# Photos referenced in applied deltas never uploaded to self-hosted QFieldCloud and now missing from device

**URL:** <https://community.qfield.org/t/photos-referenced-in-applied-deltas-never-uploaded-to-self-hosted-qfieldcloud-and-now-missing-from-device/1932>\
**Category:** Ask the Community\
**Created:** [17 September 2026 16:43 UTC](https://community.qfield.org/t/photos-referenced-in-applied-deltas-never-uploaded-to-self-hosted-qfieldcloud-and-now-missing-from-device/1932 "2026-09-17T16:43:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![JLHI\_JLHI](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex018/user_avatar/community.qfield.org/jlhi_jlhi/32/665_2.png) [@JLHI\_JLHI](https://community.qfield.org/u/JLHI_JLHI)\
**Post date:** [17 September 2026 16:43 UTC](https://community.qfield.org/t/photos-referenced-in-applied-deltas-never-uploaded-to-self-hosted-qfieldcloud-and-now-missing-from-device/1932/1 "2026-09-17T16:43:26Z")

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Hi all,

We lost about 70 photos from one field session and I’m trying to understand how it happened, and whether it’s a known issue.

**Setup**

- QField 4.3.1
- Self-hosted QFieldCloud V.26.15

**What happened**

On 2026-09-02, one surveyor captured about 70 photos over roughly 2 hours. The attribute changes reached the server as deltas, and most are `applied`. The attachment fields contain the expected paths.

However, none of these photos exist in the project storage, and they are no longer on the tablet either. QField shows the path but a broken image.

**What I checked**

1. **Deltas.** Each delta has a `files_sha256` entry for its photo, with valid, non-empty hashes. None of them is the empty-file hash. So the files existed on the device when the deltas were created.
2. **Object storage.** I listed the project prefix recursively, including all object versions. None of the 70 files is there, under any name. There are no versions and no delete markers, so they were never uploaded (not uploaded and later deleted).
3. **Other devices.** Other tablets uploaded hundreds of photos to the same project that day, both `.jpg` and `.JPG`. The server and storage seem to work fine.
4. **Device.** `Android/data/ch.opengis.qfield/files/Pictures/` contains many 0-byte `QFieldCameraYYYYMMDD_HHMMSS…` files, dating from late August to mid-September. Two of them match two lost photos within a few seconds. Their deltas still have valid hashes, so I believe these are leftover temp files and not the cause.

**My current hypothesis**

The deltas were pushed, but the attachment upload failed or never ran. Then something removed the local project files before a new upload attempt. That could be a project reset or re-download, a project update pushed from QGIS during field work, or a reinstall.

**Questions**

1. Can deltas be applied while their attachments stay queued locally? If so, where does QField track pending attachment uploads, and does that queue survive a restart?
2. Which user actions delete local files that were never uploaded: “Reset project”, “Discard local changes”, a re-download after a project update from QGIS? Does QField warn when attachments are still pending?
3. Is this related to [#6620](https://github.com/opengisch/QField/issues/6620) or [#4765](https://github.com/opengisch/QField/issues/4765)?
4. Is there any other place on the device where these files might still be (cache, previous project copy, etc.)?

Thanks!