I help run a phpBB2 board, and I recently had one of the admins tell me that
they had a problem with the smileys. I've now spent about three days playing
with this 'problem' and I think it's an IE problem. I can reproduce the
problem on two different XP systems and one Vista system.

They have loaded lots of different gif images onto the phpBB board, when
they open the smiley window the entire display gets screwed and starts
jumping about, this affects the entire screen, so the start menu disappears
and the system tray.

This only happens in IE, all other browsers work with the same page without
any problem.

I have scanned all of the gif files and checked them all for corruption, and
they all pass as OK, and are all good gif images. I have saved the page as a
static page and loaded that, and edited out entries for images in an effort
to identify which files are causing this problem, and although reducing the
number of gif images on the page stabilises the problem somewhat, the problem
still occurs randomly.

I've changed the multimedia options one at a time on the advanced tab, and
turning off the play animations stops the problem, which seems to indicate
that this problem is about the way in which gif animations are handled by IE.

Someone tell me if I've missed something please, and if not how I get
someone from MS to look at this problem.

"dowelld" <dowelld@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:AC80B55E-896F-432B-84AC-98FEC87BAF11@microsoft.com...
>I help run a phpBB2 board, and I recently had one of the admins tell me that
> they had a problem with the smileys. I've now spent about three days playing
> with this 'problem' and I think it's an IE problem. I can reproduce the
> problem on two different XP systems and one Vista system.
>
> They have loaded lots of different gif images onto the phpBB board, when
> they open the smiley window the entire display gets screwed and starts
> jumping about, this affects the entire screen, so the start menu disappears
> and the system tray.
>
> This only happens in IE, all other browsers work with the same page without
> any problem.
>
> I have scanned all of the gif files and checked them all for corruption, and
> they all pass as OK, and are all good gif images. I have saved the page as a
> static page and loaded that, and edited out entries for images in an effort
> to identify which files are causing this problem, and although reducing the
> number of gif images on the page stabilises the problem somewhat, the problem
> still occurs randomly.
>
> I've changed the multimedia options one at a time on the advanced tab, and
> turning off the play animations stops the problem, which seems to indicate
> that this problem is about the way in which gif animations are handled by IE.
>
> Someone tell me if I've missed something please, and if not how I get
> someone from MS to look at this problem.


Try using the IE Developer Toolbar? E.g. disable All CSS or use its
View, Image Report command

If you need more help please provide a sample link.


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle
---

"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote:
>
>
> Try using the IE Developer Toolbar? E.g. disable All CSS or use its
> View, Image Report command
>
> If you need more help please provide a sample link.
>
>
> HTH
>
> Robert Aldwinckle
> ---
>

OK I installed the Developer Toolbar, and asked it for an image report, it
produced a report about some of the images and then the whole of IE hung, and
I ended up killing IE completely, I've done this several times now.

The real forum has had the smileys stripped back to a level that soesn't
make IE go wrong so that our users can use it, however I have saved a static
copy of the page which you are welcome to view.....

****** WARNING : This will screw your display ******

If it doesn't go wrong immediately try scrolling the screen up and down,
that'll do it. It might be a good idea to place your mouse over the window
close cross on the top right hand corner as the page starts to load. This
page works OK in all of the browsers that I have tried except IE. (I've only
tried version 7, as that's the only version I have).

http://jezzasexiles.org.uk/forum/static_smilies.html

"dowelld" <dowelld@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B0233B49-41B1-4E03-BFA6-34DB4CBD6632@microsoft.com...
> "Robert Aldwinckle" wrote:
>>
>>
>> Try using the IE Developer Toolbar? E.g. disable All CSS or use its
>> View, Image Report command
>>
>> If you need more help please provide a sample link.
>>
>>
>> HTH
>>
>> Robert Aldwinckle
>> ---
>>
>
> OK I installed the Developer Toolbar, and asked it for an image report, it
> produced a report about some of the images and then the whole of IE hung, and
> I ended up killing IE completely, I've done this several times now.
>
> The real forum has had the smileys stripped back to a level that soesn't
> make IE go wrong so that our users can use it, however I have saved a static
> copy of the page which you are welcome to view.....
>
> ****** WARNING : This will screw your display ******


Yes it does. Sometimes. The problem is that if GDI Objects gets to 9,999
the display for that process is whacked. There was once a hotfix about this...

E.g. it sounds something like this (ignore the title):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/838283/en-us

<quote>
SYMPTOMS
Application menus and context menus are improperly displayed for other
applications when a process exceeds its graphics device interface (GDI)
object quota. (The default object quota is 10,000.) The problem persists even
after the process exits and is especially noticeable with three-dimensional
(3-D) menus and with shadowing.
</quote>

I think that a recent security patch involving win32k.sys fixed the most
severe part of that symptom (the persistence aspect). However, it may
have regressed my module from the QFE version to the GDR version.
(I can't remember when I had that hotfix installed, or even in which partition.)

The patch shows that there is in fact a QFE version we could try.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec.../MS07-017.mspx

(Live Search for
win32k technet security bulletin site:microsoft.com
)


[-] Security Update Information
[-] Windows XP (All Versions)
File Information
<extract>
win32k.sys 5.1.2600.3099 08-Mar-2007 13:49 1,843,968 SP2QFE
</extract>

So that's KB925902.

F:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig$\KB925902\update

There's a update_SP2QFE.inf file there. That may be the way
to install it over the GDR one. (TBD*.)

*(I don't have time to test this idea right now.
Care to be a guinea pig? <eg>)


>
> If it doesn't go wrong immediately try scrolling the screen up and down,
> that'll do it. It might be a good idea to place your mouse over the window
> close cross on the top right hand corner as the page starts to load. This
> page works OK in all of the browsers that I have tried except IE. (I've only
> tried version 7, as that's the only version I have).
>
> http://jezzasexiles.org.uk/forum/static_smilies.html


BTW when I got it to show correctly I was Working Offline
with Active Scripting disabled. I had started IE under DropMyRights
and I was monitoring GDI Objects with Task Manager (sorted by that statistic.)
I don't know how much any of those things might be significant.
I'm just describing some of the conditions which were present
when it worked. I was able to scroll the window. E.g. press End
to scroll to the bottom of the window.


HTH

Robert
---