Saving pdf will make rasterized image blank / white / invisible.

Hey. I have an issue that I never had before I upgraded from a 2019 illustrator. Now I have the latest update and whenever I rasterize an image and save it the image is invisible. I have to create the file with illustrator because theres a spot color that needs to be on a layer so my plotter can cut the file. I rasterize it so my file is 10 times smaller than with layers. I am saving it in pdf so I can see the actual image without opening the file. If I save it as eps then everything shows up and it works but all i can see in windows is an eps icon and being a print shop owner I have a ton of files which is a lot easyer to browse thru if I can also see the image alongside with the file name.  it worked before. I havent changed any settings when saving the pdf. I did try different compatibility settings but doesn't change the outcome. I tried different presets when saving. Doesn't help. I have tried to open it on a different computer. Same thing happens. Image is white in adobe acrobat, in windows browser and in my roland rip software. When I open it in acrobat reader the image shows up for 1 sec then it goes blank. 

Update: i just did a bunch of testing and this is what i realized: There are ice cream pictures in this image which are raster images that makes this file originally over a 100mb. If I rasterize EVERYTHING and leave only the pink spot (cutcontour) color then the file is invisible when I save it as pdf. If I only rasterize the ice cream images with transparent background and save it as pdf it works. I tried to release any paths from these ice cream images and then rastrize it and save it but still invisible. So basically i figured out a workaround that works for me and makes the files smaller and I can save it as pdf but still don't understand why it's giving me a problem. I had no issues with an older illustrator. I upladed the file as pdf with the single ice cream image in it ( i had to keep it under 47mb so i can upload it, i figured 1 ice cream pic should be enugh for you guys to test it.) Bottom line: something is still buggy even if i found a workaround. Shoulnd't be like that. 


Oh yeah.. one more thing. This issue also persisted when I tried to copy this file into photoshop. pasted it as a smart object and it was all white.