Attn: Tech-savvy people! ^_^

SME · Post by **SME** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:40 pm

Hi everyone! I spent hours looking at my code trying to figure this out, but I'm dumbfounded and I need your help.

My fansite Sailor Moon Experience is perfectly viewable on my computer and both my browsers (IE and Firefox). Now I've been getting several e-mails from people saying that when they access my Gallery section or my Banner Links section (located under exit), none of the images show up. They don't get the little red x's you see when it's a broken image, they just don't get any image at all, it just shows up as a page with no pictures. The text shows up fine, just no images.

Now I talked with a fellow Betarian and she said that when she turns off her firewall with Norton anti-virus, she can see my site (and http://neopets.com) perfectly fine, pictures and all from the Gallery and Banner Links section. However, when she enables the firewall, the pictures disappear. Anyone know if this is somehow linked to the person's firewall (I have McAfee Antivirus/Firewall)? Or did something go wonky with my code? I swear I checked all my codes (I use CSE HTML Validator Pro) as well as check at w3.org but my codes seem to be fine. Anyone else have a similar experience or even know what the heck is going on?

Any help is much appreciated, thanks so much!

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 2:39 pm

Maybe it's something to do with frames? I know that was always a problem for lots of users years ago, it may not be an issue nowadays.

Also, I couldn't actually access your Image Gallery page, I was redirected to the home page, the Home page link was even in the status display bar on the bottom of my browser window when I hovered over the link.

I can't otherwsie offer an explanation as to why some users are experiencing viewing problems. Perhaps they need their eyesight tested or adjust their glasses?

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 2:39 pm

Perhaps. What else to do with frames ?

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 2:50 pm

Firstly, I have the same problem as Krafty.. I click the gallery link and get redirected back to the home page.

Yes, some firewalls have been known to drop packets from images... I used to have that problem with Norton Personal Firewall. I don't think it has anything to do with your code, but it probably has everything to do with those firewall configurations. I can't explain how to reconfigure the firewall to fix that, because I was never able to figure it out. I suppose configuring the firewall to allow all incoming traffic on port 80 might work, but that would make a big gaping hole in the firewall.

Ok, first, here's the problem Krafty & I are having (I'm copying and pasting the code that's causing it):

<a href="home.htm">[#]</a> If you have read and agree to all the rules, click here to enter the gallery.<br /><br />

<a href="home.htm">[#]</a> If you do not agree to the above rules, and cannot seem to appreciate the hard work that goes into creating screencaps, you may click here.

Both links go to the home page. (This was copied from your galleriesmain.htm page)

Can't really check the other problem you mention til we can see the gallery page

vampyreshoujo · Post by **vampyreshoujo** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 2:58 pm

zerospace wrote:Firstly, I have the same problem as Krafty.. I click the gallery link and get redirected back to the home page.

You'll have to read the rules. The actual link to the gallery is in there. ^^;;

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:11 pm

vampyreshoujo wrote:
zerospace wrote:Firstly, I have the same problem as Krafty.. I click the gallery link and get redirected back to the home page.
You'll have to read the rules. The actual link to the gallery is in there. ^^;;

See the code I quoted above.... I click that link and get directed back home - the one that says "I have read the rules, etc, etc"

Ohhhh now there's an interesting pickle.. didn't see this before, but I found the other link into the gallery and it does work. But uhhh, that one that I quoted above might need to be fixed.

By the way, once I get into the gallery, the images seem to load just fine for me.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:13 pm

What are your goals in life?

vampyreshoujo · Post by **vampyreshoujo** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:19 pm

zerospace wrote:See the code I quoted above.... I click that link and get directed back home - the one that says "I have read the rules, etc, etc"

But... you didn't actually read the rules. The real link to the galleries is in the list of rules.

Rule 5: If you agree to the above, then click <a href="galleries.html">here</a>. Make sure you have read all the rules, they are there for a reason!

Both of the bottom links are fake links to make sure you read the rules. I was just trying to help....

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:21 pm

vampyreshoujo wrote:
zerospace wrote:See the code I quoted above.... I click that link and get directed back home - the one that says "I have read the rules, etc, etc"
But... you didn't actually read the rules. The real link to the galleries is in the list of rules.

Rule 5: If you agree to the above, then click <a href="galleries.html">here</a>. Make sure you have read all the rules, they are there for a reason!

