IE Issue

carsonw · March 24, 2012

I normally use FireFox but I just tried viewing my website http://www.carsonwilcox.com via IE and found an issue.

When I view a gallery, any gallery, the large image view to the right of the thumbnails doesn't show up at all. Is this an issue with my IE setup or what? This is bit disturbing as it could be part of the problem with my increasing bounce rate.

Thanks
Carson

rnrjosh · March 24, 2012

The site works normally for me in IE. Is the main photo appearing beneath the thumbnails by chance? If so, this is probably due to a browser zoom issue. Try resetting your browser zoom in IE to the default zoom level, which can be done by typing CTRL+0 on your keyboard. That may be all you need to do to solve the problem.

If the photo on the right doesn't appear at all, try clearing your browser cache (temporary internet files) in IE, and then try accessing your site again. That should solve the issue if it's not the zoom issue.

carsonw · March 24, 2012

Sorry, yes it is. I need to open the browser to full screen and I've got a 24 in monitor so that seems a bit strange.

Andy · March 24, 2012

carsonw wrote: »

Sorry, yes it is. I need to open the browser to full screen and I've got a 24 in monitor so that seems a bit strange.

Is your system zoom set to something other than default? Check in your Windows CP.

carsonw · March 24, 2012

I went into IE tools and checked 'reset zoom level for new windows and tabs. That fixed the problem. Not sure if that is the default or not, I'm an old Unix guy, but if it's not it's a concern that this could be a problem for other people viewing the site.

Carson

jfriend · March 24, 2012

carsonw wrote: »

I went into IE tools and checked 'reset zoom level for new windows and tabs. That fixed the problem. Not sure if that is the default or not, I'm an old Unix guy, but if it's not it's a concern that this could be a problem for other people viewing the site.

Carson

This has been an issue on the Smugmug site for many years (browser zoom ruining the Smugmug gallery style layout). Apparently, there have been some attempts to fix it, but it remains still a problem. All we can hope for now is that the long rumored and occasionally previewed new gallery styles don't have this issue.

Andy · March 24, 2012

jfriend wrote: »

This has been an issue on the Smugmug site for many years (browser zoom ruining the Smugmug gallery style layout). Apparently, there have been some attempts to fix it, but it remains still a problem. All we can hope for now is that the long rumored and occasionally previewed new gallery styles don't have this issue.

Not Browser Zoom. System Zoom in Windows.

jfriend · March 24, 2012

Andy wrote: »

Not Browser Zoom. System Zoom in Windows.

Read post #5 in this thread. He changed zoom level in his IE BROWSER and it fixed the problem.

Andy · March 24, 2012

jfriend wrote: »

Read post #5 in this thread. He changed zoom level in his IE BROWSER and it fixed the problem.

I read it

In our testing and in the other thread not long ago on this issue, we determined it's system zoom that is the culprit. In can browser zoom all day long in IE9 and never have an issue....

jfriend · March 24, 2012

Andy wrote: »

I read it In our testing and in the other thread not long ago on this issue, we determined it's system zoom that is the culprit. In can browser zoom all day long in IE9 and never have an issue....

I know your testing didn't find the issue, but this user found that resetting the browser zoom fixed the problem for them. This problem continues to plague users. Maybe you don't know how to reproduce it, but that doesn't mean it isn't still a problem. I'm surprised you can read this thread and not think there's still a problem with browser zoom in some version of IE in some configuration.

FYI, just because you can't make a problem happen on your system does not mean there's no problem. All systems and configurations and versions of IE are not identical. The customer tells you they reset browser zoom and the problem went away. Gee, you think maybe there's still a problem connected to browser zoom? I do. I'm surprised you don't.

Andy · March 24, 2012

jfriend wrote: »

I know your testing didn't find the issue, but this user found that resetting the browser zoom fixed the problem for them. This problem continues to plague users. Maybe you don't know how to reproduce it, but that doesn't mean it isn't still a problem. I'm surprised you can read this thread and not think there's still a problem with browser zoom in some version of IE in some configuration.

FYI, just because you can't make a problem happen on your system does not mean there's no problem. All systems and configurations and versions of IE are not identical. The customer tells you they reset browser zoom and the problem went away. Gee, you think maybe there's still a problem connected to browser zoom? I do. I'm surprised you don't.

Hi John, you've watched me make nearly 60,000 posts here. You know I don't give up.

Can you make browser zoom on IE9 bust a non customized SmugMug site? If you can I would love the steps, that would help us greatly.

jfriend · March 24, 2012

Andy wrote: »

Hi John, you've watched me make nearly 60,000 posts here. You know I don't give up.

Can you make browser zoom on IE9 bust a non customized SmugMug site? If you can I would love the steps, that would help us greatly.

