# Some images do not load via API for no clear reason

**URL:** <https://forum.mapillary.com/t/some-images-do-not-load-via-api-for-no-clear-reason/10703>\
**Category:** Imagery\
**Created:** [September 29, 2026, 1:46pm UTC](https://forum.mapillary.com/t/some-images-do-not-load-via-api-for-no-clear-reason/10703 "2026-09-29T13:46:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dan.russell](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.mapillary.com/dan.russell/32/73788_2.png) [@dan.russell](https://forum.mapillary.com/u/dan.russell)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 1:46pm UTC](https://forum.mapillary.com/t/some-images-do-not-load-via-api-for-no-clear-reason/10703/1 "2026-09-29T13:46:06Z")

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Some images do not load via the API and return a vague 500 error. For example, image ID **168287615226281** ❌

You get a 500 response from server with an error like this one:  
{  
“error”: {  
“message”: “Service temporarily unavailable”,  
“type”: “MLYApiException”,  
“is\_transient”: true,  
“code”: 2,  
“fbtrace\_id”: “AXRKafn8F5d7bzTF8GrcgAy”  
}  
}

I’ve tried via my own access tokens and the API demo website. The bad images do produce a hover preview in the API demo website, but they do not load.

It seems any image in that sequence will produce that error.

Other images still work with the same token or via the API demo website, for example this nearby image from another sequence: **491296285325988** ✅

This is not isolated to that bad image or images in that sequence. I’ve encountered other images that have the same issue in other places. I wish I could investigate the properties of these bad images futher to try to debug the problem a little more, but the API will not return any info about them – just errors.

(For reference, the bad image and working image can both be seen in the center of this view: [Mapillary API Demo](https://mapillary.github.io/api-demo/#22/41.7822889/-72.61226443) )

This is frustrating because a bbox or radius query of the API will still return these bad/non-working image IDs and the MapillaryJS viewer in the our client app will try to show them only get to a “Failed to cache image” error.

Is there a reason why some images have this error? Is this a known issue? Is there a way to exclude bad images like these from query results?

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**Author:** ![sukruburakcetin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.mapillary.com/sukruburakcetin/32/73158_2.png) [@sukruburakcetin](https://forum.mapillary.com/u/sukruburakcetin)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 12:15pm UTC](https://forum.mapillary.com/t/some-images-do-not-load-via-api-for-no-clear-reason/10703/2 "2026-09-30T12:15:50Z")

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This is indeed the case. I ran into similar issues while debugging Mapillary Explorer, and there are many examples like this. While you can view the images/sequences on the Mapillary website, some fail in the API response for JS users. I think it’s because they use internal GraphQL services on the Mapillary website, but don’t provide the same to JS users.

From what I’ve noticed, this mostly happens with older photos, especially those from 2015-2019. Especially the images that belong to the user “lvl5”. 😃

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**Author:** ![boris](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.mapillary.com/boris/32/71767_2.png) [@boris](https://forum.mapillary.com/u/boris)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 12:22pm UTC](https://forum.mapillary.com/t/some-images-do-not-load-via-api-for-no-clear-reason/10703/3 "2026-09-30T12:22:05Z")

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cc: @caglarpmeta , @Yaro to investigate

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**Author:** ![sukruburakcetin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.mapillary.com/sukruburakcetin/32/73158_2.png) [@sukruburakcetin](https://forum.mapillary.com/u/sukruburakcetin)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 8:35am UTC](https://forum.mapillary.com/t/some-images-do-not-load-via-api-for-no-clear-reason/10703/4 "2026-10-09T08:35:34Z")

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Another example if it helps:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/mapillary/original/3X/d/e/deb4ea13267da33c74012ecc4335b89aab9ba37f.jpeg)

Region(on demo):

> **[Mapillary API Demo](https://mapillary.github.io/api-demo/#17.3/35.108639/-106.629116)**

Mapillary Website(which works nice) / the direct sequence:

> **[Mapillary](https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=35.1093077&lng=-106.63243789997&z=17&pKey=823661098270674)**
>
> Street-level imagery, powered by collaboration and computer vision.

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**Author:** ![caglarpmeta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@caglarpmeta](https://forum.mapillary.com/u/caglarpmeta)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2026, 7:18am UTC](https://forum.mapillary.com/t/some-images-do-not-load-via-api-for-no-clear-reason/10703/5 "2026-10-21T07:18:53Z")

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Thank you all for reporting the issue (and sorry for the late reply).

We identified the problem and fixed it. The fix is now in production.