Images not showing on Render but shows on Gitlab Pages

1

Hello folks,

I am using Hugo to create a static website, hosted on GitLab. And, then I connected Render to Gitlab.

.gitlab-cli.yml file

variables:
  DART_SASS_VERSION: 1.81.1
  GIT_DEPTH: 0
  GIT_STRATEGY: clone
  GIT_SUBMODULE_STRATEGY: recursive
  HUGO_VERSION: 0.143.1
  NODE_VERSION: 23.x
  TZ: ASIA/INDIA
image:
  name: golang:1.23.6

pages:
  script:
    # Install brotli
    - apt-get update
    - apt-get install -y brotli
    # Install Dart Sass
    - curl -LJO https://github.com/sass/dart-sass/releases/download/${DART_SASS_VERSION}/dart-sass-${DART_SASS_VERSION}-linux-x64.tar.gz
    - tar -xf dart-sass-${DART_SASS_VERSION}-linux-x64.tar.gz
    - cp -r dart-sass/ /usr/local/bin
    - rm -rf dart-sass*
    - export PATH=/usr/local/bin/dart-sass:$PATH
    # Install Hugo
    - curl -LJO https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/download/v${HUGO_VERSION}/hugo_extended_${HUGO_VERSION}_linux-amd64.deb
    - apt-get install -y ./hugo_extended_${HUGO_VERSION}_linux-amd64.deb
    - rm hugo_extended_${HUGO_VERSION}_linux-amd64.deb
    # Install Node.js
    - curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_${NODE_VERSION} | bash -
    - apt-get install -y nodejs
    # Install Node.js dependencies
    - "[[ -f package-lock.json || -f npm-shrinkwrap.json ]] && npm ci || true"
    # Build
    - hugo --gc --minify --baseURL ${CI_PAGES_URL}
    # Compress
    - find public -type f -regex '.*\.\(css\|html\|js\|txt\|xml\)$' -exec gzip -f -k {} \;
    - find public -type f -regex '.*\.\(css\|html\|js\|txt\|xml\)$' -exec brotli -f -k {} \;
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - public
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH

Settings on Render -
Branch - main
Build command - hugo --gc --minify
Publish Directory - public (/public has been added to .gitignore as per instructions of GitLab. I tried removing it from .gitignore but still the images didn’t show up on Render)

Site deploys successfully on both GitLab and Render. If one visits BaseUrl, site loads correctly and shows images, but through Render’s URL, Images don’t show up.

Is it because I don’t have a attached disk? Or something else is wrong at my end?

Thank you very much.