DocumentationExperience Cloud KCS

Dynamic Media Scene7: Preview rendering fails for unpublished assets after binary swap

Last update: October 20, 2026

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) integrated with Dynamic Media (Scene7) may fail to render previews for unpublished assets after a binary swap. To resolve the issue, verify and compare the affected asset metadata, reprocess the asset, and investigate further if the issue persists.

Description description

Environment

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) integrated with Dynamic Media (Scene7), all versions

Issue/Symptoms

  • Preview rendering fails for a batch of author-side assets in Dynamic Media (Scene7).
  • For affected assets, a req=imageprops call returns the correct current image properties, such as dimensions, color profile, and recent modification timestamp, confirming that Scene7 holds the current binary and catalog metadata.
  • The corresponding /is/image render request returns the default "missing image" placeholder instead of the actual image.
  • The issue persists after cache-busting and with resized or reformatted requests, ruling out client-side and ImageServer render caching.
  • The assets are author/preview-only and intentionally unpublished (dam:scene7FileStatus = PublishIncomplete).
  • Running Reprocess Asset in AEM advances dam:scene7LastModified but doesn’t resolve the issue.
  • Multiple assets from the same upload batch are typically affected.

Root cause

A malformed or failed server-side registration during the binary swap may result in inconsistent metadata, such as dam:scene7LastModified being stored as a String/Date value instead of a numeric (Long). This inconsistency can prevent Scene7 from serving the correct renderable representation for unpublished assets.

Resolution resolution

Follow the steps below to resolve the issue:

  1. Verify the dam:scene7LastModified property on the affected assets:

    • In AEM, inspect the metadata for each affected asset.
    • Check whether dam:scene7LastModified is stored as a String/Date value instead of a numeric (Long).

  2. Attempt to reprocess the asset:

    1. In AEM, use Reprocess Asset on the affected assets.
    2. Confirm whether dam:scene7LastModified advances and check whether the issue persists.

  3. Compare the metadata:

    • Review other assets from the same upload batch and compare their metadata properties with those of working assets.
    • Look for anomalies, especially in dam:scene7LastModified and related properties.

  4. If the assets are intended to remain unpublished, request only author-side preview rendering and don’t attempt to publish the assets.

  5. If the issue persists after these steps, further investigation may be required because regenerating the Scene7 server-side renderable representation isn’t customer-actionable.

  6. Preview the asset in Dynamic Media. If the correct image renders, the issue is resolved.

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