Problem With Graphics Downloading

[some guy from mars]

Looks like I might be having a problem with the graphics at my site downloading. A visitor to my site recently stated that instead of seeing any graphics he would rather see a box with an X in the middle of it. The alt tags for the images would not even show up.

Please note that I run a record review website so most of my graphics consist of scanned in CD covers which I put in a 2-layer CSS box. (The outer contains the padding and margin and the inner, which holds the image, features the border).

Another visitor to the site stated that at times my graphics would only download "part way". (Only the top half of the graphic would show and not the bottom).

I confirmed that both visitors in question are not using dial up. When I check my - both using my home computer and computer at the library - the graphics download as they should.

Following is the link to my site: http://www.angelicwarlord.com/

If you do not see the graphics then please let me know.

Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks

[thebeard]

I checked your site on the mac side with safari and explorer5 loaded fast and fine. I also checked your site with windows xp firefox and explorer, loaded fast and fine. No problems. Mars it is.

[Falcon4]

When you say the alt-text didn't load, do you mean that the tooltip didn't show up, or something? The alt-text isn't designed to be a tooltip - if it shows up in a browser as a tooltip, you're lucky. The "title" tag is supposed to be used as a tooltip, and "alt" if it doesn't load. Both of these are embedded in the HTML and if you see the website, you're going to be loading the alt/title attributes as well, no questions asked. It then becomes a problem of the user's computer or browser.

I did notice that all your references - links and images - reference a lower-level that doesn't exist. You seem to be including "../" in all your links, which is designed to reference a lower directory - that is, if your page is in domain.com/folder/page.html, a link to ../page.html will actually link to domain.com/page.html (removing "folder"). The issue with that is that you're already on the top-level - domain.com. You can't go any further back. So maybe entering ".." is sending some clients into a conniption fit as they try to ask the web server for "..", which would effectively put them outside public_html, into a restricted folder (if the web server allowed such a thing, which I don't think it does). A simple typo with big consequences if not properly "caught" by error-handlers. You might want to remove the "../" from all your links you don't mean to add it to...

[charlesgan]

visited your site, seem like huge mainpage with lots of graphic.
basically, slow connection client will face timeout problem, and the page/picture loaded half way, and server close the connection.

try to make the page small is the key.
mainpage should below 100k. prefer within 50kb

[siguie]

Looks fine The alts work but you may want to add "title=" as well ... this is for the FireFox users. For some reason FireFox doesn't display alt text properly but it works if you use title="text"

Whenever someone complains about a page not loading or being slow do a traceroute to their IP then check http://www.internettrafficreport.com Odds are good they just have a few downed or slow servers between you and them.

[kaskudoo]

wow that page is 419kb big .... 285kb for the images.

as stated above, try to reduce the page size to anything below 100kb, otherwise users with dial-up connections get a bad browsing experience .... and just a hint: its not easy to read white text on a balck canvas - bad for the eyes and gives you a headache

[Falcon4]

and just a hint: its not easy to read white text on a balck canvas - bad for the eyes and gives you a headache

That's a big fat lie. Actually it's easier to read white on black than it is to read MySpace on big fat unwatermarked background. Be happy.

The images are fine. As long as you're not downloading full size digital camera pictures and resizing them in the HTML, you're doing fine. The only problem you have is the ".." problem, which nobody here seems to be smart enough to notice. Fix that and you should have a decent website.

I'm impressed that it's rendering in standards-compliant mode, the images are appropriately stored as GIFs and JPEGs, instead of n00b BMPs, no chopshop resizing is being done, and the page loads fast. That's the important part. The ONLY thing I can see wrong with the site is that ".." problem.

[some guy from mars]

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to look at the site and offer input. At this point I need to reduce the size of the main page and the best way to do that is to put the previous months update into the sites archive area. But it is also important to keep in mind that graphics add to a sites visual appeal (and a record review website such as mine requires scanned in CD covers- which I do attempt to optimize). If I had no scanned in CD covers and just plain white text over a black background that would look boring- even though download speeds would increase. Just my 2 cents...

The only problem you have is the ".." problem, which nobody here seems to be smart enough to notice. Fix that and you should have a decent website.

Falcon4,

I read through your original post and want to thank you for the input. It sounds like my sites directory structure is a bit too deep. For example, I have two main folders at the site - REVIEWS and IMAGES- which are each broken down into sub-folders corresponding to each letter of the alphabet. Perhaps it is the sub-folders which are creating the problem you are referencing. Please let me know if this is correct (it would just be a matter of moving each individual file out of the subfolders into the main folders). That would work fine for the images but not the individual review pages (which often have direct links from others music sites).

Again, thanks for the input and please let me know if I got the correct idea here.

[Falcon4]

No, that's not a problem... you can have a billion directories for everything (this/is/a/very/long/path/that/will/still/work.jpg), but the problem you have is that at the beginning of each path you add "../", which tries to move up a level when you're already at the top of your site - that is, your logo, angelicwarlord.com/images/logo/angelicwarlordlogo.gif, is linked as "../images/logo/angelicwarlordlogo.gif", which essentially tries to access "http://images/logo/angelicwarlordlogo.gif". That isn't right, is it? ;-)

edit: In a path-rich structure like you have on your site, you might just want to change all your links to absolute links, instead of using relative path modifiers like ".." - that is, instead of using "../../images/logo/angelicwarlordlogo.gif" from the "/reviews/j/jreviews.html" page, you should just drop the two ".."'s and leave it with "/images/logo/angelicwarlordlogo.gif". The first slash drops the path down to the root, then builds it up folder-by-folder from there. :-)

[borderline]

I have a similar problem on my site.. some visitors have told me they only see a red X instead of the images.
For some of my visitors the solution was to disable their firewall. I know there is an issue with Norton if you name a picture "banner" or give a picture a certain size because Norton sees it as an ad and blocks it, but this is not my case because I'm aware of it and I made sure I had the right sizes and names for my images .. still some of my visitors cannot see the images

and I have checked for the ".." and my paths are fine, I don't have the ".."