Error message: The image part with relationship ID rld2 (or rld3) was not found in the file"

Problem

When you open a PowerPoint file, you get an error message:

The image part with relationship ID rld2 [or rld3] was not found in the file

and one or more of the images in your presentation are replaced with a red X or a white square with a message box that says something similar.

Solution

Unfortunately, there is no solution. Once you see this message and your images are missing, the images are simply gone. You'll have to re-insert them.

But make sure it doesn't happen again

This problem seems to have a variety of causes, so to prevent it, you'll want to eliminate the known sources of trouble.

• Make sure PowerPoint is up to date. Most of these Red-X/Relationship ID problems have been fixed for quite some time in Windows PowerPoint 2013 adn 2016, and more recently in Mac PowerPoint 2016.
• On Mac PowerPoint, avoid opening from/saving to mounted AFP, NFS, SMB network drives. (This problem is reported to be fixed in a recent update as of June, 2017).
• On both Mac and Windows PowerPoint, only open files from/save files to your local hard drive. If your file is on a removable drive, USB thumbdrive, etc, copy it to your local hard drive, open and edit it, save it back to your hard drive, close the file and finally copy it back to your removable drive/USB thumbdrive/etc. Mac users may want to do the same thing with files on network drives.
• Don't edit files that are in folders that are synched to another drive or to cloud storage, or folders that are automatically backed up. Copy them to a normal folder for editing, then back to the synched/backed up folder after they've been saved and closed.

More info

This page on support.office.com has more information, including:

• The current versions of PPT 2013/2016 Windows and 2016 Mac
• How to report Red-X/Relationship ID problems to Microsoft if you encounter them despite having done all the above.

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