Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.3.1980 (iOS 16.0.3; Phone)

+1 user through the iOS support email:

wiki's iOS Picture of the Day widget doesn't show
Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.3.1980 (iOS 16.1; Phone)

+1 user through the app store:

Wikipedia is a really great and clear source of information, the app works great for me. However, I've been experiencing a problem for the last 7 days: the widget from wikipedia with 'image of the day' is not loading on my Up to Date iPhone 11. I am very sorry, because I regularly looked up information in response to the user-friendly/practical widget.

+1 user through the iOS support email:

Since few days Picture of the day widget is empty (no photo/content). It started being that way on my old iPhone 11 and is the same after I’ve moved to an iPhone 14 Pro.

Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.3.1980 (iOS 16.0.3; Phone)

+1 of our users through the iOS support email:

The picture of the day widget doesn’t work. Shows as blank.

Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.3.1980 (iOS 16.0.3; Phone)

+1 user through iOS support email:

The big widget showing a new picture every day on the springboard of the iPhone is not working properly. The widget remains grey or black.

+1 user:

Picture of the day widget is not working for some months on all three sizes. Tried to reinstall the application, but still the widget is broken. It started bugging on iOS 15. Other widgets are working.

+1 user:

The ‘Picture of the day’ widget hasn’t been loading any content for several weeks.

I’ve already tried uninstalling the app, rebooting, and reinstalling, to no avail.

Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.4.2000 (iOS 16.1; Phone)

+1 user:

Today's picture in the Widget does not appear in any way

Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.4.2000 (iOS 16.1; Phone)

+1 user:

Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.3.1980 (iOS 16.0.2; Phone)

Hi there,

I noticed the big widget doesn't load your photo of the day. Please see attached. Tried removing and replacing it but no success.

Cheers,

+1 user:

Hello, The Wikipedia Widget „picture of the day“ regularly malfunctions and displays a gray background instead of the picture of the day. I have also seen this issue on iPhone 11 since iOS 16.

+1 user:

For about the past month I haven’t been able to see a photo of the day on my homescreen widget. I really enjoyed this, but it seems that an update about 1 month ago deprecated the feature and now the widget is just blank and grey. Thank you!!

Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.4.2000 (iOS 16.0.2; Phone)

+1 user:

I’ve noticed that the all the Wikipedia Picture of the Day widgets have been broken for a few weeks now. I’ve noticed this on several iPhones that I use, and uninstalling and reinstalling the app doesn’t seem to help. Do you know how I might fix this, or is there someone working on an update to solve this problem? Thanks very much.

Version: WikipediaApp/6.9.4.2000 (iOS 16.1.1; Phone)

Just wanted to drop a quick note from my current investigation and work on this so far if future Znuny emails come in: the behavior of images in widgets in the previous version of iOS 15 and the current shipping version of iOS 16 have indeed changed. This also explains why the widget gallery doesn't show a placeholder image for the POTD widget. This was unfortunately an undocumented change made by Apple in their OS and not made by us or communicated to us. The good news is we'll have a fix to address this behavior out in a future release of the app.

+1 user:

Hello,

I’m using an iPhone X and love the Wikipedia improvements over the years. Last few days the widget „photo of the day“ doesn’t get updater, I would be very happy if you can fix this bug!

Version: WikipediaApp/7.0.0.2013 (iOS 16.1.1; Phone)

https://github.com/wikimedia/wikipedia-ios/pull/4413

+1 user through the iOS support email:

Hi,

The Wikipedia Picture of the day widget has appeared blank on my device for some time now. It only shows two greyscale squares.

Appears to be fixed on 7.0.1 (2016)

+1 user the iOS support email:
I have tried removing the widget and restarting the iPhone. Still, the widget shows an empty placeholder 🤔

Version: WikipediaApp/7.0.1.2016 (iOS 16.2; Phone)

I created the first report here, and it is definitely not fixed. Appreciate all the efforts.

In T321061#8508931, @Zm14 wrote:

I created the first report here, and it is definitely not fixed. Appreciate all the efforts.

Hi @Zm14 – I appreciate you originally reporting the issue. I'm sorry this hasn't been resolved for you yet. To provide more context, it appears Apple has changed the behavior of how widgets handle large-sized images without them communicating this change to developers as far as we are aware. We've put a bug feedback request out to them detailing the issue we're encountering but haven't heard back yet. Until they do respond, we're left trying to make our best guesses (based on the information we have) at solutions that resolve the issue. While I'm confident we have improved the reliability of these widgets for a wider set of users, it's clear we haven't yet resolved them for all users of the widgets.