I don't know how to make it fail myself. But it does happen in the wild so there is a bug there somewhere and I was very disappointed to see you jumping to a wrong conclusion that there was no remaining bug related to browser zoom.

Yes, I've seen you do many good things here, but occasionally you and others at Smugmug like to pretend that if you can't reproduce the bug that it doesn't exist and there's nothing you can do about it. That simply isn't the case.

Yes, it's hard to fix when you can't reproduce it, but when I ran an engineering team we filed the bugs we knew existed even when we didn't know how to reproduce them and eventually, we had to assign engineering resources to try to figure out how to reproduce them or how to change the code so that that particular fault simply couldn't happen any more. Sometimes the only way to figure out a puzzle like this is to study the code and figure out what could possibly make this happen. Often, we'd end up with 3-4 suppositions about things that could eventually lead to the problem and we'd find ways to defend against those in the code - even without a reproducible case.

I remember a particular bug we had in Netscape Navigator (yes, that's how old I am) where it would just crash occasionally when moving the mouse. We could never reproduce it, but we knew from enough reports that it did exist. Eventually, we got a stack trace from one of the crashes that happened in a build with extra debugging turned on and we found that there was a null pointer reference in some toolbar tooltip code. We could never reproduce the problem and that pointer was never supposed to be null, but we were able to add some defensive coding in several places to the tooltip logic so that if the pointer was ever null, we'd be safe. We never had a test case to reproduce the problem. We only had anecdotal reports of a crash when you move the mouse, but we heard it often enough that we knew it was real. After we added the defensive coding, we never heard of this report again. Only an engineer looking at the code could come up with defensive mechanisms to protect against this possible problem.

If I were trying to fix this zoom problem once and for all (without a reproducible case), I would switch to an HTML/CSS design that simply could not put the main image below the thumbs - ever. It probably wouldn't be using the type of layout you have now because with a small pixel mismatch, your current layout allows the browser to decide that the main image doesn't fit to the right and will drop it below.

Because zoom is obviously problematic and the entire viewing experience is ruined when the main image is not visible, this is a nasty issue. I recommended changing to a design path that can never put the main image below the thumbs two years ago (use different layout logic), but your engineers did not decide to go that route and we still have this nagging issue.

As with all these issues, I can only hope you guys do the right thing and find a way to fix it. There is a bug here that is very hard to reproduce, but does occur in the wild often enough to know that the issue still exists. I'll help any way I can.

jfriend · March 24, 2012

Andy wrote: »

Hi John, you've watched me make nearly 60,000 posts here. You know I don't give up.

Can you make browser zoom on IE9 bust a non customized SmugMug site? If you can I would love the steps, that would help us greatly.

I just went to one of Carson's galleries here in IE9 on Windows 7 and hit Ctrl+ a couple times, then Ctrl- a couple times and it went into a situation where the main image was stuck below the gallery. Browser zoom was at 50%. It didn't seem to happen in my own gallery that I tried. Attached is a screen capture.

jfriend · March 24, 2012

Andy wrote: »

Hi John, you've watched me make nearly 60,000 posts here. You know I don't give up.

Can you make browser zoom on IE9 bust a non customized SmugMug site? If you can I would love the steps, that would help us greatly.

Just found the same thing thing in one of my galleries at 75% browser zoom. I just opened up this gallery with IE9 already at 75% zoom and I see what is shown in the attached image. It just opened up this way.

Andy · March 25, 2012

jfriend wrote: »

Just found the same thing thing in one of my galleries at 75% browser zoom. I just opened up this gallery with IE9 already at 75% zoom and I see what is shown in the attached image. It just opened up this way.

Thanks for this, John. I can see it at 75% on your gallery and also Carson's (and also mine). (IE9, Win7). But on a standard SmugMug site, like this: http://cmac.smugmug.com/SmugMug/Support-Heroes-painted-faces/2504559_TrBCmb#!i=131487110&k=FdKeW it doesn't happen. The strange thing is that this didn't used to happen a couple months ago when we last looked - the photo wrapping was determined to be related to system zoom not browser zoom :cry

I will ask the team to take a further look at this problem, but as you've asked above, you want us to engineer it out of possibly happening - we've done this with the new gallery style (that is in /darkroom). And to be clear it works perfectly at 100% default zoom in IE9. Ugh, it's a tough problem, for sure, since IE doesn't play as nicely with this stuff as other browsers do.

EDIT: Also, I can't make it fail (image wrapping below thumbs) in IE9 on your site, mine, Carson's, if I zoom UP to 125, 150%, or any custom number. Seems only to happen if you zoom down to 75% (how common is zooming down?).

IE Issue

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