Searching for images in Lucid is not working

Hi ​@agarg! Welcome to the lucid community. 

The integrated image search is powered by Pexels.  “Pexels is a platform that allows you to post, link, store, share and contribute content to the platform. Our goal is to help designers, bloggers and everyone who is looking for content to discover and find high quality, free stock content”

1. Do you have examples of words you are searching for that are not returning images?
2. Are you hitting return or clicking the magnifying glass to execute the search?
3. Are you using a work browser that has this site blocked: https://www.pexels.com/
4. Can you capture a screenshot of what the results look like after you execute the search?

Kind regards,

Eric

Hi ​@agarg thanks for your post and thank you ​@Grieser for chiming in!

We are aware our image search feature has been temporarily disabled. We're working to restore this feature as soon as possible. 

To help you continue your work and move forward in the best way possible, you can still add your own images to your documents. If you're having trouble with images in Lucid, please check out this article in our Help Center.

We appreciate your patience as we work towards a resolution and are happy to assist with any further questions or concerns you may have. Apologies for the inconvenience!

pexels.com is not blocked. 

As i use lucid for wire diagrams and technology workflow, i need to look for IT devices everytime, 

Now even if i search for basic Samsung Fold 7 keyword, i am getting different results. I am testing lucidchart for my company and to enroll 50+ users, here is what i get now : 

​@agarg thank you for the follow up.  This confirms my suspicion that the search is working, but the results coming back are not what you’re expecting.

I think the issue you are seeing is related to the bolded part from Pexels: Our goal is to help designers, bloggers and everyone who is looking for content to discover and find high quality, free stock content”

My guess is since Pexels is using stock images only, proprietary pictures won’t show in the results.  You can test this by searching directly on Pexel’s site.

So the question is back to ​@Zuzia S - is the current bug with search being disabled the ‘Bing image search’?  If so, do you have any threads or links to bug updates?  If the Bing search is coming back, then that will resolve this issue for you ​@agarg .

Thanks for your quick response. Is there any step needs to be done from side? As this result i am 100% not expecting. Please let me know if there is any way around. Search for IT equipment while designing was very handy and saves a lot of time. If this is something has been removed from lucidchart, then i have to look for other options as my design team will not be happy to switch between tabs. 

​@agarg Sure! The work around would be:

1. Use google/bing image search: 

   

    

2. download the image 
3. Import the image in lucid:

Did you mean if i have to use 200 pictures in one project, i have to upload each one before i use? Or there is a whole package from bing /3rd party which i can upload here? 

​@agarg until the image search is fixed, that is correct.  You will need to switch tabs and upload each individually.

okay no worries. So, i think i will cancel my subscription for now. And is there any way, i get notified when this issue fixed. In the meantime, i will look for other tools. Thanks a lot for your help. 

Hi ​@agarg ​@Grieser, thank you for following up in this thread!

To clarify, our product team has just confirmed that Lucid’s old image search provider, Bing Search API, has been retired and we have replaced it with a new provider, Pexels. While we are not able to communicate any additional future changes about this feature, we are always open to your feedback.

Finally, as an alternative, we also support uploading and copy/pasting images into the canvas, if you wish to pick a different method to use images.

I apologise for the inconvenience! Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns. We’re happy to help.

Thanks for the update. But as a IT System designer, this new update / change is of no use for me and my team. Glad this change happen before we bring onboard lucid for the whole team. If you ever decided to go back to bing or something similar,  let me know. 

This was also one of my main reasons I use this product.  I don’t see a reason for us as a Team to keep using this.  IT Documentation with Lucidchart was a breeze.  Will not be renewing my subscription to Lucidchart until this can be either fixed or give us an option.  

I agreed and bringing changes without informing their users was left me in a dilemma, is it really worth deploying for my team of 100 users. Like this is 1 change which makes this platform of no use. 

I agree with everyone above. We are System Integrators and the image search is key to us working quickly and the whole reason we use this product.

We already pay for software that we use for drawings and more detailed schematics, I can find all the images download them and insert them into that. 

I feel like you guys have majorly overlooked a key feature. Everyone I know who works in the same field as us used Lucid Chart for the exact same reason. We all have more comprehensive schematic software but this was always great to get ideas down quickly to share with the team or clients. 

If this is not resolved quickly I see a lot of customers leaving, I can think of 7 companies off the top of my head who would. 

Very disappointing! 

​@agarg Not perfect, however, you can bulk import images as custom shapes

For example I loaded Flags as shapes on Friday.  The disadvatage of this method is that you need to use SVG files.

 

Thank you ​@TimW for providing that suggestion as an alternative. Thank you ​@jduqueIT, ​@agarg, ​@RK_KingWalker for adding to this thread, and I am sincerely sorry for the frustration here. I certainly understand why this is important and how this might impact your work. Your feedback on this experience has been shared with our product team.

We’re very interested in your feedback and committed to continually improving our products. If you’re interested in leaving additional feedback on this experience, you can do so by creating an idea, which will go into the Product Feedback space of this community for our product teams to continue reviewing.

For more information on how Lucid manages feedback via this community, take a look at this post:

The image search absolutely is worthless for my usecases now.  I used to use it in software system design diagrams to find logos of the tech stack were using.  Now it just returns garbage stock images.  

Hi ​@Charlie J, thank you for chiming in and I apologise for the inconvenience. While our product team is not able to communicate any changes regarding our current image provider Pexels, I recommend to use the Icons search instead of Images, or go through the import functionality. 

We are continuously looking for ways to improve our products and your input is the most effective way to achieve that goal. You can post new ideas in the Lucid Community and these ideas will be shared with our Product Development team for consideration. Before sharing your idea, please explore our community to find existing suggestions. Upvote or comment to voice your support, as all feedback is channeled through our community.

We appreciate your feedback!

Hi all, 

Thank you again for your comments and feedback on this change. 

Great news! In an effort to improve image search, our product team has released a new update today. Lucid’s new image search provider is now Brave, which should improve your experience here!

As always, we would love to hear from you. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us. Feel free to test it out and let us know what you think in this thread. 

I hope this helps with image search! Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Hi Ambar,

It still bringing images none related to what you search about. At least when putting company names. 

Hi ​@Guillermo Narvaez, thanks for testing it out and letting us know.

Would you be willing to share an example of what you’re searching for/hoping to see and what you’re seeing available?