I believe I messed up the Board

[billglaw]

PLease delete my submission of this evening. I resubmitted to create a thumbnail and now I cannot view jpegs.

Thanks Bill Lawless

[Doug Nelson]

Where? How? Why?

But seriously, try holding down the ctrl key and clicking reload. I rebuilt the thumbnails.

[jeaniesa]

Doug, holding down the control key while refreshing doesn't help. When I click "Last 14 days" I see 4 thumbnails, then nothing else will load. CTL-refresh loads only the text on the page - no thumbnails once it's hung once.

Jeanie

[DJ Dubovsky]

Something's changed big time here. I try to download attached files and all I get is a white page. Anybody have that problem?
DJ

[jeaniesa]

DJ, I had that problem only after I'd visited the messed up gallery thumbnail page. I exited all of my IE windows and restarted - haven't had a problem with the attachments since.

Jeanie

[DJ Dubovsky]

Jeanie,
I think you're on to something!! I just deleted my temporary internet files (Tools > Internet Options > and under temporary Internet files I hit Delete) and then closed out Retouch Pro. When I reopened it, I was able to open attached files. I then went to the gallery and saw only a handful of thumbnails and when I came back to the forum I could no longer open an attached file. I repeated this just to make sure and the same thing occured again. You are right. Something happens when you visit that area. Is it possible someone uploaded a virus? I'm not well versed in what it takes to do that but it sure seems suspicious.
DJ

[T Paul]

The gallery has something that is corrupting the IE browser. This started for me on Jan 7th. Every time I visit the gallery it never finishes loading the page. I might get one or two thumbnails if I'm lucky. Then from that point on my browser is corrupted and no images will load on any site....until I purge my system and empty all the temp files. Well through trial and error I found out what the problem is, but I have no solution. I tried various paths from the images in the gallery in a new browser window (still IE 6) and they open fine...all except for the "lotocleanup" image by KNDZ. My guess it's that file that is causing my woes. I just don't know why.

One note, I downloaded Netscape and it seems to work fine when viewing the gallery. It appears to be an IE problem. Still I find this odd as if you go to the challenges first they view fine and I believe they are on the same software that runs the gallery. Yet if I go to the gallery first, then no more images for me.


HMMMMM

[jeaniesa]

T, I also hang on a kndz thumbnail - except mine is the "military portrat[sic]" one.

Jeanie

[T Paul]

Military Portrait is a new submission since I did my trial and error check, and it seems to be a problem too. Now it's not all of KNDZ's images as the path for Details seems to load fine. Puzzling!


~T

[T Paul]

Found the Problem:

Browser Problems Caused by Photoshop 7 JPEG images

We would like to alert our users to a problem caused for Web browsers and other applications by certain JPEG files created with Photoshop 7.

With PS 7, Adobe decided by default to embed XML-encoded "preview" data into JPEG files, using a feature of the JPEG format that permits embedding of arbitrarily-named "profiles". In theory, these files are valid according to the JPEG specifications. However they break many applications, including Quark and, significantly, various versions of Internet Explorer on various platforms.


The symptom in Internet Explorer is that the browser becomes "stuck" in downloading an image file, and its memory utilization starts to increase at the rate of about 100K per minute. After this occurs, the browser can still navigate, but it will not display any images at all -- neither offending PS 7 JPEG images nor any other kind of images, on photo.net or any other site. People have noticed this behaviour and tend to blame it on photo.net, since they don't encounter it on other sites. This is only because other sites have more control over the images that are included on the site, whereas photo.net currently accepts all JPEG files.


Once the browser is blasted by one of these JPEG image bombs, one can recover on some platforms by closing all browser windows and restarting the browser. On some platforms, it is reported that it is necessary to reboot the entire system.


We have searched the Microsoft web site for Internet Explorer workarounds or patches for this problem, and we have not been able to find any. IE 5 and 6 on Windows 2K, and IE 6 on Windows XP are some of the version/platform combinations that are impacted, but there are likely others.


On Adobe's web site, various workarounds given include using the "Save for Web..." function to write the JPEG file, or to set Preferences to disable the saving of "preview" data in output files. Since these workarounds require action on the part of the Photoshop 7 user, photo.net is currently at the mercy of any PS 7 user who does not know about this problem or ignores it.


We are therefore working urgently on a way to filter out these JPEG images. In the meanwhile, we appeal to our users not to upload JPEG images created in PS7 unless they have been saved using the "Save for Web..." feature.

-- Services Photonet , September 05, 2002; 10:10 A.M. Eastern

[T Paul]

Additional Information

When you save a JPEG file with the Image Preview preference selected, Photoshop saves a preview of the file for display in Windows. Some page layout applications can't read the Windows preview data for JPEG files saved from Photoshop 7.0 in Windows 2000.

If you use the Save for Web command or save the file as PDF, Photoshop doesn't add preview data to the image.

Adobe Support Knowledge Base


~T

[jeaniesa]

Wow - great research T!! I'm surprised we haven't seen this problem before.

Jeanie

[T Paul]

I think we have just been lucky and that most people have fortunately chose the save for web option when saving their images.

~T

[CJ Swartz]

T -- good job of finding the cause!