Some questions to help us improve our solution:

• What device are you encountering the issue on?
• What size Picture of the day widget are you encountering the issue with?
• Are you using a single Picture of the day widget on your home screen, or have multiple at different sizes?
• Other than the Picture of the day widget, are you using any other widgets?

Sorry for the late reply @Dmantena

• What device are you encountering the issue on?

iPhone and iPad (iPad doesn't even give the option to add Wikipedia widgets, iPad model A2270), both running the latest iOS 16.2

• What size Picture of the day widget are you encountering the issue with?

All widget sizes

• Are you using a single Picture of the day widget on your home screen, or have multiple at different sizes?

It was single, right now none. I tried to add all sizes, one-by-one, not all at the same time.

• Other than the Picture of the day widget, are you using any other widgets?

No other Wikipedia widgets. There was an issue with the placement of the image of the featured article inside the *featured article widget* (FAW), I can't remember what the exact issue was (IIRC it was the placement inside the box), but I thought it was related, and today's featured article doesn't have an image to test.

I hope that helps, sorry again, and thanks!

After updating to iOS 16.3, which was released yesterday, the POTD widget is now fixed for me, all three sizes.

Today's photo is this, which is 2,347 × 3,452 pixels.

(If the image is smaller than usual and thus can explain the fix, and the widget would in that case fail again, I'll be sure to keep you updated.)

Just for testing, I tried to add all three sizes at the same time; my screen can only fit two at a time though, and only one of them works in that use case.

Update

as I feared, it was a one-off, still not fixed.

Hi @JTannerWMF

As I feared, it isn't really fixed. Yesterday's (UTC) photo was just small. Today's photo is 5,880 × 3,920 pixels and the widget (all sizes) is again not working.

Case needs reopening please.

In T321061#8564731, @Zm14 wrote:

I really feel bad about jumping the gun and misattributing the coincidental release of 16.3 and the unusually small POTD with the problem being fixed, even though I made it clear that I'd continue to check it wasn't just the smaller resolution. Since it's been days since my request for opening, I'll go ahead and reopen it back to Medium as it was.

@Zm14 Thanks for following up on this and documenting your experiences so far. The information you continue to provide is very helpful. Please don't feel bad about misattributing the release/fix – I also hoped an iOS release would resolve this issue, returning it to previous working behavior, but that hasn't been the case so far. We've yet to hear back from Apple regarding the bug we filed, but will directly address it with their guidance once/if we do.

In the meantime, the good news is we've got some upcoming work on widgets (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T327553) that I hope will continue to improve their performance and remove the cases of blank widgets displaying that are within our control. While this won't guarantee fixes against changes Apple makes in the behavior of widgets on iOS, it's my hope this work will continue to be a step in the right direction of resolving some of the underlying blank widget cases you're experiencing.

+1 user through the ios support email:

I have been having problems with the picture of the day in the widget. It has stopped working, in that the picture is not displayed, it is a blank screen.

I have tried deleting and reinstalling, deleting cache, turning phone off, etc,etc… all to no avail.

+1 user through the iOS support email, with the same issue and the next screenshots:

+1 user:
The Picture of the Day widget on iOS no longer works after updating to iOS 16.

+1 user here:
ersion: WikipediaApp/7.2.1.2090 (iOS 16.4.1; Phone)

I updated the app moments ago. 'Picture of the Day' still appears not to be working within the widget. It works fine on my iPad (iPadOS 15.74)****

+1 user here:
The "image of the day" widget hasn't worked for a long time. I have an iPhone 11 device with iOS 16.5

Version: WikipediaApp/7.3.0.2242 (iOS 16.6; Phone)

@ARamadan-WMF Thanks for reporting this. I looked into it yesterday and it was related to the image being too large and exceeding our hard 30MB memory limit when cached on device. When this work is in, it should continue to improve our reliability and display issues when concerning any images displayed in any widget like in this user report.

+1:

Version: WikipediaApp/7.3.1.2361 (iOS 16.5.1; Phone)

+1: totally blank widgets:
As of latest iOS update, home screen widgets no longer work.

Version: WikipediaApp/7.4.5.2871 (iOS 17.1.1; Phone)

We have this ticket: blank top read articles, plus this one; this report is for all of the widgets, not only picture of the day or the top read article.