Forum:How to .. refresh an image thumbnail

I don't upload too many images and when I do I rarely worry about how their thumbnail's appear in an article but today I do care and I am a little perplexed as to what is going on.


 * 1) Image placeholders (specified as 180 pixel thumbnails) appear in numerous articles as red links. See http://vsk.wikia.com/wiki/Rule_18.1 for an example article. (I am not using the new placeholder feature.)
 * 2) Upload an initial draft of an image. The source is 630x580 pixels.
 * 3) Refresh the wikipage that uses this image.
 * 4) * I notice that certain lines are not thick enough to stand out in the thumbnail image so I edit the source and ...
 * 5) Upload a new version of the image. (630x580 pixels)
 * 6) Refresh the wikipage that uses this image.
 * 7) * The image thumbnail does not change!

By right clicking on the thumbnail I find the fullurl to the 180px thumbnail (it is  http:// images2.wikia.nocookie.net/vsk/images/thumb/d/d7/Rule18.1a_na.png/180px-Rule18.1a_na.png) so I paste that URL into my browser address bar and can see that indeed the 180px thumbnail image has not updated yet. So I tack on a ?action=purge and yield: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/vsk/images/thumb/d/d7/Rule18.1a_na.png/180px-Rule18.1a_na.png?action=purge
 * Sure enough the image refreshes at the above URL but...
 * Back at the wiki page any number of refreshes (action=purge) or null edits (edit/save-with-no-changes) or previews does not cause the new thumbnail to appear in the article.

Is there some other trick to cause an image thumbnail to refresh after a new version of the image has been uploaded?

--najevi 14:00, September 8, 2009 (UTC)