Cannot upload photos to a new product, just keep getting server error

Technical Q&A

Topic summary

Product image uploads are failing with “Server error” or “image cannot be added,” affecting single and bulk uploads when adding products. Reports span Canada, Australia, South Africa, US, Belgium, Germany, UK (Edinburgh), and Italy; routine troubleshooting (browsers, cache, router) didn’t help.

Shopify support acknowledged a current developer-side issue; one status note mentioned TIM (an Italian ISP), though many non-Italy shops were impacted. Some users reported delayed or no support responses; the status page sometimes showed “No incident reported.”

Workarounds:

  • Upload to Settings > Files, then use “Add Image from URL” in the product editor (official support guidance).
  • Host images externally (Pinterest/Instagram/eBay) and paste the image URL.
  • Upload single images instead of bulk.
  • Ensure proper format conversion (e.g., truly convert to JPEG/PNG rather than just renaming extensions); invalid headers can cause rejection.

Developments: Uploads later started working again for some (California, Belgium, Alberta), but others still reported errors (Germany, Edinburgh). The issue is partially resolved and intermittent; no definitive global fix or timeline provided, so the discussion remains open.

Summarized with AI on February 22. AI used: gpt-5.
19

if you upload your photos to pinterest or IG and then use the url for the image as I did - will it work as a short term solution for you until they’ve

resolved this issue? Just thinking of a roundabout way to get you to use an url instead of your hard drive as a reference.

Let me know.