Troubleshooting missing images and rejected files

If a project has fewer images than you exported, the cause is nearly always one of four things. Check them in the order below.

1. The image folder did not match the metadata

The most common cause. Your camera metadata refers to images by path. Selecting a folder at a different level in the tree, or a reorganised copy of it, leaves cameras with nothing to pair to.

Check: did the wizard report unmatched cameras at the Setup step? That count is exactly how many images are missing.

Fix: re-upload, selecting the folder your export actually refers to. See Understanding how your images are matched to the model.

2. Images were moved or renamed after exporting

Exporting records each image's path. Tidying folders afterwards changes those paths, and the pairing breaks even though every file is still there.

Fix: rename or reorganise before exporting, then export again so the metadata records the new names.

3. A file or folder name was rejected

Certain characters are not allowed. Files whose names contain them are reported and skipped. The rest of the upload continues, so it is easy to miss. The message names the file: "We couldn't upload "…". Its name isn't allowed."

Check: were there messages during the upload naming particular files?

Fix: rename them and re-upload, as set out below. If a whole folder's worth of images is missing, suspect the folder's name rather than the files'.

4. The metadata itself is short

Sometimes nothing went wrong at upload and the export simply did not include every image. Images excluded from the reconstruction, or from a different processing run, are not in the metadata and so were never expected.

Check: open your camera-metadata file and count its entries. If that count matches what the project shows, the upload was faithful and the gap is in the export.

Fix: re-export from your photogrammetry software with all images included.

Narrowing it down quickly

What you see	Most likely
A handful missing, scattered	Rejected names, or images excluded from the reconstruction
A whole folder missing	That folder's name was rejected
Roughly half missing, in pairs	Identically-named images across camera folders. See Understanding how your images are matched to the model
Everything missing, model fine	Wrong image folder selected, or metadata from a different run
Images present but in the wrong place	Metadata and tileset came from different runs, so no images are missing. See Checking the preview before you upload.

Characters you cannot use

In file names:

\  |  {  }  [  ]  <  >  '  "  ^  %  ~  #  :  &  `  ?  *

In folder names, the same list plus a full stop (.). A full stop is allowed in a file name, because that is how extensions work: bridge_01.jpg is fine. In a folder name it is not, so Pier.1/ must be renamed to something like Pier-1/.

Forward slashes are fine in a path, since they are what separate folders.

Also not allowed:

Empty or blank names.
Names made only of dots, meaning . and ..
These exact folder names, on their own: con, prn, aux, nul, com1 to com9, lpt1 to lpt9. They are reserved by Windows. A folder called con is rejected; one called control is fine.

Renaming a rejected file

Note the file named in the message.
Rename it. Check the folders above it too, since the problem is often in a folder name rather than the file's own.
Restart the upload.

Rename before you start the upload where you can. Renaming files mid-upload means the upload can no longer find them.

Instead of	Use
Symbols in a name, such as `Pier #1`	`Pier-1` or `Pier_1`
`Deck (north)`	`Deck-north`
`50% span`	`50-percent-span`
`Pier.1` (folder)	`Pier-1`
`Survey 2026/03` (folder)	`Survey-2026-03`

Hyphens and underscores are always safe, as are letters and digits. Names go wrong most often where somebody has organised images by hand into folders named after chainages, dates or notes. A scan of your folder tree for #, %, & and full stops in folder names catches almost every case before you start.