Replying with an image does not show the image

[Polsaker]

Steps to reproduce

1. Where are you starting? What can you see?
   When I reply to a message with an image, the image does not appear

2. What do you click?
   On desktop, I reply to a message and send an image

Outcome

What did you expect?

I expect the reply card AND the image to appear

What happened instead?

Only the reply card appears and the image is not shown.

Below is the comparison of element web vs android:

Your phone model

Samsung S21

Operating system version

Android 12

Application version and app store

Element 1.5.32 from play store

Homeserver

No response

Will you send logs?

No

Are you willing to provide a PR?

No

[rom4nik]

I think this could be related to missing reply fallbacks - I'm using a Telegram bridge, whose admin disabled reply fallbacks (mautrix/telegram@c4037cc) today, which caused new replies (with any kind of content) from Telegram to appear like this:

In each reply only the original message is visible (pixelized on screenshot), the text of the reply is blank. I can see the reply text in long press menu and in "view source". Here's a source of one of such replies:

{
  "content": {
    "body": "(redacted - only the actual reply text, no contents of original message)",
    "external_url": "https://t.me/c/(redacted)/(redacted)",
    "fi.mau.telegram.source": {
      "chat_id": (redacted),
      "id": (redacted),
      "peer_type": "channel",
      "space": (redacted)
    },
    "m.relates_to": {
      "m.in_reply_to": {
        "event_id": "(redacted)"
      }
    },
    "msgtype": "m.text"
  },
  "origin_server_ts": 1684355648000,
  "room_id": "(redacted)",
  "sender": "(redacted sender MXID)",
  "type": "m.room.message",
  "unsigned": {},
  "event_id": "(redacted)",
  "user_id": "(redacted)"
}

Before today, while reply fallbacks were still enabled on this bridge instance, I had a similar issue where images/videos sent from Telegram as replies to another message would appear empty in timeline, but appear in context menu. I think I've been experiencing that particular issue for a few months (occurs in 1.6.0 as well). Visually it looks the same, but the message source was a bit different:

{
  "content": {
    "body": "image.jpeg",
    "external_url": "https://t.me/c/(redacted)/(redacted)",
    "fi.mau.telegram.source": {
      "chat_id": (redacted),
      "id": (redacted),
      "peer_type": "channel",
      "space": (redacted)
    },
    "info": {
      "h": 1280,
      "mimetype": "image/jpeg",
      "orientation": 0,
      "size": 83241,
      "w": 591
    },
    "m.relates_to": {
      "m.in_reply_to": {
        "event_id": "(redacted)"
      }
    },
    "msgtype": "m.image",
    "url": "mxc://(redacted)"
  },
  "origin_server_ts": 1683817668000,
  "room_id": "(redacted)",
  "sender": "(redacted)",
  "type": "m.room.message",
  "unsigned": {},
  "event_id": "(redacted)",
  "user_id": "(redacted)"
}

I've observed both cases of this problem only on Element Android - web/desktop Element and Nheko render both kinds of replies correctly.

[rom4nik]

Steps to reproduce my issue (any replies, including plaintext) using Element Web in a regular room, without Telegram bridge:

1. Send a message
2. Press reply on message from step 1
3. Type a reply, send
4. View source of message from step 3
5. Copy content
6. Room menu -> dev tools -> send custom timeline event
7. Set type to m.room.message, paste content from step 5
8. Remove formatted_body key and the original message from value of body, send
9. Observe results

Element Web 1.11.31:

Element Android 1.6.0 (present on older versions as well):

content of message sent using reply button:

  "content": {
    "msgtype": "m.text",
    "body": "> <@przemek:rom4nik.pl> first\n\nsecond (element web reply button)",
    "format": "org.matrix.custom.html",
    "formatted_body": "<mx-reply><blockquote><a href=\"https://matrix.to/#/!KNgzYqqOpKspiUPekp:rom4nik.pl/$rVpCqPgMj6mDB1azxfRmi_9Srida_lXzaY3ttgWYAxQ?via=rom4nik.pl\">In reply to</a> <a href=\"https://matrix.to/#/@przemek:rom4nik.pl\">@przemek:rom4nik.pl</a><br>first</blockquote></mx-reply>second (element web reply button)",
    "m.relates_to": {
      "m.in_reply_to": {
        "event_id": "$rVpCqPgMj6mDB1azxfRmi_9Srida_lXzaY3ttgWYAxQ"
      }
    }
  },

content of message sent via dev tools with fallback removed:

  "content": {
    "msgtype": "m.text",
    "body": "second (element web devtools with no fallback)",
    "format": "org.matrix.custom.html",
    "m.relates_to": {
      "m.in_reply_to": {
        "event_id": "$rVpCqPgMj6mDB1azxfRmi_9Srida_lXzaY3ttgWYAxQ"
      }
    }
  },

There's a chance that the reply will have visible reply text, but will be lacking original message's text. Going to room list and back to the room usually makes the message appear as in screenshots above (only original message's text, no reply text).

[K4LCIFER]

I have the same issue. I can see the image in the reply on element-desktop, but I am unable to see images in replies on element-android.

[yelsane]

Experiencing the same issue. However, it doesn't seem to be exclusive to just images.

For context, we use a custom field (i.e. we don't use the Matrix approach) to include attachments in the event: e.g.

{
  "content": {
    ...
    "attachments" : [ // custom attachment field
      {
        <attachment data>
      } 
    ],
    ...
  }
}

Which works fine, is sent properly -- verified by fetching the details thru the REST API via Postman and received as expected.
The issue seems to be somewhere in the SDK (?) where it receives replies. The timeline event received from onTimelineUpdated() that are replies do not show any custom fields.

So sending a reply event with a custom field (e.g. above should be root.content.attachments) won't show in the parsed timeline event.

Assumed that there might have been an update in the SDK that caused this, we tried downgrading to version 1.5.22, since we were able to test this use-case, but the problem persisted.

Checking our old project against our current project, the next thing that we tried looking into is an update in the server version. Old project was using v1.2 while the new one is v1.8. Which brings me to the note mentioned in Sending events to a room:

[Added in v1.3]

Servers might need to post-process some events if they relate to another event. The event’s relationship type (rel_type) determines any restrictions which might apply, such as the user only being able to send one event of a given type in relation to another.

But then again, how is an older version of the SDK impacted when parsing reply timeline events? Tried going through the code to figure out where it is filtering reply timeline events but haven't had much luck.

[britiger]

I've same issue in groups bridged by signal mautrix. I can't read replied messages and images. A workaround for me is a long press for more interactions on the message then I can see the text or images in the popup menu. On Element-Desktop I works without problems
Android 13 on Pixel 4a