Invisible images

[Mappo]

Ok, having installed SMF on three different sites, all of which work perfectly I've had a new problem that i cant seem to find. I don't know why this seems to be happening but everyone who registers on my board cant see the button images.

The Buttons themselves still work, and i have no problem seeing them what so ever.

but every other member of my new board cant see them :|

http://sps.spankthemanky.com [nofollow]

can anyone suggest why this is the case, and why i can see them fine?

*confused as heck by it all*

[Oldiesmann]

Weird... The images don't show up, but if I right-click and select "View Image" or "View Background Image", the image shows up just like it's supposed to. Don't know what to tell you. Does the default theme work?

[Louis (CSpotkill)]

The images are being served by the web server as text/html when they should be served as image/gif (or similar).

(Tip: In Firefox's Page Info window, look under Media to see info about how the images are being sent. Hehe.)

See Juicy Studio: Specifying a MIME Type for more info about MIME types. See also Google Search: mime types site:httpd.apache.org.

[Mappo]

Default does the same, the weird thing is none of my filetypes are changed, and everyone is using a standard setup (ie & firefox - every user beside me has the issue)

the files are all in their default landing places, and the themes were loaded from hard disk on my pc, I've even emptied my cache, cookies, and temp files to see if i can generate the unseen images but it all still works fine, while others who do the same still cant see them!

*stumped*

(and to think at 1st i thought it was me..  glad to hear I'm not going crazy..  again )

[Louis (CSpotkill)]

It's definitely got something to do with the "text/html" - as images sent with the proper mime types seem to show up fine, like your avatar with image/png or your background with image/jpeg ... I even saw some gif images being sent as image/gif - but the buttons were being sent as text/html. Quite odd.

Thing is - Internet Explorer (and other browsers, I'm assuming) probably run detections for this (See Appendix A: MIME Type Detection in Internet Explorer - search for "gif" in that page).

So maybe this isn't the root cause of whatever the problem is, just some side effect.

[Cypher7]

are you using .htaccess or anything like that!?

maybe double check your permissions on the folders...

if I go to http://sps.spankthemanky.com/Themes/techhead/images/english/ and click on any of the images I get a "You are not authorized to view this page" error... yet if I click in the address bar and hit Enter when on that error page I can see the image...

I have htaccess on my site and if you click on this link http://www.airport-tkd.com/forum/Themes/default/images/smflogo.gif it will give you an error... yet if you copy it into the address bar and hit Enter you will see it...

[Louis (CSpotkill)]

Oh - the error message would explain why it's being sent as text/html! Well done!

[Mappo]

So changing the permissions should sort it?

ok, ill try a ChMOD in the image folder and see if that helps, its odd that i didnt have this issue the last times i set the boards up though, as i followed the same process every time and its the 1st time ive had this issue

[[Unknown]]

I would guess it's caused by hotlinking stuff in .htaccess...

-[Unknown]

[Mappo]

1st of all. thanks for the quick responses and suggestion peeps, im not really that great when it comes to unexpected errors like this so this is a huge help for me. I really appreciate the time you all are taking to help try and solve this.

Well, ive went back and checked the HTaccess for the primary domain (dont have an htaccess  for the subdomain so im assuming its still controlled by the primary HT) and there is no mention of this dubdomain at all.

Ive added the lines

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://sps.spankthemanky.com/.*$ [nofollow]      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://sps.spankthemanky.com [nofollow]$      [NC]

as they seem to be enabled for all the other dubdomains ive got on there and they all seem to be working.

Also chmodding the permissions seemed to have no affect on the image files.

*still stumped and now crying into my cornflakes*

Mappo

[[Unknown]]

What if you rename/delete the .htaccess completely (thus turning off the protection entirely!)

Does it work any better?  If so, we can at least be sure that's causing it.  You'll want to hit Ctrl-F5 on the forum to make sure nothing is cached.

-[Unknown]

[Cypher7]

It's working fine now for me... !?   Make any more changes?

[Mappo]

It seems adding the lines to the main htaccesss was indeed the job that needed done, everyone who has viewed it can see them now, so that seems to have been the problem all along.

big thanks to cypher for pointing me in the right direction and to everyone else for helping me to better spot the prob.  I suspect that since my ip is bound to the domain that the HT let me see anything i liked as the site recognises me as the owner, so it was a nightmare to try and see what was causing a fault (the fault wasnt there for me. I could see it all fine)

Thanks guys, the helping helps were much appreciated and needed.

[Cypher7]

You're welcome

Glad you got it working...