Forum OpenACS Q&A: Problems with MS IE6

Posted by Steve Manning on 08/19/04 01:04 AM

Has anyone expirienced problems using IE6 to access OACS sites. We don't use IE in house but we test with it to ensure that we remain compatible. We are suddenly seeing a problem where IE6 hangs whilst accessing our eCommerce development server.

Specifically when going for the index page across http it spins whilst retrieving images with the status bar showing '23 items remaining' or some such number. Once it has wedged trying to access our page it then fails to access other sites with the same effect e.g www.bbc.co.uk or amazon.com. If you restart the pc you can then get back into these other sites but any attempt to access the development server reproduces the same result.

I've googled around for references and it appears that its a known problem for IE to spin but there seems to be no common solution, I think because the cause is not known although there where some hints towards IE6 not being able to handle redirection (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=837489).

Anyway we seem to be stuck with a server which can't be accessed from IE6 and as this is soon to be a public site this is not an ideal situation. Has anyone come across this problem? And can anyone offer a solution?

- Steve

2: Re: Problems with MS IE6 (response to 1)

Posted by russell muetzelfeldt on 08/19/04 03:06 AM

Steve,

Your symptoms (images fail to load, stops IE from correctly loading other images from then on) sound like a match for http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817177

Basically, there are some images that make IE crap itself - we first noticed it with some client-provided files that had been saved with photoshop metadata embedded as XML (iirc)... the only practical solution is to make sure none of the images on your sites trigger this lossage in IE...

(insert standard "IE blows goats" comment here)

3: Re: Problems with MS IE6 (response to 1)

Posted by Steve Manning on 08/19/04 10:10 AM

Thanks Russell

I like the fact that its a Hot Fix - so you have to pay or wait for the next release of IE!?!

I hadn't thought that it could be an actual image file causing it. The index page is mostly client supplied gifs although the categories use thumbnails of jpgs. Does Imagemagic carry across the xml info when it creates a thumbnail? I'm not a Photoshop user but I'm told there is a save for web option which may solve this.

I'm going to try and get a public accessible site up so that you can see the problem first hand.

- Steve

4: Re: Problems with MS IE6 (response to 3)

Posted by russell muetzelfeldt on 08/19/04 11:45 AM

Yeah, the HotFix thing is absurd - and it's been that way for well over a year (istr we were first bitten by it early 2003, and it was already a "known problem")... even if there was an IE update that fixed it, the only real solution if you're working on sites without a controlled user population is to not trigger the bug... bleh...

We saw the problem with jpegs, but to my reading the KB article implies it can be any image type. We solved our problem by having our client resupply the images without the embedded XML metadata (I'm not a photoshop user either, so I don't know what switch needs switching to make that happen), but adding +profile "*" to your imagemagick command line may help (that removes colour profiles, but I don't know if it also strips out the rest of the metadata too).

as a first-cut test, I'd save out all the images that are currently being used and replace them with simple texture jpegs or something like that.

5: Re: Problems with MS IE6 (response to 1)

Posted by Torben Brosten on 08/19/04 11:48 AM

Steve,

I'm not sure about the embedded xml, but have experienced similar symptoms when saving photoshop images in web format using nonstandard color settings, such as cymk, and some rgb color profiles.

"mogrify" and "convert" did not change these as I used them, but might be able to adapt affected images since these commands have much control over image processing. Still, you're probably better off working from originals, if possible, since significant image information is usually lost with each conversion.

Torben

6: Re: Problems with MS IE6 (response to 1)

Posted by Steve Manning on 08/19/04 02:17 PM

Thanks guys. As a quick test I moved all the jpeg thumbnails (created with convert from Photoshop images). I then opened one in the Gimp saved it as an .xcf then saved it again as a .jpg - this stripped out any metadata as .xcf doesn't support it. I then stuck that back in and sure enough IE 6 loaded the page without problems. I then stuck ONE of the origianl jpegs back and IE hung. So I'm hoping thats the answer.

Incidently I noticed that the original thumbnail was 20k from a 30k orignal image!?! The GIMP one was only 5k so I'm pretty sure the original is carrying some baggage.

I'm going back to the client and asking him to resave and submit the images again.

- Steve

7: Re: Problems with MS IE6 (response to 6)

Posted by Patrick Giagnocavo on 08/19/04 02:47 PM

I suggest the use of "jhead", found at http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead . Under Debian, running "apt-get install jhead" will download and install this for you.

This kind of behavior is often seen on Macintosh files (at least under OS9 and earlier) where a thumbnail preview is generated and stored in the first part of the filename. From your post, it sounds like other information is also being stored in the first part of the JPEG file.

By stripping the thumbnail and other data out of the image file, you can sometimes get a substantial decrease in image size.

This is not a problem under GIF because it is a simpler format that does not allow you to put this extra info into the file to begin with.

8: Re: Problems with MS IE6 (response to 7)

Posted by Steve Manning on 08/19/04 08:32 PM

Thanks for the suggestion Patrick. I actually went back to the client and had him fix the files for two reasons - 1. they needed to be fixed on the back office system so that if they are reimported the problem doesn't reoccur and 2. I didn't want to do it cos the client will expect me to do it every time. Its better to train him to save them as web images and avoid the problem. You know what they say "Light a fire for a man and he can keep himself warm for a day, set fire to him and he can keep himself warm for the rest of his life" or something like that

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. It appears to be spot on. The client has resaved the thumbnails for the index page and IE loads it first time (its also quicker as they are considerably smaller). So that looks like a fix.

- Steve