xp gif weirdness, trying to track the cause

[ricosapphire]

Ok, just when I thought I could tackle pretty much any problem that came my way I get one that leaves me scratching my head...

Internet Explorer, Mozilla both display gifs incorrectly. The weird thing is they aren't just displaying them incorrectly, they aren't receiving or saving them properly. I can view the normal gifs just fine if I transfer a gif from another computer to this one with a floppy or whatever.

I'll give you an example of what these files look like on my computer...
Ok, I added it as an attachment... but I don't know where it will show up on this post.

Now here's what it is supposed to look like:
[img]http://www.shacknews.com/advertising/speakeasy/speedkills_728x90_11k.gif[/img]

Sorry for the ad... but I needed something, that's just the first thing I saw.

I've tried so much to get this to go away... updated drivers, virus checks, there aren't any firewalls running... I've tried using the internet from multiple connections... I read here with a sort of similar post to install java so I tried that...I've done the reinstall windows without wiping it out fully route. I really don't know what to do short of formatting and starting over.... which I really don't want to do.

If anybody has any suggestions, I'd gladly take them

Rico

[TallCool1]

Internet Explorer, Mozilla both display gifs incorrectly. The weird thing is they aren't just displaying them incorrectly, they aren't receiving or saving them properly. I can view the normal gifs just fine if I transfer a gif from another computer to this one with a floppy or whatever.

Wow, that's a wierd one. For some reason, the GIF palette is being reduced to 15 colors (in this example) from the 31 colors of the original. I have no idea why this is so. How many colors is your desktop set to render in? If it's only 256 colors, it's possible that that may be the cause -- only the colors common to both palettes will render in a browser. Try 16-bit (65,536 colors), 24-bit, or 32-bit color depth, either from the Desktop menu Properties -> Settings tab or with a free utility such as MultiRes. That's the only thing that jumps out at me...

[ricosapphire]

Yeah, it is a weird one. I'm set to 32bit color already and have tried 16bit as well. After noticing another problem I think I'm set on wiping the slate clear and starting over with a fresh install and hope it doesn't happen again. Only thing I've done different with this computer is use my cell phone to connect to the internet sometimes... but I don't know how that could have caused these problems. My other problem is disappearing connections in the network connections folder.

[ricosapphire]

Hi all, wanted to give you an update...

So I reinstalled windows to try and rid myself of this problem, and after I got myself back up and running I tried using my cell phone for my internet connection again (since it's way faster than dial-up... I just moved). Well it turns out the usb driver that is installed to do this is the culprit. So keep a heads up if you are using Futuredial usb drivers, they can cause some problems. I have a sanyo scp 5300 cell phone, so I don't know if it's just that usb driver or more than one. I'm connected on my old computer that I don't really care if I have lower color depth in gifs and some jpgs... it still happens on this computer which is windows 2000 with radically different hardware, but the problem isn't as pronounced. I'm going to try and contact Futuredial for some sort of word on the issue.

[ricosapphire]

I hope nobody minds myself posting to my own thread, but I thought I'd finish it off in case anybody does a search for similar problems.

Anyway, I sent an email to Futuredial, the people who make the usb drivers in order to use the high speed data link off cell phones, and here is the response(which I got in very short order, thank you Futuredial):

The problem is not in the USB Drivers.

The issue here is that for Sprint to get higher data speeds through their 3G
network, they have to compress the data. A side effect of this compression
is that images on a browser when using the SnapDialer connection are shown
at a low resolution. This is why the images are distorted and some of the
colors are incorrect. It does not look like Sprint will be correcting this.

Well, this is a good explanation for the problem occurring, but doesn't explain why I still had the problem even after I tried my regular modem and the problem was still there, even after clearing IE's cache. Also, some forum members might be able to explain this, but while I was troubleshooting the problem with a friend, he sent me one of the images that got compressed when viewing on this computer through AIM and it appeared correctly in the chat window... I guess the method AIM sends data isn't the same method regular gifs and jpgs are downloaded and not subject to the compression... I'll keep posting if you all don't mind.

[ricosapphire]

Well, just wanted to stick a fork in this thread... I must NOT have cleared the cache, because that was the problem. I could have sworn I did... I know I did just not right before I switched to the modem to test it out... hehe.

So anyone using the Sprint 3G network, your images are going to look wonky.