PROBLEM WITH VIEWING IMAGES

[DavidWW]

Just to let you all know, that I have followed David's advice and submitted my contact form to scotlandspeople. At the moment I can successfuly view my images by "download direct", but why should we have to change the habit of a lifetime.
Here's hoping I get a suitable reply
I'll keep you guy's posted.
Diane

Diane

Please keep us posted, since Sporran and I are both members of the SP Users Group, and are keen to be kept informed on how such problems are handled.

David

[pinkshoes]

Hi all

This is the reply I received today to my contact form on the same problem :


"With regards to viewing images on our web site:

There are three different ways to view images on our web site. Currently
your user is set to view images using an 'ActiveX Control'. This means the
image should open in a small box in the web page and you should have a
collection of buttons to the left of the the image.
If you cannot see this or if you do not see the eight buttons on the left of
the image, then our 'ActiveX Control' may not be working properly on your
computer. If you are having this problem or if you simply want to simplify
the way you view images then the best way to proceed would be to change the
way you look at images.
This is very easy to do: simply log in to the main page then click on 'My
Details' which is just under the FAQs button on the top left of the page.
Now scroll to the bottom of this page and where you see the option for
'ActiveX Control' change it to either 'Direct Download' or 'Java Applet'.
The simplest will be 'Direct Download'. This will let you save the image to
your computer instead of just viewing it on the site. This means you can
view the image with your favourite software and also means you can view the
image whilst not connected to the internet.

I have checked the image(s) in question from your account and have no
problems viewing them myself using all three methods.
Any images you have previously paid for will be viewable for no extra charge
in your viewed images section.
Hope this is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact us again if there is
anything else we can help you with.

Thank you for your query.

Yours Sincerely,
Dave Caughey"

I've not yet fiddled with the controls, so don't know if the solution is in sight. However, before I sent the contact form I did as suggested on SP and checked that ActiveX thingy was working, which it was. May be jumping the gun, but I think this is a brush off - nothing different about my computer, and I've been viewing images without problems for ages.

Pinkshoes

[DavidWW]

.....snipped......
I've not yet fiddled with the controls, so don't know if the solution is in sight. However, before I sent the contact form I did as suggested on SP and checked that ActiveX thingy was working, which it was. May be jumping the gun, but I think this is a brush off - nothing different about my computer, and I've been viewing images without problems for ages.

Pinkshoes

Hi Pinkshoes

I tend to agree that this looks like a standard off-the-shelf answer.

I'd suggest you email him back and point out that everything was working fine, you've changed nothing, and exactly the same has happened to at least one other person, so what gives?

David

[pinkshoes]

David, will do as you suggest and let you know the outcome.

Pinkshoes

[DavidWW]

David, will do as you suggest and let you know the outcome.

Pinkshoes

Thanks

David

[sporran]

Hello everyone,


firstly, my sympathies to those of you having problems, and, as David stated, I have been monitoring the problem as well.

However, I am writing as a former support engineer and manager, mainly for a well-known computer company (no advertising, but rearrange "P" and "H").

The main, and very frustrating, problem for remote support people is in not having access to the customer's system. If it is not an already known problem, the first action is to try to reproduce the problem. SP have done that: the image was checked and it was viewed using ActiveX controls. Therefore, the support person at SP must conclude that the problem is with the users' configurations.

I do not wish to antagonise the people with problems, but I had many cases where a customer would say that he had made no change. After extensive enquiries to him (and usually a lot of time), I would eventually get "I did such and such, but that would not have caused the problem", and of course that proved to be the reason.

As an example of a problem on my PC, FreeCell ( a game built into Windows 98 ) stopped working after I installed my Wanadoo internet connection kit. In disbelief, I uninstalled, checked, re-installed and was certain that the Wanadoo software was causing the problem. But why would software to use a modem in order to connect to the internet interfere with a graphics game, and only that game? I called Wanadoo, and it was a known problem, but the support chap had no idea why.

So, I think that SP did the right thing, because I can not see how it is their problem (unless, of course, the SP site had made changes that "would not make a difference"!).

What to do? I am not very technical now, certainly not with ActiveX. However, I would advise the users with problems to search their minds for any changes that they made, however irrelevant they may think that they are. Try to view images again, but using only the minimum facilities on the PC, i.e. only the internet browser (no mail, no music, no other programs, no fancy "themes"), what support people call a "plain vanilla" configuration. Gradually introduce changes until the problem comes back.

The ultimate solution, but not for the faint-hearted, is to back up all your files, re-format the disk, and re-install the operating system and packages. This will give a new lease of life to your PC, since all the dross that Microsoft and some others put into the Registry and elsewhere will be removed, and your system should run a lot faster. However, it will take several days and you really do need to know what you are doing.

