Cant see preview thumbs with FireFox or IE!

June 21, 2007 8:14 PM

Unable to view preview pictures on webpages

I recently noticed that on some web sites that have preview thumbs like iGoogles "add stuff to your home page" i can not see the previewed thumbs, only the text link and add it now buttons. I have noticed this on other websites as well. This seems to be like this on both Firefox and Internet Explorer. I reinstalled Java and have flash installed as well. but no go. What else should I check?

posted by slowtree to computers & internet (3 comments total)

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, it's probably a firewall issue. You may need to allow google or whatever domain you're dealing with as a trusted site.

In addition, if your firewall is an older install, or set to the highest security levels, it still may not work, because those elements are culled from other sites, and your firewall may be balking at the page trying to pull in a lot of content from other areas.

To test this, you could very briefly turn off your firewall and try loading the page.
posted by taz at 3:48 AM on June 22, 2007

actually i have no firewall turned on at all. My other pc's have no issue loading these images.
posted by slowtree at 4:16 AM on June 22, 2007

images?

So when you mention iGoogle... "add stuff to your home page" are you talking about the actual interface page where you add items?

The thumbnail images there are png format, I think, and it's possible that your computer doesn't know what to do with a png. Right click on the icon (if you see an icon), and click "open"; if you get a pop up saying that Windows doesn't know what to do with that file, then that's your problem. Check the little box that asks if you want the web service to find the appropriate program, or choose the other option to pick for yourself. (Choose IE or the picture and fax viewer, probably)..

If you're not seeing any kind of icon to click on, go here, to the wikipedia page for "png"; on the right side are two png images. If you don't see them, try right clicking on whatever you do see there, and following the instructions above.

(btw, you probably do have some sort of firewall... though if you don't know about it, it's not very likely to be an over-vigilant thing to be causing this problem.)
posted by taz at 5:12 AM on June 22, 2007