Why your exam form photo upload keeps failing

An exam portal rejected your photo without saying why. Here are the causes, in the order they are worth checking.

Exam portals are famously unhelpful when an upload fails. "Invalid photo", "File not accepted", or simply nothing at all. The cause is nearly always one of a short list, and they are worth checking in order of how often they are the problem.

1. The pixel dimensions are wrong

This is the most common cause by a wide margin, and the most commonly missed, because people fix the file size and assume that was the requirement. If the notification says 200x230, it means exactly 200 pixels wide by 230 tall. A 200x300 photograph of exactly the right file size is still refused.

Check the dimensions of your file before anything else. On a phone, the photo details show them; on a computer, the file properties do. Set them precisely with Exam Photo Resizer, which fixes the dimensions and the file size in one pass.

2. The file is below the minimum size

Many portals set a range, such as 20 KB to 50 KB, and people read only the upper number. A clear photograph resized small often compresses to well under 20 KB, so it fails a requirement the person did not know existed.

Read the notification again and look for the word "minimum", or a range written as "between". If there is one, set both numbers.

3. The format is not what was asked for

A file called photo.jpg is not necessarily a JPEG — renaming a PNG does not convert it, and portals check the actual contents. If your photo came from a screenshot, a messaging app, or a modern website, it may well be a PNG, WEBP or AVIF wearing a .jpg name.

Convert it properly with Convert Image rather than renaming it.

4. The DPI tag is missing or wrong

If the notification mentions 200 or 300 DPI, some portals check the tag inside the file. A phone photo is typically tagged 72 DPI, so it fails even though the image is far more detailed than required. Change Image DPI sets the tag without touching the image.

5. The photo is rotated

Phones often record orientation as a tag rather than rotating the pixels. Your photo looks upright on your phone and arrives sideways on the portal, which can fail a dimension check — a 230x200 image where 200x230 was required. Rotate & Flip Image writes the orientation into the pixels so every program agrees.

6. The portal itself is the problem

Worth saying plainly, because people spend hours on a file that was fine. Government portals are heavily loaded near a deadline and uploads fail for reasons that have nothing to do with your file.

• Try a different browser, and try without extensions.
• Try at a quieter time. Late at night on deadline day is the worst possible moment.
• If the same correct file fails repeatedly and everything above checks out, it is very likely not your file.

A checklist

1. Are the pixel dimensions exactly what the notification says?
2. Is the file size inside the range, including any minimum?
3. Is it genuinely a JPEG, not a renamed PNG?
4. If a DPI is specified, is the tag set to it?
5. Is the photo the right way up?
6. Have you tried another browser?

If you would rather not work through this by hand, paste the portal's instructions into the box on the home page. It reads the requirements and sets the tools up for you.

• Photo and signature size for exam forms: how to read the requirements
• How to make an image an exact KB size