PowerPoint 2013: Images in presentation disappear - and are replaced with 'The image part with relationship ID rId2 was not found in the file'

Thank God for your precious soul, @MichelleLange1967. I am also a highly paid marketing consulting delivering a 103 slide preso to a class tomorrow, and I got the red boxes at 5:40pm. I closed down PPT 2013 , opened old version of file from 2007, and I was able to copy/paste my broken slides with red boxes over to the older version in 2007 and images were magically restored. Phew. This has been the most traumatic computer experience I have had since 1985 -- when in 7th grade I lost hours of transcribed history notes because I didn't save often enough.

I have this problem too. I upgraded to Powerpoint 2013 a month ago and this problem happens with every presentation I work on eventually. Once it starts it keeps happening. I get all the symptoms others have noted: the error message in imported images (mine are usually from Insert Online Pictures) "The image part with the relationship ID rId3 was not found in the file". This seems to happen AFTER I have gotten a File Save error message indicating that the file is (now) in read-only mode and cannot be saved. The read-only mode crops up automagically after saving the file some number of times first. Suddenly I just get that SAVE error message and have to save the file under a new name. Then the old version usually has the image error messages in it - if not right away, then later.

I also sent a perfectly workable copy of one of my PPTs (that did not have this problem - yet) to someone and they wrote back that all of the images in the file were corrupt. This happened this morning so I haven't heard back yet what the exact error message was to confirm whether it is the same message or something new. I also asked him to send me that file back to see if it works from my computer when I open it, or whether it is corrupted for both of us now (maybe it's looking for some file location that it will find on my computer??). This is more than annoying since I'm using this at work and I present most of my PPTs to higher levels of management... AND because it's happening with all my PPT files.

I'll try saving to PPT 1997 format as another person suggested and see if that helps for now. Anything to get out of this state...

[Later - looks like I still get some image corruption problems even when converting to PPT 97-2003 format... maybe if you start the document off in that format to begin with it won't develop the problem]

Saving an older version of the PowerPoint deck back to the older version worked for me. Nothing else.  What's the point of having Office 2013????

My red X's came out of the blue after a month of working on Powerpoint 2013 non-stop. (Windows 8 -  new laptop ;(  

My images were just my custom template.  Text based.  Nothing fancy.  Maybe this has to do with the Slide Master????

this is how mine showed up:  

First in slide sorter view - entire slides showed red X's.

I saved AS a new name and they came back fine.

Then the images disappeared. and I got the little red X's.

I took an older version of the file, saved it back as PPT - then copied the pages of the " no image"  deck into the PPT and the images were back.   What a pain.  I can't have my presentations all of a sudden turning into unusable documents.

So I will save everything back and work in the old system.

Please Microsoft - fix this!!!

Here's what I learned. Microsoft is aware of the problem and is working diligently to resolve the issue -- and I believe them. At this point, no one has confirmed that it's a video card issue.

You might be able to help solve the problem:

How to get example files to Microsoft (copied from the PPTFAQ by MVP Steve Rindsberg)

Microsoft needs presentations and steps to reproduce the red-x problem. Specifically they need:

1. A copy of the presentation BEFORE the red-x appears.
2. A detailed list of the steps needed to reproduce the problem, starting with a presentation in which the graphics appear correctly and ending with one in which the red-x appears.
3. Copies of any graphics, sound or video files that you inserted between the time the red-x wasn't there and the time it appeared.
4. A diagnostic information (NFO) file. See Using System Information to gather troubleshooting info to learn how to create one. The tool is built into PowerPoint and only takes a minute or two to use.

For the information and files to be useful, you must be able to reproduce the problem. If you can do this, please let us hear from you on the PowerPoint Answers forum.

How do I join the PowerPoint Answers group?

If can reproducibly provoke red-x, PLEASE visit the Answers forum (see above) and let your fellow PowerPointers in on the secret. The MVPs will make sure the info gets passed along to the right people at Microsoft. There are thousands of people out there just waiting to be eternally grateful to you. This is worth LOTs of karmic bonus miles, folks.

But in the meanwhile, practice safe computing and keep the Martians annoyed.

And have a giggle here. Hover your mouse over the RedExed graphic.