Photos Refuse to Rotate

I just started blogging yesterday and thought this was an issue on my end. Same thing is happening to me. I even reloaded everything and the photos are sideways to other visitors but not me on my admin page.

Also, when I try to send link via FB, the thumbnails are sideways.

I actually have the same problem with Facebook. I just stopped using any photos that had to be rotated after uploading as my cover photo. Not an acceptable solution. I think Facebook use the actual photo, which just refuses to be rotated.

I sure hope someone can help us out. It seems crazy that it shows like it’s been rotated in the media library and then it’s sideways when I navigate to the actual photo or put them in a post. So frustrating.

Please help me out.

Anyone? Maybe just point me in the right direction. Is there something I can do to diagnose the problem? Another website you can point me to with info? Another forum? Anything I can try.

I really need to get this fixed. I’m done spending four hours working on a post only to have half my photos sideways. I’ve tried what I could think of and I don’t know what else to do.

I would appreciate your help.

The problem is with the image handler/program on your phone. It uses a method to rotate images that confuses WordPress (and yes, many other programs).

While the method below can be tedious, I have found it to work each time.

First a note on what is happening with the images in WordPress. When you upload the image, it is at that time the thumbs are created. When you rotate an image in the editor it may not affect the thumbs (apparently). That is part of the problem also.

The Fix:

Download the images to your PC. Open each in Paint. Yup, Paint. If the image needs rotating, rotate it in Paint – regardless, save each image after opening. Why? This loads the image with the metadata that will work best.

Now, remove the errant images uploaded to WP and then upload from the files you ‘fixed’.

You will not need to rotate them now (in WordPress), and the thumbs will be OK also.

What I do is set the resolution as high as possible on the phone, always take the image in landscape mode (even if I do not want what is to the left or right of center). Then I crop the image to remove what is not wanted (and optimize the image for web during the process also).

You may also find settings in your camera app, that can handle file rotation and metadata, but since these vary so much not just from phone to phone, but OS version and Carrier also, you should ask through your phone’s official support channel.

Thank you SO much for the advice!

I actually just disabled all of my plugins and guess what no more sideways images. Then I reactivated Jetpack and guess what….. sideways images. So the problem IS Jetpack.

WordPress blaming it on every phone on the market is a cop out, especially because my wife and I post photos all over the internet. Guess where is the only place that posts my photos display sideways. And that they ALL display correctly after disabling Jetpack proves my point.

Anyways I’m so glad I was able to get it working(-Jetpack obviously). All of the photos in my previous posts that were sideways actually display properly now. Thank God I didn’t have to go and try to delete, rotate, and reupload them, that would have been countless hours worth of work……after I already put hours into uploading them, rotating them, and tagging them the first time.

SO, anyone have any advice how to get Jetpack to work properly? It had a couple features I liked. I suppose I could just find replacement plugins…….that don’t screw up half my photos.

Thanks for the help ??

So, Buylow, are you saying I should disable Jetpack whenever I upload photos and they’ll be fine? Just want to make sure I understand.

If you just deactivate your photos will display correctly immediately but you have to leave it deactivated and Jetpack has a lot of features.

However right now I have it activated but disabled all the modules and the photos are still good. Then I turned one module on, still good. So it seems it’s one of the modules causing the issue. So right now I am actually turning them on one by one to find which one it is. I let you know when I figure it out.

Thank you for your expertise.

I FOUND IT!!!!!!!!

It’s the Photon Module in Jetpack. Disable that and it should take care of it.

I had a separate family member report that my pics looked OK this morning from a another Mac (after I reloaded yesterday, Jetpack still active). First wonky views were reported on viewing from mobile devices (iPad and phone, I think).

I don’t see a button to deactivate that …

Oh, I think I did it! Thank you, thank you!

Photon is a module within the Jetpack plugin. Each module can be activated or deactivated within JetPack Settings.

Photon is a media CDN. When you upload media to the library, photon sends a copy of that to the CDN (server). When a page with this media is loaded in a browser, the file is actually sent from the CDN and not your server.

And, yes, it can and does behave this way a times.

Following my advise above fixes this since the original uploaded image will not need to be messed with in WordPress and will be sent as uploaded to the CDN.

I would keep it off while you build out site content at the start, then turn it on, and then when you add images, fix them locally then upload.