Placeholders and not graphics being shown 4

[Crustyoldbloke]

I don't normally stray into this forum, it's a bit technical for me, but I have a question that I have been unable to work out for myself.

I'm in the UK. I use DUN with a 56K internal modem and usually connect at 54667bps. My ISP is blueyonder, which is cable throughout the UK (I think). I'm on IE6.0 with Win98 (FE) and I also use a modem accelerator.

Sometimes, and not often, when I'm browsing/surfing the web, instead of seeing a graphic (GIF, or JPEG), I just get a placeholder. I've tried adjusting most things within IE and have slowed my modem down thinking that I was connecting faster than the graphics could load. Nothing seems to work, and sometime later, albeit a day or so, everything is back to normal.

I have contented myself in the past by blaming my ISP, but I would really like a technical answer from you guys.

Thanks in anticipation and please ignore the bit in red under my name, as I normally give tips in other forums and I can't be bothered to change it for just one question. Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
Phil
Please tell me if the answer I gave was helpful or a mere bus ride out. Without your feedback I won't know.

 

[Accessdabbler]

I'll take a stab and guess that the reason may be due to the graphics being from a different web page. Many graphics don't reside on the web server you're accessing; they are "linked" to another website. If that website is down/slow at that time, your graphic won't load.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

A worthy stab, but I don't think it can be that. I spend a lot of my time checking so-called facts. For that reason, I visit websites that have accessible databases, for example Royal Mail, British telecom, Electoral Register etc.

Whatever happens on the day that these placeholders rather than graphics appear, it is to all sites and not just some.

It can make life a little difficult. Take this morning as an example, I'm on Royal Mail and I've inserted into the boxes the information to hand and now wish to search their database to find the answer I want. The only difficulty is that I can't tell which box to click to say GO or SEARCH because they're just rectangles with a red cross in the top left corner. If I hover the cursor over the rectangle, I get a lengthy string made up of JAVA or some other language that doesn't give me (a non-techie) a clue, so I take a chance and click the furthest left, and I get the postal rates for Europe.

I just wonder whether this is something to do with the packet size being transmitted or is it a plot by Blueyonder to make DUN unpopular in order to make me sign up for Broadband (not a hope at this stage).

Thanks for your input. I always like reading your posts. Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
Phil
Please tell me if the answer I gave was helpful or a mere bus ride out. Without your feedback I won't know.

 

[TheOldMan346]

Crustyoldbloke,

Your cache may be full or close to being full if it is an intermittent problem. See this link.

http://www.mvps.org/inetexplorer/answers.htm#jpg_gif

Accessdabbler is right in that graphics are links to files on a web site somewhere. If that site is down or not responding, you get the red X icon. When viewing a page, pull down the View menu and choose Source. That is what the web page "really" looks like. In there you'll find the href to the actual location of the graphics.

In the above link, there are a few possible conditions. Most would result in consistent failures but I would lean toward the cache in what you describe.

Hope that helps. What goes around - comes around.
The Old Man

If you feel that this post can help others, please indicate it with a star.

 

[dilettante]

If you try reloading individual graphics does it work? Right-click on the broken-graphic icon and select "load image" or whatever it is called?

My guess is that you have a "dirty" connection, and that the individual "pulls" of items (the page itself, each graphic, etc.) are getting interrupted. Timeouts from a busy network will do this too.

Do you also have pages "hang" from time to time and fail to complete loading? Does hitting the "refresh" then get the page loaded?

 

[Grenage]

I've had issues before with graphics and DNS (strange I know it shouldn't effect it). Have you tried manually changing your DNS server on the connection properties ?

Next time it goes a bit funny (if it does) try changing/adding 213.120.62.101 and 213.120.62.102 to see if it resolves.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

There's some good stuff coming up here, things that I would not have considered earlier. Today all is OK, so I can't try the DNS cure or the load image thingy, but I'll certainly give them a go when the problem next occurs.

Now my ISP has been down today(I wonder), it's back up now obviously, or I would not be writing this.

At the moment, I am leaning towards busy network timeouts, simply because the ISP is making a loss and underinvesting.

Please keep them coming. In the meantime, I have shown my appreciation to you all. All computers wait at the same speed....
Phil
Please tell me if the answer I gave was helpful or a mere bus ride out. Without your feedback I won't know.

 

[Grenage]

BlueYonder are supposed to be good, hope it gets sorted soon

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Grenage

Have a look at this email received today. How can they delete files held on my PC?

Telewest Broadband is working towards introducing a new email platform for blueyonder customers early in the New Year. The new platform is the first step towards improving performance for blueyonder email services.

As part of a new on-going maintenance schedule, we will carry out a regular "clean up" of your "Deleted Items" folder, starting on Tuesday 17th December 2002.

This means we will permanently remove all emails within this folder. If you want to keep any emails currently held in the "Deleted Items" folder, please move them to another folder before the 17th December. Any emails removed as part of this maintenance process can not be retrieved.

We will keep you updated on the migration through email and other sources such as blueyonder's Status Page, Newsgroups and Help Sites. This email is for your information. Please do not call our blueyonder service centre for further information at this time.


The team at blueyonder Hidden DOS secret: Add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS
Phil
Please tell me if the answer I gave was correct. Without your feedback I won't know.

 

[Grenage]

I would have to assume that only stands for deleted items present in your web-mail folders rather than downloaded ones on your PC, don't see how they could remove them from your personal machine.

Either way though, it's a bit off.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Hello again Chaps

I'm wondering if anyone can advise me on modulation types and their implications. Another person is having the same problem as myself. Below is a reply to him from me, all fairly self-explanatory. Comments Please?

Do you use DUN? If so would you be kind emough to have a look at MODULATION TYPE, it's underMY COMPUTER-DIALUP NETWORKING-RIGHT CLICK ON any connection you may have-PROPERTIES-CONFIGURE-CONNECTION-ADVANCED-ADVANCED CONNECTION SETTINGS.

I'm reading that pop3 ISP's that still allow 28.8kbs modem speed, are finding that setting changing from STANDARD to NON STANDARD(BELL HST).

I don't know if this has anything to do with our problem, but it's worth pursuing. Why doesn't DOS ever say 'EXCELLENT'?
Phil
If you diagree with the advice I give, please send an email with the word RESIGNATION as the subject.

 

[Morsing]

I think Accessdabler and Greenage are on the right track. To load balance you can actually let your DNS give different ip number for the same request. This means that, since Netscape uses multiple connections, it requests different parts of the page from different servers.

If one server is down, some of the page might not get loaded.

Cheers Henrik Morsing
IBM Certified AIX 4.3 Systems Administration

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Thankyou. I have changed one connection to the suggested DNS server ip settings. This way, if and when it goes "a bit funny", I'll be able to dial up a different connetion with the changes and see if there's any dfference. Press any key... no, No, NO!! Not THAT one!
Phil
If you diagree with the advice I give, please send an email with the word RESIGNATION as the subject.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Happy New Year Everyone

First day back after the Christmas break and I have to report that using a different DNS server ip settings did not work.

We have not cracked this one unfortunately, but thanks to everyone who inputted. Error! Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue
Phil
Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

 

[pansophic]

Crustyoldbloke,

try downloading ethereal and running it when you have this problem. It will capture the entire session, and allow you to analyze the reason for the loss of graphics.

It may be that the browser is never actually requesting the graphics, or that the graphics are never actually downloading, but with a session capture, we can identify which problem is occurring.

http://www.ethereal.com

pansophic