bit before to start to be worried is a good practice. Of course, if after a few days your content isn’t published, the reason can be that the content has been blocked by the filter