IE6 SP2 - gallery thumbnails on index page don't display properly (NOT A BUG)

[DavidW]

I realise that IE6 isn't Pekka's favourite browser, and that this is almost certainly an IE6 bug needing to be worked around rather than an EE2 bug. Nevertheless, I think it's such a gross problem that it's worth sorting if possible.

If I set my EE2 to display thumbs on the index page, one of the two galleries had thumbs displayed in IE6. If I set my EE2 to display microthumbs on the index page, microthumbs don't appear under either gallery.


In Firefox 1.5.0.7 all works properly.


Presumably this is some kind of weird CSS bug in Internet Explorer - has anyone got any idea what can be tweaked (presumably in the templates) to solve this. As I said, I appreciate that Pekka has limited patience for working around Internet Explorer bugs, and I can cope with some things not working entirely as intended, but site features disappearing completely is a bit much!


The version of IE6 in use is the version found in Windows XP Professional SP2 with all the latest service packs / security updates. If anyone wants to see the effect for themselves (thumbs are selected), head here (http://photos.wood2.org.uk).



David

[Faustini]

DavidW, I can't see any thumbs of your "London North West Celebration, 8 July 2006 (http://photos.wood2.org.uk/list.php?exhibition=2&ee_lang=eng)" gallery on your index page. Is this it?

I started to experience this same problem after I uploaded a new photo to a pre-existent gallery. Now all thumbs of that specific gallery don't show up on the index page...

I use Internet Explorer 6 SP1 on Windows 2000 SP4.

[DavidW]

That's what I'm seeing - the Launde Abbey gallery thumbs are visible, the Celebration thumbs are not visible. (I have more photos than this, but my EE installation was only ever a semi-test installation waiting for the EE2 release and likely subsequent migration to EE2).

Other browsers work fine with EE2 as it is - even other Microsoft browsers. Pocket Internet Explorer in Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition (I am still debating whether to upgrade my iPAQ to Windows Mobile 5 - the CD is on my desk) displays thumbs for both galleries on the index page!

The question is what bug in IE6 is the XHTML code EE outputs exciting, and what the necessary work-round may be.



David

[Pekka]

Here's one of your links:

<a href="photo.php?photo=20&amp;exhibition=2&amp;ee_lang=eng&amp;u=19,1 2" title="Blessing #4" class="ee_css_ouputstyle_thumb_link"><span class="ee_css_paragraph_small"><img src="http://photos.wood2.org.uk/photos/thumb/Blessing_%234.jpg" alt="Blessing #4" class="ee_css_ouputstyle_thumb" height="110" width="73"></span></a>

The problem must be the filename Blessing_%234.jpg

[DavidW]

Here's one of your links:

<a href="photo.php?photo=20&amp;exhibition=2&amp;ee_lang=eng&amp;u=19,1 2" title="Blessing #4" class="ee_css_ouputstyle_thumb_link"><span class="ee_css_paragraph_small"><img src="http://photos.wood2.org.uk/photos/thumb/Blessing_%234.jpg" alt="Blessing #4" class="ee_css_ouputstyle_thumb" height="110" width="73"></span></a>

The problem must be the filename Blessing_%234.jpg
Well, it may be - but that's a valid filename (try it - it works, even in IE6). %23 is a #



David

[Pekka]

I can't think of any other reason. It is a valid link. EE does not have any browser detection code or CSS hacks for different browsers. Maybe IE 6 does not understand XHTML 1 STRICT doctype properly.

[DavidW]

Fair enough on the NOT A BUG marking, in that this is an IE6 bug rather than an EE bug. I'm working on one or two more issues with metadata to try to improve my workflow, and I'll do away with special characters in filenames at that point.

I think I've found another XMP bug in EE, following on from the two I've reported earlier today (and submitted with patches that are in 2.01). There's another issue with metadata handling in EE that I want to check out - indeed, I'm having something of a metadata audit all round.

Once the metadata work is done, if that hasn't cured the problem with IE6, I'll capture the results of index.php and try some hand edits to see what's happening. If there's a way of changing EE's output that doesn't break standards conformance and works with IE6, I'll submit a patch - but let's hope that my other efforts make the problem go away.



David

[Pekka]

Yes, I would like to understand why IE6 does it "wrong" - problem with browsers is that they have several modes of language interpreter (like Firefox goes to "standards compliance mode" with valid code) so it is hard to know exactly what is going on there.
Have you tried different doctypes, like without STRICT?

I'm very happy to receive all bugs and info how to improve EE2, glad you have interest in this!

[Iain]

I had the same problem, if you reduce the size of your browser they re-appear, I then changed the thumbnail count down to 5 in the index page settings & that seems to work when the browser is at its maximum size

Hope this helps

Iain

[tommykjensen]

I use IE6 SP2 and when I view your index page I see no thumbs on the "celebration" gallery but the other is fine.

But you said microthumbs. On my own gallery I use microthumbs on the index and they all show fine. But I only show groups on my index page I don't know if that makes the difference.

http://photo.klein-jensen.dk/ee/index.php

[DavidW]

If I select Microthumbs instead of Thumbs, neither public gallery gets any thumbs in IE6!



David

[Pekka]

You can easily test if it is stylesheet problem: make a style without any class definitions to ee_css_thumb or ee_css_microthumb and see how it looks. Or, set the browser to bypass page CSS and use its own CSS or no CSS.

You could also try in basecode/SETUP_settings.php

$s_obfuscate_http = "1";

which is a different way of sending the images to the browser (slower too).

