I Can't See the Pretty Pictures

May 12, 2012 5:56 AM

Images are not loading or taking too long to load. What is the problem?

About a month ago I got a new MacBook Pro. Whenever I go to a website, images are not present. Example: Just went to BBC website via a hyperlink and no images, just text. When I refresh several times, or go to another website and return and refresh, the images finally load.

I am mostly clueless about technology and computers. I don't think it is internet speed or connection since when I used my old laptop (Toshiba) I had not problems viewing images. What is happening? I am using Safari and Firefox.

Thanks very much.

posted by Fairchild to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Response by poster: hmm... no answers. This could be such an obvious answer but I am not aware of it. It is very strange and something is not right because for some websites the images never load. For some I have to leave and come back to it and then they load -- eventually after multiple refreshes. It's not "oh this page has a lot of images and it's taking longer than usual". It's "these images are never going to load, no matter what you do:.

Thanks for looking. I will research. I still don't know how to right click either. Said to tap twice -- no dice. I highlight and press control and click again.
posted by Fairchild at 1:13 PM on May 12, 2012

Sometimes browsers just crap out on loading sites and you have to reload them. Sometimes more than once. More often if you've got multiple people in the house all using the Internet. Much more often if you're on a slow connection or you have a crappy ISP like Comcast.

There are also some sites that are worse than others, e.g. sites in the cheezburger network. I find this is mainly due to the overuse of javascript. Using a good ad-blocker and javascript blocker can help.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:27 PM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't know of any single thing that would do this. Here are my default troubleshooting steps for internet problems, they may help:
-Shut down all programs that access the internet aside from your browsers (IM, Steam, IRC, torrent clients, media players, etc.)
-Check your browsers' settings for media and script whitelists/blacklists
-Completely delete both browsers' caches
-Flush your DNS cache
-Use an external DNS (Google's is 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4)
-Restart your computer
-Restart your modem and router
-Disconnect all other devices from the network
-Check to see if there are any IP address conflicts
-Turn off IPv6 on your computer
-Turn off wireless encryption (if this doesn't help, turn it back on)
-Connect your computer directly to the modem, if possible
posted by clorox at 3:34 PM on May 13, 2012 [1 favorite]