Image urls are not consistent and keep changing

Topic summary

Shopify product image URLs are changing over time, breaking links shared with partners. The original poster compared an older product sheet to a newer one and found the same product image now resolves to a different URL.

Evidence: Two example URLs for the same product image differ in both the filename’s unique identifier (UUID-like segment) and the version query parameter (?v=…). The store owner states no edits were made to the product between sharing the list and the change being noticed weeks later.

Impact: Partners reported the previously shared image URLs stopped working.

Additional reports: Two other users confirmed experiencing the same issue and have not identified what triggers the URL changes.

Actions/outcomes: No solution or root cause was provided in the thread. The original poster is asking why this occurs and how to prevent it.

Status: Unresolved/ongoing. Key open questions include what causes Shopify-hosted image URLs to change and how to ensure stable, long-lived image links.

Summarized with AI on January 8. AI used: gpt-5.

We have the same issue as well and cannot identify what is triggering this. Hoping there was a solution found in another thread?