Slideshow not working correctly for me, can others confirm?

nzphil

After several reports from my users that slideshows on Smugmug don't work properly, I spent a while investigating and found three major issues with them.

Firstly, when you click the slideshow button about half of the time it just shows a black page and the images never load. The only way I found to get the slideshow to load when this happens is to close and re-open the browser completly.

Secondly, the images in the slide show are not full screen, they have huge black bars on all four sides. The images are plenty big enough, full 12MPix and I allow viewing of the originals.

Thirdly, on my Vista computer with IE the flash application runs in a popup rather than full screen. I suspect this might be something wrong with my computer rather than Smugmug though since I wasn't able to reproduce this on any other computers.

I tested everything multiple times using IE and Firefox (without Adblock active) and using XP and Vista. The first two issues are identical on XP and Vista and my users report the same issues as well.

I tested several other smug sites and all have the same problem.

Can anyone else confirm the behaviours I have observed?

Tech details:
Firefox 3 and IE 7 on Vista and XP. All fully patched.
Latest version of Flash installed.
20Mb/sec internet connection

Andy

nzphil wrote:

Thirdly, on my Vista computer with IE the flash application runs in a popup

By design, it's an IE7 limitation, sorry

Andy

nzphil wrote:

After several reports

Hi, disable Adblock from your Firefox and then please do the steps here, and report back? Thanks!
http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/The+Full+Screen+Slideshow+Help+Page

encosion

I'm having the same problem with Slideshows - the blank screen... FF 3.0.6 OSX 10.5.6 Flash Player 10,0,12,36 (Adobe's Full Screen test works fine)

P.S. It would be fabulous if we could embed slideshow flash buttons into our blogs (tumblr / wordpress etc)... Think about it pretty please! I tried to hack one, but looks like they're dynamically generated in a way I couldn't comprehend...

Andy

encosion wrote:

I'm having the same problem with Slideshows - the blank screen... FF 3.0.6 OSX 10.5.6

P.S. It would be fabulous if we could embed slideshow flash buttons into our blogs (tumblr / wordpress etc)... Think about it pretty please! I tried to hack one, but looks like they're dynamically generated in a way I couldn't comprehend...

You can embed. Follow directions here

http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Flash+Slideshow

Please do the steps here, http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/The+Full+Screen+Slideshow+Help+Page
and let us know?

encosion

Ta! It was indeed AdBlockPlus, added an exception for smugmug.com and seems to be fine now... Thanks for the link to the info on slideshow embedding! I've just spotted that it has indeed been added to the 'Share > Get a link' menu on each gallery too!

nzphil

I already have Adblock Plus disabled for all my testing since other posts pointed to this being a possible problem, but it didn't make any difference.
Problems #1 and #2 are identical in Firefox and IE so it can not be caused by Adblock Plus.

Here is a screenshot showing both problem #2 and #3 together.
Notice that the slideshow is not full screen, and that the image is not taking up anywhere near the full window.
When the slideshow does run full screen, the images use about half of the screen size leaving big black bars on all four sides. (a few images go full screen, but most don't)
http://www.phinneyharvey.com/test/Untitled.jpg

#1 Flash version is the current version, 10,0,12,36 (also tested with older versions and the problem remains the same)

#2 IE7 on Vista Home Premium, FireFox3 on Vista Home Premium, IE7 on XP, FireFox3 on XP. All have have issues 1 and 2. Only IE7 on Vista has issue 3, so it isn't IE7 in general that causes this problem, but might be the combination of IE7 and Vista.

#3 The problem occurs in any gallery I look at

#4 That slideshow works 50% of the time, and also has problem 2 and 3.

#5 Same as #4

#6 Works perfectly in both IE7 and FF3 on both XP and Vista, which shows that problem #3 is not a direct result of running IE7 and Vista since this demo can run full screen.

I hope this helps.
Cheers
Philip

Andy wrote:

Hi, disable Adblock from your Firefox and then please do the steps here, and report back? Thanks!
http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/The+Full+Screen+Slideshow+Help+Page

rainforest1155

Hi Philip,

It's due to an issue with Vista, Flash and IE7 that the slideshow has to run in a browser window. I don't recall the details, but we had to make it that way to work properly.

I've passed it on to Dustin our bugman to have another look into it.

Sebastian

TCS

nzphil wrote:

I already have Adblock Plus disabled for all my testing since other posts pointed to this being a possible problem, but it didn't make any difference.
Problems #1 and #2 are identical in Firefox and IE so it can not be caused by Adblock Plus.

Here is a screenshot showing both problem #2 and #3 together.
Notice that the slideshow is not full screen, and that the image is not taking up anywhere near the full window.
When the slideshow does run full screen, the images use about half of the screen size leaving big black bars on all four sides. (a few images go full screen, but most don't)
http://www.phinneyharvey.com/test/Untitled.jpg

#1 Flash version is the current version, 10,0,12,36 (also tested with older versions and the problem remains the same)

#2 IE7 on Vista Home Premium, FireFox3 on Vista Home Premium, IE7 on XP, FireFox3 on XP. All have have issues 1 and 2. Only IE7 on Vista has issue 3, so it isn't IE7 in general that causes this problem, but might be the combination of IE7 and Vista.

