`productCreateMedia` unable to create PNG media from URL

GraphQL Admin API Troubleshooting
1

It seems that certain PNG images are failing to upload and attach to an image when using the productCreateMedia mutation (API version 2025-10). Here is an example:

mutation productCreateMedia($media: [CreateMediaInput!]!, $productId: ID!) {
  productCreateMedia(media: $media, productId: $productId) {
    media {
        id
        __typename
        ... on MediaImage {
            id
            fileErrors {
                code
                details
            }
            fileStatus
        }
    }
    mediaUserErrors {
        code
        field
        message
    }
  }
}

With the following inputs:

{
    "media": [
        {
            "alt": "",
            "mediaContentType": "IMAGE",
            "originalSource": "https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0085/7548/4009/files/O_dc930910-51da-432d-b534-1388c206116f.png?v=1760471310"
        }
    ],
    "productId": "gid://shopify/Product/8667477049396"
}

The mutation succeeds, but when I check the product media via a separate graphql query, I see the following media fileErrors:

{
    "data": {
        "product": {
            "id": "gid://shopify/Product/8667477049396",
            "media": {
                "edges": [
                    {
                        "node": {
                            "__typename": "MediaImage",
                            "id": "gid://shopify/MediaImage/27406789771316",
                            "image": null,
                            "fileErrors": [
                                {
                                    "code": "IMAGE_DOWNLOAD_FAILURE",
                                    "details": "Could not download image: \"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0085/7548/4009/files/O_dc930910-51da-432d-b534-1388c206116f.png?v=1760471310\""
                                }
                            ]
                        }
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    }
}

If helpful, the x-request-id response header for the productCreateMedia mutation is b813b2be-d5ec-4c11-be6f-e76b4cdbbfde-1760472625

Strangely, this error seems to be happening intermittently. Occasionally it works with the exact same request input.

The error message when viewing the product within the Shopify Admin is:

Media upload failed

Image: Media failed to process because the image could not be downloaded

The image is easily accessible via browser and is only ~220 KB in size. I suspect this is a bug within Shopify’s API, but wanted to mention it here in case it’s not on the team’s radar.

Eric

2

I found the issue. Inspecting the image in Chrome gave me a false indication of the actual image file size. Using the following curl request, I was able to confirm that the size of the image is too large:

➜  ~ curl -sI "https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0085/7548/4009/files/O_dc930910-51da-432d-b534-1388c206116f.png?v=1760471310"
HTTP/2 200
date: Tue, 14 Oct 2025 20:44:45 GMT
content-type: image/png
content-length: 3688960

The image in this case is 3.6 MB. Too large for uploading via URL.

I will leave this thread here in case someone else is misled by misleading image file sizes when they are rendered in the browser.

3

As I continue to research, it seems that 3.6 MB is still well within the acceptable limits for a Shopify image upload.

Why is this image failing to upload?

1 Like
5

Hi @Eric_Froese,

I’ve looked into this with the X-Request-Id provided, and it looks like the Image Object creation was successful, but the actual image download afterwards timed out and failed to download the image.

Additionally the productCreateMedia mutation is now deprecated, and we recommend using either the productUpdate or productSet mutations to add new Media Files to a Product

If I can ask you to please retry this with the productUpdate or productSet mutations, passing the media you’re adding in the productUpdate.media or productSet.input. files input arguments. And if the error still occurs, please do reach out to our Shopify Support Team via the Shopify Help Center, and we can look into this further with our developers internally.