I use IE6 on Win98 OS, and I can't visit the new Challenges (posted within the Gallery space) or the Gallery without getting my browser screwed up.

Are we going to post a request to PS7 users to check their uploaded files to make sure they used "Save for web"?

(I just downloaded PS7 upgrade -- I'm glad that I use "Save for web", and I'm glad that I learned about this my first day of PS7 use.)

[T Paul]

CJ

Thanks. I think Doug should give me a gold star

For a temporary fix, you can view the challenges if you close your browser and reopen it then go to challenges without going to the gallery. The moment you go to the gallery the IE browser will be corrupted and no longer will be able to display images. Also it appears that Netscape doesn't have this glitch. So you might consider downloading it as a backup browser.

~T

[CJ Swartz]

I'd recently downloaded Mozilla, so I installed it and it works fine -- I can view any of the Gallery and Challenge images and also see attachment files in threads.

We need a permanent fix for this.

[DJ Dubovsky]

Good job T!!! I also agree with Chuck that there is something else going on here too or this problem would've been present from the time of PS 7s release. I have a feeling not that many use that save for web feature. I think we definately have something to go on here though and that's more than we had yesterday or the day before that. Let's hope we can get this worked out soon.
DJ

[T Paul]

If you are not using the "save for web" option but you have set Preferences to disable the saving of "preview" data in output files that seems to fix the problem as well.

Solution 2
Disable the Image Preview preference in Photoshop, save a copy of the file, and then import the copy into the page layout application:
1. In Photoshop, choose Edit > Preferences > File Handling.
2. Choose Never Save from the Image Previews pop-up menu.
3. Click OK.
4. Open the JPEG file, and choose File > Save As.
5. Select As a Copy, and specify a filename and location for the copy.
6. Click Save.
7. Import the copy into the page layout application.

Or perhaps if you have applied the 7.01 patch to PhotoShop, that might fix the problem as well (meaning that the images won't corrupt a browser, but it won't fix the viewing problem if the images were saved wrong, because I have the latest update and I can't view the gallery with IE).

I think the key is to find out how the trouble images were saved. Did the they have the 7.01 update? Did they use the "save for web option"? Or did they have the image preview disabled? Once we find out those answers perhaps we can work the solution.

~T

[CJ Swartz]

Is someone working on fixing the current problem with viewing the gallery?

Are people being asked to delete and re-upload their images, or whatever might work so that we can get the "corrupted" files out of the website?

I changed my browser from IE5 to 6 so I could view the new site without the errors that occurred when using IE5; now do I have to give up IE altogether?

[T Paul]

We are still not positive what is causing the corruption of the IE browser. I am only guessing that it might be the PhotoShop 7.0 JPEG issue mentioned above. The issue is being looked into and once a solution is discovered, the fix will be implemented as quickly as possible. For the meantime use an alternative browser to view the gallery such as Netscape or Mozilla. You can use IE to view all other pages as long as you don't go to the gallery. Sorry for the inconvience. Currently I am in the same boat as you.

~T

[T Paul]

Chuck,

You don't have to delete your gallery images as I checked your images and they are not causing the problem.

~T

[CJ Swartz]

T -- thanks for the update! I'm sure it is frustrating for you and Doug as well as the rest of us. The last I'd read from Doug said he wasn't having any problem while using IE6 and viewing the gallery, but I can't imagine how it would affect only some of us.

Couldn't we set up a poll to see who has been affected? Or has everyone already emailed you and Doug to show they're having problems also?

Chuck -- glad my post helped you find Mozilla. I'd decided to try it after watching TechTV, but I hadn' t planned on using it for long -- if it doesn't have too many bugs, maybe we'll all have to switch to it. I was finally able to view your newest images -- love them!

[pstewart]

Originally posted by CJ Swartz
T -- thanks for the update! I'm sure it is frustrating for you and Doug as well as the rest of us. The last I'd read from Doug said he wasn't having any problem while using IE6 and viewing the gallery, but I can't imagine how it would affect only some of us.

It's not been a problem for me at all. Could that be because I have a Mac so my IE is different from those which run on Windows? It has the same name, but the coding must be different. Whatever glitch is in IE for Windows may not exist in the Mac version. Is there anyone using a Mac with IE who HAS had problems with the gallery?

Phyllis

[T Paul]

Gallery Glitch poll has been added...

Click here to take the poll and comment on the issue.

THANKS

~T

[CJ Swartz]

(Hmmm, Mac users aren't having any problem with the site, and Apple just announced their new product line -- is this all just part of a marketing ploy? )

[T Paul]

In Photoshop 7, Adobe has decided to include XML metadata within their JPEGs. Unfortunately there is no way to exclude this info AND it adds quite a lot of weight to the file size. Adobe does have a "Save for Web" option in Photoshop which removes all extraneous data.

From what I've read on the Adobe forums, the metadata does adhere to the JPEG standard and so applications which comply with the standard should be able to handle these JPEGs. The problems many people are having are with applications that choke on this metadata.

So, the problem might be that the trouble images were saved in PhotoShop 7.0 vs PhotoShop 7.01. I believe that the update patch for 7.0 might have fixed the problem as it states that part of the update is that Metadata is better preserved in certain JPEG files.

~T