iPhone iPad iOS 7.1.2 images disappearing, appearing as blank boxes from HTML signature on Mail App
4th Feb 2015:
FIXED! This issue has been fixed. Please see new instructions for installing your email signature in your iPhone here or iPad here.
Update: 4th February 2015
We have a solution! Please use the above updated guides to install your signatures.
Our previous instructions told us to first setup the email signature in a desktop email program, like Apple Mail or Outlook, then email the signature to the iPhone or iPad and copy the signature from the email message and paste it into the iPad or iPhone's signature settings.
Upon investigating further, the images stored in the email message you receive with your signature included must be stored in a temporary location on your iPhone or iPad.
When we receive an email message, the images in the email are no longer referencing the images that are hosted online, like images for a HTML signature should be. Instead, they are saved to a temporary location on your iPhone or iPad. (This may have changed in an iOS update, as before 7.1.2 this previous installation method was working.)
So when we copy and paste directly from an email message, the images will disappear later on, because they are not referencing the images in the email signature's HTML file (hosted by us), they are now referencing the images in the email message, stored on the iPhone or iPad in a temporary location.
To overcome this, we simply email the HTML file directly to the iPhone or iPad via email, and open the HTML file in a new window, and copy the signature from there.
Now we are no longer copying the images from the email message, we are copying them from the HTML file, with the correct image file paths.
24th July, 2014
We have received several reports over the last few days from our customers, that images are disappearing from their HTML signatures setup in their Mail App on iPhone and iPad running version 7.1.2.
We tested the issue on our own iPhone 5S and could see exactly what our customers were referring to. See the two screenshots below for an example of how the HTML signatures appear in the Settings App (where you install the signature) and in the compose view (where you create a new email in the Mail App).
What is the issue?
When you install the signature, the images are there, but around 4 hours after, the images will disappear or appear as blank boxes.
What is being done to find a solution?
On the 23rd July 2014, we spent a few hours on the phone to Apple support to try and figure out what is going wrong. We tried all of the suggestions that Apple offered to us to fix the issue (including resetting all settings and backing up the iPhone to iTunes), but so far, none of these suggestions from Apple have worked for us. The images still disappear about 4 hours after installing a new HTML signature on iPad and iPhone.
We also tried turning off iCloud > Documents & Data, to see if this helped, but unfortunately, it didn't.
HTML signatures were working perfectly while we were on version 7.1.1, and we personally believe that this issue is caused by the update on the 30th June 2014 to 7.1.2. We could be wrong, but this is when the problems seem to have started occurring.
This is extremely frustrating for our customers (who we only just told that signatures were working on iPhone and iPad!) and understandably so. If you too are experiencing this issue, please leave your details here. We will use all details collected here to collectively contact Apple to let them know how many of their own customers this issue affects, in the hope that something may be done sooner rather than later to fix this issue.
For now, our recommendation to our customers is to create a version of your signature without images for your iPad and iPhone. We know it's not great, but there's not much else we can do.
As of the 24th July 2014, Apple's official response is: "I will escalate this case to our iOS engineers and will update you as soon as I get a response from them by next week."
We will continue to update you on our progress on this page. Please check back for updates.
Updates
We are sorry to report, the issue was not fixed in the iOS 8 update. Read more.
