Unable to update images when editing with Collect

Support
1

I'm encountering the same issue, and I have updated Central.

When updating a submission adding some new pictures, and submit again they dont show.

The instance was submited in org.odk.collect.android/v2025.2.1 Dalvik/2.1.0 but now we are using the org.odk.collect.android/v2026.1.1 Dalvik/2.1.0

I have seen that the submited with org.odk.collect.android/v2025.3.1 Dalvik/2.1.0 can be updated.

I suppose that they can not be updated

It is a real nightmare because we need to modify around 100's instance with a couple new pictures.

2

Sorry to hear you're having problems. Can you confirm that you are trying to make the edits from ODK Collect using https://docs.getodk.org/collect-forms/#editing-finalized-or-sent-forms?

Can you please share a screenshot from the submission detail page in Central? If it has sensitive info you can black it out or send it to me privately.

3

@AHidalgo wrote me some more details privately and as I understand it, media attachments for submissions that were collected with Collect v2025.2.1 can't successfully be updated by Enketo but submissions made from Collect v2025.3.1 can. I don't currently have any idea why and haven't been able to reproduce yet.

@AHidalgo could you please try editing with Web Forms instead? For that form, go to Settings and opt into ODK Web Forms. Then edit the submission and see if you are able to make the edit.

4

Hi!

I've changed to Web forms and I can not open the submission.

I get this error:

image
image805×149 10 KB

Thanks for the help!

5

Hi @AHidalgo,

Thank you for following up! We've been looking into the issue, and while trying to reproduce the Web Forms error: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'blob'), using various file types and Collect versions, we haven't had any luck triggering it on our end so far.

During our investigation, we did find and fix a related bug regarding attachments when updating older form submissions. This fix will be available in the next Central release, but we aren't certain it's the exact issue you are running into.

To help us track down exactly what is happening, could you send me a Direct Message (DM) here on the forum with a few more details?

  • Your exact Central version

  • Your form definition

  • The submission XML for the record you are trying to edit

Sending these in a private message ensures your form and submission data remain secure.

6

@AHidalgo kindly shared additional context with me.

The original blob error occurred because the instance is running an older version of Web Forms (v0.13.0), which eagerly loaded attachments and failed when a file wasn't found. We updated that architecture a few months ago with better validations, so that specific error won't happen on the latest version of Central.

However, I did find a separate issue in the submission XML: the attachment's closing tag sits on its own line with trailing spaces (likely generated by an older version of Enketo or the Central API because it doesn't use the timestamp in the filename). Web Forms couldn't match the filename exactly due to those extra spaces. More details in these issues: https://github.com/getodk/web-forms/issues/856 and https://github.com/getodk/web-forms/issues/857

We’ve already resolved this, and the fix will ship in the next Central release.