Help! - Graphics Not Displaying...

[Regnad Kcin]

Or something like that.

Over the course of the last dozen times I've been online, many websites (but not the JREF, ironically) have not been loading completely. On any given page each box, designed to display a portion of a graphic image, is coming up empty -- well, save for the little red 'X' and perhaps a text description of what is supposed to be there.

Can anyone help?

 

[Frinkiak7]

A few questions spring to mind.

-What browser are you using?
-What kind of network connection do you have?
-Are you behind a proxy or a firewall?
-Are the pages themselves loading slowly, or do they load at normal speeds with the exception of the broken images?
-If they're slow, what kind of trace responses are you getting from the sites themselves?

 

[Regnad Kcin]

-What browser are you using?

AOL

-What kind of network connection do you have?

Dial-up

-Are you behind a proxy or a firewall?

As far as I know (not being computer savvy). Does my Norton AntiVirus software also serve that function?

-Are the pages themselves loading slowly, or do they load at normal speeds with the exception of the broken images?

Normal speeds with the exception

-If they're slow, what kind of trace responses are you getting from the sites themselves?

Forgive the ignorance, but I don't know what "trace response" means. But I did specify that load speeds are more or less normal, so maybe this isn't an issue.

Thank you for your assistance so far (and welcome to the forum)!

 

[Frinkiak7]

Thank you for your kind welcome, as well!

I would tend to think that the reason your image links are broken is due to slow response time. If the image files are big, it's very possible that your browser is just timing out before they're completely downloaded from the server. Since your bandwidth is limited, it's possible that the framework and text of the page will download, but your browser might just sort of give up in the images. Try running a trace to one of the affected sites this way:

(BTW, I'm assuming you're running Win98, XP, or 2K)

1. Open a command prompt
2. at the prompt, type "tracert" followed by a space and the address of one of the affected sites

If your response times between hops are any higher than 200-300 ms, I would tend to think that it's a bandwidth problem.

 

[Phillybee]

You could try diabling image compression in the AOL browser. Here's a link on how to do this:

http://www.shomler.com/aol_disc.htm

This will make the pages appear more slowly, but if there's a problem with the browser displaying the AOL compressed image files, this may help.

Realize that if your problem is in fact a speed issue, this will make thing worse.

 

[Rat]

I often find that images don't display properly if I'm browsing while using BitTorrent, KLite, and Soulseek at the same time. But I guess that's to be expected. That does suggest that it is indeed just timing out on the images, though.

Cheers,
Rat.

 

[RSLancastr]

Have you recently installed Zone Alarm Pro?

 

[Regnad Kcin]

I would tend to think that the reason your image links are broken is due to slow response time.

Perhaps. But I've never had this problem before. It's only just now started.

If the image files are big, it's very possible that your browser is just timing out before they're completely downloaded from the server.

Here's a shocker: The Google logo on their homepage doesn't load; hardly a large file on a large site.

And as I mentioned, this problem is sporadic. Some websites are fine and others aren't.

Since your bandwidth is limited, it's possible that the framework and text of the page will download, but your browser might just sort of give up in the images. Try running a trace to one of the affected sites this way:

(BTW, I'm assuming you're running Win98, XP, or 2K)

Win98

1. Open a command prompt
2. at the prompt, type "tracert" followed by a space and the address of one of the affected sites

If your response times between hops are any higher than 200-300 ms, I would tend to think that it's a bandwidth problem.

How/where do I open a command prompt?

 

[Regnad Kcin]

Have you recently installed Zone Alarm Pro?

No.

I have not done anything unusual recently. The only clue I have is the problem cropped up after my routine, weekly, Norton SystemWorks checkup. Thing is, this has never been a result of the proceedure before.

 

[treble_head]

sometimes you can alleviate a problem like that by deleting the chache of saved files. If the chache'd files become corrupted, that can happen. The cache is also known sometimes as Temporary Internet Files.

 

[Frinkiak7]

Perhaps. But I've never had this problem before. It's only just now started. Here's a shocker: The Google logo on their homepage doesn't load; hardly a large file on a large site.

True. Especially for a front page a spare as Google.

Win98

How/where do I open a command prompt?

In win98, go to START and click RUN. In the RUN line, type CMD and click OK.

Based on what you've said, it night be a good idea to try Phillybee's suggestion of turning off AOL's image compression. I must confess that I'm not 100% familiar with how AOL handles image caching or compression.

 

[Psi Baba]

AOL uses page caching on its servers to give the illusion that they're making the internet faster for you. It could be that the server is feeding you cached pages which have had their images updated and while the page loads right away, the new images are taking more time to load.

Another issue is that many websites' images are stored on entirely separate servers or contain third party images (like ads), so if the image server (or one of them) is down, you can get the page and maybe some, but not all of the images.

Pages that are programmed to serve the images in a particular order often get stuck if an ad image doesn't download and it sits there waiting for the stuck server before loading any of the other images. Akamai is good for this. I can't tell you how many times I'm waiting for a page to load because akamai.images is sitting there not responding.