ImageMagick shows no supported file types so WordPress plugins don't work

Question

I have a basic Azure App Service Web App running WordPress on PHP 8.2.20. I have a plugin that fails to upload files, and after some research I think it may be due to the fact that ImageMagick is showing that it has no supported file types.

First, why would this be the case on a standard installation?

Second, how does one fix it in Azure App Service? Every way the Internet recommends does not work as the App Service is very locked down and you can't run most of the commands required to reinstall ImageMagick.

Answer 1

Erik Fraser, Apologies for the delayed response from over the weekend.

What is the exact error message that you receive installing the plugin? Are you leveraging App Service Windows or Linux?

PHP 8.x images are pre-built with imagick extension. It will pull the latest available version of imagick when a new tag is available following the App Service OS and runtime patching times.

Just to highlight, ImageMagick best practices strongly encourages you to configure a security policy that suits your local environment.

If you desire to modify these policies on Azure App Service Linux, the best option to accomplish this will be to use a startup script.

Here is an example for removing policies for ghostscript:

#!/bin/bash
  #Removing ghostscript policies
  sed -i '/disable ghostscript format types/,+6d' /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml
  #Update Ghostscript
  apt-get update && apt-get install -y ghostscript
  service nginx reload

And then update the startup script location from Azure Portal:

Answer 2

An update: A colleague has added a new app service instance to the app service plan we are using, and he made it PHP-based instead of WordPress-based. In that instance, Imagick is showing 247 supported file types, so I think this new instance will work. I do think it might be a good idea for MS to investigate why a standard WordPress-based app service can't properly use Imagick, as a lot of WordPress plugins use it.