Google Earth Community: Google Earth Community Placemarks / Missing Images

The kmz file attached to this post includes a folder with multiple placemarks that have images embedded in their information balloons. In the kml code for each placemark, the images are referenced as local files, therefore, as is standard, the images are included in a "files" folder that is contained in the kmz file.

The kmz file functions properly in Google Earth, displaying the images in the information balloons, as intended. However, I recently noticed that copies of the individual placemarks have been incorporated into the Google Earth Community layer. In those copies, the images are missing, appearing instead as gray rectangles within the information balloons. Perhaps this occurs because the placemarks were copied into the Google Earth Community layer as independent entities rather than as collective members of their original kmz file. This may have caused them to become disconnected from the images that were embedded in that kmz file. Have the managers of the Google Earth Community layer encountered this type of problem before?

Of course, a workaround is to make the images available on the web instead of embedding them, so that they can be referenced externally, as was done in this example. Not surprisingly, the placemarks from this post have been copied into the Google Earth Community layer with their images still intact, as external references.

But having the option to embed images locally seems useful in some circumstances, for instance where there is reason to believe that the remote copies may eventually be moved or deleted. It is possible, for example, that the webmaster who manages the P.G. Wodehouse material will someday make changes to the structure of the website, unwittingly damaging the information balloons contained in the kmz file.

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