#3 The problem occurs in any gallery I look at

#4 That slideshow works 50% of the time, and also has problem 2 and 3.

#5 Same as #4

#6 Works perfectly in both IE7 and FF3 on both XP and Vista, which shows that problem #3 is not a direct result of running IE7 and Vista since this demo can run full screen.

I hope this helps.
Cheers
Philip

Same problem here...

TCS

TCS wrote:

Same problem here...

My friend is using
Firefox 3.0
Win2000
800x600

followed steps described and it still doesn't work

this is http://touscrins.smugmug.com/gallery/6233815_rENJ7 the page

TCS

TCS wrote:

My friend is using
Firefox 3.0
Win2000
800x600

followed steps described and it still doesn't work

this is http://touscrins.smugmug.com/gallery/6233815_rENJ7 the page

This what she did
http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/The+Full+Screen+Slideshow+Help+Page

"i went to that page and i can view #4 and I can view the adobe flash show with no problem. i cannot see #5. i can see shizams slide show too. i did find this, tho.

"EDIT (August 31, 2008): Adblock Plus and Firefox3 aren't playing well with FS Slideshow and Flash. Sorry We're trying to work on this and overcome the issue with Adblock plus, updates when we have them...."

i disabled adblock plus, but it still does not work. i have firefox 3 and maybe THAT is the problem to view ur ranch photos. guess i'll have to wait til they figure it out. thanks chris.

f"

rhp

Slideshow just plain does not work
Have tried Linux, Windows, Firefox, IE, with and without AdBlock Plus, on four different computers.
Have never seen a working slideshow. It just comes up all black and empty.
Seems fundamental to a photo site!

jfriend

rhp wrote:

Have tried Linux, Windows, Firefox, IE, with and without AdBlock Plus, on four different computers.
Have never seen a working slideshow. It just comes up all black and empty.
Seems fundamental to a photo site!

What is your site address? We can't take a look to offer help without seeing your site.

npudar

No slideshow for me either
I have happily and successfully using the Slideshow feature for a very long time. Today it will not work for any of my galleries. It just locks up on the first black screen. Try this gallery...

http://photos.pudar.com/Favorites/Random-Selections/5689817_8MiZy#367729155_MYZUb

Any ideas what is happening? I have not done anything differently with my computer.

Thanks,
Nick

Andy

npudar wrote:

I have happily and successfully using the Slideshow feature for a very long time. Today it will not work for any of my galleries. It just locks up on the first black screen. Try this gallery...

http://photos.pudar.com/Favorites/Random-Selections/5689817_8MiZy#367729155_MYZUb

Any ideas what is happening? I have not done anything differently with my computer.

Thanks,
Nick

- it's working perfectly for me, FF3.5 on Mac and IE8, Win7. Have you installed any flash blocker or any new security software?

Andy

rhp wrote:

Have tried Linux, Windows, Firefox, IE, with and without AdBlock Plus, on four different computers.
Have never seen a working slideshow. It just comes up all black and empty.
Seems fundamental to a photo site!

I'm certain we can help you, please write our Support Heroes and let us help you directly from the help desk. Thanks!

npudar

Success!
Apparently all I needed to do was reboot my computer. Too many gremlins, I guess.
Thanks,
Nick

jfriend

tuningpeg6 wrote: »

my slideshow first displays the FACEBOOK & SHARE icons (located at the bottom of my page) momentarily (actually really briefly) before showing my red seal and then images. it should not display these icons at all. why is this? can someone please help! thanks!

I'm not sure what you're asking. The FB and Share icons are in your custom footer so they show on every page on your site.

jfriend

tuningpeg6 wrote: »

if you go to my homepage, before the slideshow starts, you'll see for a brief millisecond, image of my Facebook & Share icons right before the red seal appears. I'm not referring to the FB &Share icons at the bottom of the page...those are fine where they are...just at the slideshow window...they appear before the slideshow very briefly so you would have to look carefully thanks for your kind help in this matter.

I don't see it, but I might guess that it's because the Smugmug slideshowBox starts out at zero height and after the page loads, it configures it's height and width - so the things in your footer could show briefly where the slideshow is before they are pushed down as the slideshow sets it's height. This visual behavior is likely browser dependent and may depend on network speed and computer speed too.

jfriend

tuningpeg6 wrote: »

ok, thanks for that knowledge. Just wondering, when you go to my homepage, do you see the red seal first before the slideshow images? i went to internet explorer and sometimes the red seal appears and sometimes it doesn't.

I see the red seal in Chrome, but not in IE9. Not sure why.