diff --git a/components/Flag.vue b/components/Flag.vue
index 17225f5fb..f7e83a9c5 100644
--- a/components/Flag.vue
+++ b/components/Flag.vue
@@ -1,15 +1,18 @@
 <template>
     <span class="flag-wrapper">
         <a v-if="link" :href="`/${config.nouns.route}/${config.terminology.route}#${link.toLowerCase()}`" :title="alt">
-            <img :src="img" :alt="name" class="flag-mini rounded"/>
+            <img v-if="missing === false" :src="img" :alt="name" class="flag-mini rounded" @error="missing = true"/>
+            <LocaleLink locale="en" v-else link="/blog/missing-flags" class="text-danger"><Icon v="exclamation-circle"/></LocaleLink>
             <Twemoji><Spelling escape :text="name"/><sup v-if="custom" class="text-muted"><small><Icon v="user"/></small></sup><sup v-if="asterisk" class="text-muted"><small>*</small></sup></Twemoji>
         </a>
         <span v-else :title="alt">
-            <img :src="img" :alt="name" class="flag-mini rounded"/>
+            <img v-if="missing === false" :src="img" :alt="name" class="flag-mini rounded" @error="missing = true"/>
+            <LocaleLink locale="en" v-else link="/blog/missing-flags" class="text-danger"><Icon v="exclamation-circle"/></LocaleLink>
             <Twemoji><Spelling escape :text="name"/><sup v-if="custom" class="text-muted"><small><Icon v="user"/></small></sup><sup v-if="asterisk" class="text-muted"><small>*</small></sup></Twemoji>
         </span>
         <span class="flag-preview bg-white rouded p-2 border">
-            <img :src="img" :alt="name" class="rounded"/>
+            <img v-if="missing === false" :src="img" :alt="name" class="rounded" @error="missing = true"/>
+            <LocaleLink locale="en" v-else link="/blog/missing-flags" class="text-danger"><Icon v="exclamation-circle"/></LocaleLink>
             <span v-if="asterisk" class="alert alert-warning small d-block mt-2 mb-0 p-2">
                 *
                 <T>profile.flagsAsterisk</T>
@@ -32,6 +35,11 @@
             custom: { type: Boolean },
             asterisk: { type: Boolean },
         },
+        data() {
+            return {
+                missing: false,
+            }
+        },
         computed: {
             link() {
                 if (!this.config.terminology.enabled || !(this.config.terminology.published || this.$isGranted('terms'))) {
diff --git a/locale/en/blog/missing-flags.md b/locale/en/blog/missing-flags.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..7762683d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/locale/en/blog/missing-flags.md
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+# Missing custom flags
+
+<small>2022-10-01 | [@andrea](/@andrea)</small>
+
+I've recently done a big restructuring of database schema in order to be able to start adding new features to the cards.
+More info in the blog post: [Release Notes: Public API profiles v2](/blog/release-notes-profile-v2).
+I had tested it quite thoroughly and rolling it out went pretty smoothly. Except, there was one thing I forgot about 😢
+
+There's two main places we store the data: a database on our server
+and an S3 bucket in the cloud that stores extra files (like images). 
+When somebody removes something from the page, it is immediately removed from the database,
+but the underlying images in the cloud might still remain – albeit without any connection to the person or their card anymore.
+That's why we have a script that runs twice a month and removes all the unused files
+– both for extra privacy, and to optimise the storage cost.
+
+Unfortunately, it completely skipped my mind that this script would be affected by the v2 restructuring 😢
+It removes unused files, but the definition of “used” has changed in v2.
+Basically, it saw all the flags as unused, because they didn't match the new schema, and removed them 🤦‍
+
+We make nightly backups of our database and server configuration – but the cloud is a separate story 😢
+We store a lot of data there (over a million objects, around 46 GB) so keeping copies of everything would be over our budget. 
+Luckily, with the introduction of ads we'll now be able to afford it.
+Unfortunately, I didn't enable those backups early enough. As far as I know, at this point there's no way to restore the images 😭
+
+**I'm terribly sorry for that.** I should have been more careful about the recent changes.
+The system got so complex over time that it's hard to keep track of everything –
+and it's very hard to test and find issues, if they turn out to happen in an asynchronous, detached, biweekly script. 
+
+## What should you do now, if you're affected?
+
+ - Well, the good news is that the _data_ is still there, it's just the _image_ that's missing.
+   If you go to [the card editor](/editor) you'll still see _what_ your custom flags were,
+   you'll just need to re-upload the image that it was connected to.
+   I know it will be quite tedious for some of you (there are cards with 50 flags or so!),
+   but it's a one-time action.
+ - Please be understanding 😅
+
+## What did I do / will I do to mitigate the issue and avoid similar issues in the future?
+
+ - I enabled bucket versioning on S3 – we'll now have backups of everything.
+ - I still need to set up lifecycle rules so that those backups get removed eventually, but giving us enough time to restore data if we ever lose any again. 
+ - I've disabled the cleanup script until I'm sure it's fixed and more resilient.
+ - I'll fix the script itself.
+ - I'll add checks to that script so that if an unusual number of files is set to be removed, it will stop and notify me of the anomaly.
+ - I wrote this blog post to explain the issue.
+ - If a file cannot be loaded on one's card, instead of showing the text twice, it will now show an <span class="fal fa-exclamation-circle text-danger"></span> icon
+   that links to this blog post – so that users know what happened and how to fix it.
+
+Again, I apologise for the trouble! 😢 Turns out, even trying to _add_ some new cool features
+can inadvertently result in _losing_ something. Lesson learned…