LlamaIndex fixed a correctness bug in `img_2_b64()` where the function still returned `bytes` at runtime even though it was type-cast to `str`, by decoding the base64 result before returning it.
Scattered source updates, isolated context, and manual follow-up across multiple feeds.
Changed the image utility to return a decoded base64 string instead of a runtime `bytes` value in `img_2_b64()`, removing the unsafe `typing.cast`-only conversion and stopping a concrete type-mismatch failure path.
Developers and services that call `img_2_b64()` no longer trip over runtime `TypeError` crashes when building `data:image/...` payloads or serializing image data to JSON, so image conversion steps in multimodal pipelines become more reliable without fallback logic. The function now produces the expected string output at runtime, while teams should continue watching for similar cast-only return paths in nearby image helpers and add explicit type tests for base64 conversion outputs to prevent regressions.
Developers and services that call `img_2_b64()` no longer trip over runtime `TypeError` crashes when building `data:image/...` payloads or serializing image data to JSON, so image conversion steps in multimodal pipelines become more reliable without fallback logic. The function now produces the expected string output at runtime, while teams should continue watching for similar cast-only return paths in nearby image helpers and add explicit type tests for base64 conversion outputs to prevent regressions.