[Pekka]

One more thing to test:
change in index.php line 16

ob_start ("ob_gzhandler");

to

ob_start ();

Does the same thing happen when you view site map with thumbs?

[DavidW]

You can easily test if it is stylesheet problem: make a style without any class definitions to ee_css_thumb or ee_css_microthumb and see how it looks. Or, set the browser to bypass page CSS and use its own CSS or no CSS.
That doesn't help (at least, I did what I think you wanted me to - I made sure there was no definition of ee_css_thumb anywhere in the php files that made up the style). You can't bypass CSS in IE6.

All that did was led to bigger borders for the thumbs. You don't even see the borders where the missing thumbs are; it seems to be a pretty low level problem.


You could also try in basecode/SETUP_settings.php

$s_obfuscate_http = "1";

which is a different way of sending the images to the browser (slower too).
That doesn't help - in fact, that causes all the images to be not found. Again, you don't even see the black borders before the browser starts to retrieve the images.


One more thing to test:
change in index.php line 16

ob_start ("ob_gzhandler");

to

ob_start ();
That doesn't make any difference


Does the same thing happen when you view site map with thumbs?
That works fine - as does the "latest photos" down the left of the index.php page, which contains many of the missing photos.



David

[Pekka]

That works fine - as does the "latest photos" down the left of the index.php page, which contains many of the missing photos.

That's good info, if sitemap shows all ok, then the most likely source of the problem is in templates/pages/ee_2_default/exhibition/embedded/default_XHTML_css.php (and same file in other styles)

maybe the z-index value there needs to be changed/removed.
I have to see if I can ge IE 6 back in my PC to test these things out.

[DavidW]

I'm going to bed - I'm glad the information is useful. I'm staring blankly at HTML code, too tired to see what I'm looking for - though I can tell you that when this problem triggers, nothing wrapped in the offending <div class="ee_exhibition_paragraph"> </div> tags displays (including the gallery text if I temporarily enable it).

I'll leave it with you and everyone else for now, Pekka. Hopefully we can figure out what is happening so that we can find a work-round.



David

[neil_r]

Dont know if this helps or hinders but I am using IE 7.0.5296.0 Beta 2 and have had no problem with thumbs or microthumbs. However when looking at Pekka's site I do not see his "fancy" dropdown menues.

[DavidW]

Neil - in IE7 beta, do the thumbs display for both galleries on my EE2 gallery (http://photos.wood2.org.uk)? If so, then the bug has been fixed in IE7.



David

[Pekka]

Dont know if this helps or hinders but I am using IE 7.0.5296.0 Beta 2 and have had no problem with thumbs or microthumbs. However when looking at Pekka's site I do not see his "fancy" dropdown menues.

On my live site the UDM code might be older - the latest UDM supports IE7

[Pekka]

Neil - in IE7 beta, do the thumbs display for both galleries on my EE2 gallery (http://photos.wood2.org.uk)? If so, then the bug has been fixed in IE7.



David

I have IE 7.0.5450.4 (I think its beta 3) and the thumbs show just fine.

[neil_r]

Neil - in IE7 beta, do the thumbs display for both galleries on my EE2 gallery (http://photos.wood2.org.uk)? If so, then the bug has been fixed in IE7.



David

As Pekka found too yes they are fine.

N

[DavidW]

I'm going to bed - I'm glad the information is useful. I'm staring blankly at HTML code, too tired to see what I'm looking for - though I can tell you that when this problem triggers, nothing wrapped in the offending <div class="ee_exhibition_paragraph"> </div> tags displays (including the gallery text if I temporarily enable it).
It seems it may be a size limit on the <div class="ee_exhibition_paragraph"> ... </div> - if I reduce the number of thumbs shown to five per gallery, it works in IE6 SP2.

Can anyone else experiment with this and confirm or disprove my theory?



David

[tommykjensen]

It seems it may be a size limit on the <div class="ee_exhibition_paragraph"> ... </div> - if I reduce the number of thumbs shown to five per gallery, it works in IE6 SP2.

Can anyone else experiment with this and confirm or disprove my theory?


I set two groups that are on the index to include 8 and 12 random thumbs.

Still works for me

http://photo.klein-jensen.dk/ee/

[DavidW]

I set two groups that are on the index to include 8 and 12 random thumbs.

Still works for me

http://photo.klein-jensen.dk/ee/
Your file names and titles are much shorter than mine, though - look at the source. I think IE6 has a limit on the number of characters in a <div...> ... </div> construction. For me, with longer file names and titles, that's fewer pictures per gallery than for you.

Try an experiment - set your galleries up to something like 20 or 24 thumbs and see if the larger galleries lose their thumbnails on the index page in IE6.



David

[tommykjensen]

Sorry, still works with 50 thumbs. Also the 2 exhibitions i put on the index has longer filenames.

[deblur]

a friend also told me they were having problems with using IE6. The thumbnails on the index page didn't show, but more importantly they were unable to log in.

I don't have a PC with IE6 to test it myself just now unfortunately...

[Pekka]

a friend also told me they were having problems with using IE6. The thumbnails on the index page didn't show, but more importantly they were unable to log in.

I don't have a PC with IE6 to test it myself just now unfortunately...

Thumb fix is in http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=250851

Log in problems are a different matter - no other reports like that, are you sure they accept cookies?

[deblur]

Thumb fix is in http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...d.php?t=250851
thanks, oops, yes I did see the other thread before...

Log in problems are a different matter - no other reports like that, are you sure they accept cookies?
I'll try and ask about the cookies. All they told me they just entered the login details on the main page but nothing happened when clicking on the button. I can log in myself fine, and I got them to test it using firefox on the same machine and it worked too.