Both of the bottom links are fake links to make sure you read the rules. I was just trying to help....

Yeah I just saw that

But umm... that's kinda... confusing if you ask me - to have fake links like that. Just my opinion

SME · Post by **SME** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:34 pm

LOL! Yea it's there so people actually have to read the rules instead of going directly to the gallery. So many people have clicked the bottom two links (I have a link counter) and only half of that are the ones that click on the one that is hidden in the rules. That is sheer proof right there that most people jump down to the bottom to get to the gallery without reading the rules first. ^_^ I learned that from another huge picture gallery provider that was sick and tired of people taking her images without credit (mind you at the time her website was really the only place you could get some of her pictures from the rare manga artbooks).

But seems like none of you guys are having the problem these other people have been having. I really don't know what's going on...I've been trying to figure it out as of late but still with no results. It was pointed out it might definitely have to do with a firewall, but I'd hate to tell people to turn off their firewall so they can see my pictures...maybe I should tell them to convert to McAfee LOL...be their 'unofficial' spokesperson.

To show what I mean I just went ahead and did a direct link to one of the galleries, to get to the toubleshooting faster. Sorry about the above confusion LOL I forgot to point out you have to read the rules to get to the gallery. But here is the direct link Gallery 121

vampyreshoujo · Post by **vampyreshoujo** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:49 pm

zerospace wrote:Yeah I just saw that

Yeah, looks like we were both posting/editing at the same time. ^^;;

Sorry I'm not any help with your actual problem, SME.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:56 pm

Honestly, SME, it's got to be a firewall issue. Works fine for me in both FF and IE. I'll check it on my home computer too (I'm at work) and I can even have someone check it on a Mac for ya.

You might want to ask those who are having the problems what kind of firewall (if any) they're using. See if there's some sort of pattern because I don't see anything wrong with your code.

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:06 am

When the code seems fine, I have two other ideas. The pics may not have shown up because eiter...

1) Your visitors may have been trying to acces the site via a school/college/work computer and the admin has restricted access to downloading images or images of a certain type [large file sizes perhaps]. It's far fetched, I know, but CAN happen.

2) Your host was temporarily down while the visitors who complained were trying to access it. Webhosts wil sometimes store images/video and other files types on multiple servers, one may have been out of action while still displaying the page layout.

SilentBidder · Post by **SilentBidder** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:14 am

I think Norton thinks it's either seeing ads in the HTML code, or the Firewall has been configured to disable the Active scripting (there's JScript code in the source). These are both known issues with the Norton Internet Security (NIS).

NIS Graphics Issue and fix:
Symantec Graphics Issue

Ad fix Link:
Symantec Ad Workaround

Both of the above issues imply that it's a client side issue.

Other possible solution paths:
1. Link to MSDN that might resolve the problem on the client side.
Microsoft MSDN

Basically, go through each of those steps to see if it fixes the problem. I do not recommend screwing around in the registry (as suggested at the bottom of the last diagnostic step) unless you know what you are doing.

2. If you've recently upgraded Internet Explorer AFTER you've installed Norton Internet Security (the software suite that contains Norton Personal Firewall), then try resetting your firewall settings. If this fails, then you can try and reinstall NIS to see if it resolves the problem.

3. If you're running IE 5.5, then it's a forced upgrade to 6.0 or later.

Hope this helps.

SME · Post by **SME** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:53 am

SilentBidder wrote: 1. Link to MSDN that might resolve the problem on the client side.
Microsoft MSDN

Basically, go through each of those steps to see if it fixes the problem. I do not recommend screwing around in the registry (as suggested at the bottom of the last diagnostic step) unless you know what you are doing.

2. If you've recently upgraded Internet Explorer AFTER you've installed Norton Internet Security (the software suite that contains Norton Personal Firewall), then try resetting your firewall settings. If this fails, then you can try and reinstall NIS to see if it resolves the problem.

3. If you're running IE 5.5, then it's a forced upgrade to 6.0 or later.

Thanks SB! ^_^ I'll go ahead and e-mail the people back and forward this information to them. I'll also be posting a link at my website to inform people that if they cannot see the images, that they have to check the above to see if there are issues. I knew it couldn't be something with my code, but I guess the jscript might be messing it up for people that have Norton.

Thanks everyone for your help and support. Hopefully we've figured out the problem and I couldn't have done it without you guys!