Posted by Tony Siciliano on October 25, 2011 at 12:36 PM
Whenever I view a photo in any NPN gallery I'm getting a small blue and white box with a question mark in it in the middle of the photo. It only happens on NPN. I'm using a Mac with OS 10.7.2. Any suggestions on how to get rid of this?
Posted by Lon Overacker on October 25, 2011 at 1:21 PM
Tony,
I'm no Mac guy, but it sounds like the same symbols we would get on the Windows side when an image is unable to be displayed. Typically the server or internet connection where the images are hosted is down. Now when you say in the "middle of the photo," you do mean that the actual image is missing? or can you see the image AND the question mark? If it's the latter, here is what I suspect. NPN uses a transparent gif file laid over the top of the jpg image files either hosted by you or uploaded to NPN. The reason for that is a little trickery in image protection. When someone right-clicks-save-as an image, then are only saving a clear, transparent GIF image and not the jpg.
I don't know how long this has been going on for you, or if you've recently made changes in the OS, browser version, etc., but I would make sure in your settings that you are set to view GIF files in addition to all the other image file types.
If that isn't it, I would recommend posting in the Digital forum, you'll certainly get more views.
Lon
Posted by Cory Freeman on October 25, 2011 at 2:12 PM
see this thread for more info. sounds like it's a safari thing as it occurs on our ipad and my new macbook pro with Lion. Our other macbook pro running os10.5 leopard doesn't have this issue.
Thanks for the comments. It is an opaque question mark. As advertised, it's not a problem in Firefox, only in Safari, and is not a problem in Larger Photos. Oh well, if a small question mark in the middle of a photo is worst problem I have to deal with, I'm a lucky man....
Posted by Lon Overacker on October 25, 2011 at 11:34 PM
Tony,
If you're not seeing the question mark in the "larger view" and not the standard view, then that actually lends credence to my theory. NPN does NOT use a transparent gif overlay on the larger view, only the original 720 version uploaded to the NPN server. In fact, if you don't use NPN and host your own image, they don't use the gif overlay. As a test, tell me if you get the question mark with my image here. If not, then at least for me that confirms there is an issue with your browser displaying gif images. If you still get the question mark and box, well, I'm barking up the wrong tree.
Lon
Posted by Tony Siciliano on October 26, 2011 at 12:02 AM
No question mark. There doesn't seem to be anyplace in Safari Preferences to choose "View GIF Files". Nice photo by the way!!
Tony
Posted by Lon Overacker on October 26, 2011 at 1:37 AM
Tony,
If you're not seeing the question mark in the "larger view" then that actually lends credence to my theory. NPN does NOT use a transparent gif overlay on the larger view, only the original 720 version uploaded to the NPN server. In fact, if you don't use NPN and host your own image, they don't use the gif overlay. As a test, tell me if you get the question mark with my image here. If not, then at least for me that confirms there is an issue with your browser displaying gif images. If you still get the question mark and box, well, I'm barking up the wrong tree.
Didn't figure out how to make the question mark go away in Small Photos using Safari. In Safari preferences there is no setting to check or uncheck for accepting any type of file. I'll use Firefox for NPN.
Discussion
11 repliesI'm no Mac guy, but it sounds like the same symbols we would get on the Windows side when an image is unable to be displayed. Typically the server or internet connection where the images are hosted is down. Now when you say in the "middle of the photo," you do mean that the actual image is missing? or can you see the image AND the question mark? If it's the latter, here is what I suspect. NPN uses a transparent gif file laid over the top of the jpg image files either hosted by you or uploaded to NPN. The reason for that is a little trickery in image protection. When someone right-clicks-save-as an image, then are only saving a clear, transparent GIF image and not the jpg.
I don't know how long this has been going on for you, or if you've recently made changes in the OS, browser version, etc., but I would make sure in your settings that you are set to view GIF files in addition to all the other image file types.
If that isn't it, I would recommend posting in the Digital forum, you'll certainly get more views.
Lon
If you're not seeing the question mark in the "larger view" and not the standard view, then that actually lends credence to my theory. NPN does NOT use a transparent gif overlay on the larger view, only the original 720 version uploaded to the NPN server. In fact, if you don't use NPN and host your own image, they don't use the gif overlay. As a test, tell me if you get the question mark with my image here. If not, then at least for me that confirms there is an issue with your browser displaying gif images. If you still get the question mark and box, well, I'm barking up the wrong tree.
Lon
Tony
If you're not seeing the question mark in the "larger view" then that actually lends credence to my theory. NPN does NOT use a transparent gif overlay on the larger view, only the original 720 version uploaded to the NPN server. In fact, if you don't use NPN and host your own image, they don't use the gif overlay. As a test, tell me if you get the question mark with my image here. If not, then at least for me that confirms there is an issue with your browser displaying gif images. If you still get the question mark and box, well, I'm barking up the wrong tree.
Lon
Ancestry? Nope. He's just an old dog!
--P
So Tony, did you figure it out? Inquiring minds want to know (which excludes the previous two old dogs.)