Sorry that I could not offer a solution, but I can not see what else SP could have done. For security reasons, I would always advise Direct Download and the use of an image viewing or manipulation package. There are several freeware or old copies of commercial packages available, as has been mentioned elsewhere on this board.


Regards,

John

[pinkshoes]

Everybody - this is what I received today in response to 2nd email :

"We have started to notice that users of Microsoft Internet Explorer have
been recently having problems viewing images on our website by using our
ActiveX control. After updating windows on a test machine we noticed that we
had to reinstall our ActiveX control before we could view images with
Internet Explorer. We have made no change to the site which would cause this
to happen and can only suggest this may be due to a Microsoft Update.
Automatically re-installing the ActiveX control may not be possible on
machines with certain security settings in Internet Explorer. If you are
trying to view our images by ActiveX and you only see a small square or
repeatedly have problems then I would advise you try viewing our images
using Java. To do this, login to the site, click 'My Details', change
'ActiveX' to 'Java Applet' and click 'Update Details'. You may need to first
make sure Java is installed for your browser. You can do this by visiting
www.java.com and following the prompts.

The recent images in your account all open fine on two machines here so
there is not a problem with the images at our end.

You could try to delete your cache of stored web pages as they may have a
corrupt file or two in them. To do this:
- Close all open Internet Explorer windows
- Load one instance of Internet Explorer
- Go to a simple page that normally has no cookies, eg: "www.google.com"
- Click on the 'Tools' menu then 'Internet Options'
- Under 'Temporary Internet Files' click on 'Delete Files'
- Tick the box that says 'Delete all ofline content' (if this is shown)
- Click on OK and then wait for completion (can take some time)
- Finally close and restart you browser before trying the site again

Hope this is helpful,

Dave Caughey

Scotland's People"

Sporran - as always, good common sense response from you - thank you. (I'm not in the least put out by the veiled suggestion that I may not know what I'm on about) Hand on heart though, I really haven't changed anything (wouldn't really know how) Hubby swears he hasn't either. Only other suspect is the music/gaming/everything else daughter who occupies a room somewhere in our house I will question her carefully, but to be honest she's seldom near my computer as she has a battery of hi-tech stuff of her own and my modest gear wouldn't touch her requirements.

I'll wait to hear if there's anything else on the subject before twiddling any knobs here.

SP obviously ran the appropriate tests but (and I may not have made this very clear), the problem I have is with first time downloads. I can view previous images OK. Would that make a difference to their tests? Sorry if the answer is obvious!

I'm off to administer the 3rd degree, and if I survive I will confess to any changes to my system.

Thanks for your help.

Pinkshoes.

[AndrewP]

Hi Pinkshoes,

Is your computer set up to automatically receive Windows Updates? Your daughter may not be to blame.

My PC taken in two updates during the past week. One claims to be a solution to a problem with Outlook Express, and the other one is to do with malicious software removal. Neither mentions anything to with ActiveX, but how are we to know?

All the best,

Andrew Paterson

[pinkshoes]

Hi Andrew - 3rd degree over and daughter cleared of suspicion! She says she's not touched the computer so that's an end of it. However, she did say, like you, that the automatic updates could have something to do with it.

Have to say though the problem is getting worse - I've just tried opening a previously viewed image, and didn't get past the opening bars! I did it in "vanilla config" but no joy. I may have to change to Java and see what happens, then do direct downloads for new images?

Thanks for your help.

Pinkshoes

[CathieL]

Hi Pinkshoes
My reply was the same as yours

Catherine,

We have started to notice that users of Microsoft Internet Explorer have been recently having problems viewing images on our website by using our ActiveX control. After updating windows on a test machine we noticed that we had to reinstall our ActiveX control before we could view images with Internet Explorer. We have made no change to the site which would cause this to happen and can only suggest this may be due to a Microsoft Update.
Automatically re-installing the ActiveX control may not be possible on machines with certain security settings in Internet Explorer. If you are trying to view our images by ActiveX and you only see a small square or repeatedly have problems then I would advise you try viewing our images using Java. To do this, login to the site, click 'My Details', change 'ActiveX' to 'Java Applet' and click 'Update Details'. You may need to first make sure Java is installed for your browser. You can do this by visiting www.java.com and following the prompts.
Just to be sure, I have checked the problem images in your account and they open fine. They will be available from your 'Viewed Images' section for no extra cost.

Hope this is helpful,

Dave Caughey
Scotland's People


I am not messing with my computer because it works fine but I may switch to Java as I already use that to view the Dunoon Webcam. As for the "problem images" I should hope there is no extra cost, I told them I could view the images but only after I restarted my PC, I guess they did not understand that part.
Cathie