IE doesn't display gifs, but FireFox and Safari have no problem.

December 20, 2005 9:35 AM

WebDevFilter: Why do some gifs GIFs *not* appear in Windows/IE, but do appear in Win/FireFox Mac/Safari and Mac/FireFox? Specific example inside.

The site I'm working on seems to appear just fine in 3 browsers, but not in IE for Windows. I get white boxes with red x's in them instead of the gifs I expect.

This output was given to me from an export from Quark XPress, which produced the CSS. I'm a CSS newbie (but I understand the concepts).

Google returns a boatload of results, mostly relating to making changes to the registry and deleting temporary files. Before I do anything that drastic, could I have another set of eyes look over my code?

posted by Wild_Eep to Computers & Internet (22 answers total)

My guess is it's this: src='./image/
Find that text and change it to either src='../image/ or src='/image/ (it's about the periods)
posted by bricoleur at 9:39 AM on December 20, 2005

That is, to be clear: one or the other of those changes should work; I can't tell without knowing where your images directory is in relation to the page in question.
posted by bricoleur at 9:40 AM on December 20, 2005

Response by poster: the images are one level deeper than the index page, all stored in a directory called 'image'.
posted by Wild_Eep at 9:44 AM on December 20, 2005

Then removing the period and the slash that follows it from the those bits should help: src='image/ (I misspoke the first time.)
posted by bricoleur at 9:49 AM on December 20, 2005

Then use src="image/foo.gif". The "./" construct indicates current working directory. That IE should choke on this is surprising, but then again, not so surprising...

or what bricoleur said.
posted by Fezboy! at 9:52 AM on December 20, 2005

This is strange. Viewing Wild_Eep's image directory in IE, clicking some of the images results in a broken image (like this one and this one) and clicking others brings up the image. But everything looks fine for me in FF. This makes it seem like the dot-slash or no dot-slash isn't the problem...Besides which, after viewing the source code, it looks like Wild_Eep is using the proper syntax on at least some of these broken images, i.e., no dot-slash.
posted by Gator at 10:01 AM on December 20, 2005

Response by poster: I removed all of the dot-slashes, but get the same results.

I'm not sure why some images aren't appearing.

The ownership and permissions on these images are

-rwxr-xr-x 1 programs users 2121 Nov 22 13:26 Audio_Video_Clips_placard.gif

-rwxr-xr-x 1 programs users 17914 Nov 30 14:45 Picture13_Copy62997.gif



if that makes any difference.
posted by Wild_Eep at 10:14 AM on December 20, 2005

Checking the images Gator mentions in FF on Mac, they look fine. But when I check Properties, for Alternate Text it says: The image “http://www.programsthatmatter.com/image/Audio_Video_Clips_placard.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors." That is weird. I'd try redoing those files.
posted by bricoleur at 10:18 AM on December 20, 2005

bricoleur, the problem is only in IE.

But yes, when you view properties on these images in IE, it indicates there's some sort of problem -- IE can't tell what type or size the files are. Re-upload some of those images and see if that helps.
posted by Gator at 10:30 AM on December 20, 2005

Gator, I knew that.

The internal data for Picture13_Copy62997.gif indicates that its size is 0x0 pixels. Apparently WinIE can't see past that.

I doubt re-uploading the same files will help; I'd redo them and upload new ones.
posted by bricoleur at 10:40 AM on December 20, 2005

Response by poster: I tried re-uploading Picture13_Copy3341.gif, but ended up with the same problem.

I'm now opening the image in Adobe ImageReady, and resaving them to new files, which I will then upload.
posted by Wild_Eep at 10:55 AM on December 20, 2005

Any chance that these images are being processed with Imagemagick?

I've had the exact problem on a gallery v1 website. Turns out it was the version of imagemagick on my server. Using someting other than imagemagick fixed things.
posted by MiG at 10:59 AM on December 20, 2005

Response by poster: Re-saving & uploading the 'freshened' files seems to work for a couple of the images, but there are still 4 'exes' that I'm trying to figure out.
posted by Wild_Eep at 11:02 AM on December 20, 2005

Response by poster: No imagemagick was used in the creation of this website.
posted by Wild_Eep at 11:02 AM on December 20, 2005

I can open and re-export the "Satisfying 'Man's search" gif with FireWorks and it magically re-appears.

So if you need I can do the same with your other GIFs.
posted by NinjaPirate at 11:05 AM on December 20, 2005

there are still 4 'exes' that I'm trying to figure out.

Which ones are they? Clicking through a bunch of random pictures listed on your image directory, it seems like almost all of the .gifs (you sure do have a lot of 'em!) are coming up blank in IE.
posted by Gator at 11:14 AM on December 20, 2005

Response by poster: What a PIA. Is there a way to 'batch freshen' these images? Looks like it's time to google for a Photoshop Action tutorial.
posted by Wild_Eep at 11:34 AM on December 20, 2005

Response by poster: NinjaPirate, have at it if you like.

---
Gator: I'm trying to solve specific issues with the site itself, but you're right, if the images don't appear from a dir listing, I'm only band-aiding the problem.
posted by Wild_Eep at 11:36 AM on December 20, 2005

I just opened Picture13_Copy62997.gif and then used File > Save for Web in PShop. I believe that fixed it (now shows 213 x 1049px as it should), but I can't be sure since I don't have access to WinIE at the moment.

You could create an action, as you say, and do the same to the whole directory, assuming they're all gifs. If not, sort by filetype into separate directories first, as needed. (When creating the action, use the GIF with the greatest number of colors as the subject.)
posted by bricoleur at 11:51 AM on December 20, 2005

Sorry, left after a half hour without reply.
Looks like I got lucky with that first one: I've tried with 5-or-so more GIFs and they all came back unopenable in Fireworks.

I can edit them in a recent version of ACDSee, but the process is a bit laborious and can't be batch-run. I genuinely can't bear to do any more than a few, and you have lllllllllllllots. Fortunately, most of them look like duplicates - if you can tell me which images you actually need (please god fewer than 20) I'll go through them and repair.

There must be an easier way to do this, but I haven't got it at my fingertips.

Email in the profile if you want to avoid clogging the green.
posted by NinjaPirate at 1:43 PM on December 20, 2005

Are you uploading them as binary files?
posted by xyzzy at 2:23 PM on December 20, 2005

Response by poster: I'm in the process of re-factoring this layout (each page in the site was given to me as a separate export from Quark XPress, and has different names for each element in each file, YUCK!)

This will remove the duplicates, eventually.

Moral of story: When you let a client do the design, have them understand that there may be significantly more work involved in maintenance, even if many pages 'look the same'.
posted by Wild_Eep at 6:59 AM on December 21, 2005