Solved Avatar (GIF) animation no longer works

[Karnik]

HI. Since I changed avatar a little while ago, its animation no longer works. I tried the old ones (that previously worked) and others, all under 140 kb: they only work on the profile, but not in the posts of the various threads.
Is this a new change to the site, by any chance?
I lost the only joy in my life.... ?
Thank you.

Edit: my guess is that there has been an update to the site... ??‍

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Have you tried clearing your cache?

For efficiency images and common files are cached for long term and referenced first rather than redownloading 10Mb of data every time you refresh or load a page. In Firefox and browsers i tend to use, CTRL+F5 will force a reload of all content. Clearing the cache will do the same thing.

If your gif doesn't work after that point i'm not sure. I can take a look at it, perhaps the gif is malformed and only the first image is showing. My image is like 1-2Mb, so the size isn't the issue. (And it's only that big due to recommended resolutions, otherwise i'd have done a lot smaller).

Is your current image suppose to be animated? If so i'll use a couple tools and glance at it. If not, reference one and i'll see what i can find.

 

[Karnik]

Have you tried clearing your cache?

For efficiency images and common files are cached for long term and referenced first rather than redownloading 10Mb of data every time you refresh or load a page. In Firefox and browsers i tend to use, CTRL+F5 will force a reload of all content. Clearing the cache will do the same thing.

If your gif doesn't work after that point i'm not sure. I can take a look at it, perhaps the gif is malformed and only the first image is showing. My image is like 1-2Mb, so the size isn't the issue. (And it's only that big due to recommended resolutions, otherwise i'd have done a lot smaller).

Is your current image suppose to be animated? If so i'll use a couple tools and glance at it. If not, reference one and i'll see what i can find.

I use Android Chrome (smartphone) and I have cleared my browsing history for the last month. As already said, tried the gifs already used, which worked perfectly before, and also new ones, all under 150 kb: now they don't work. Obviously I refreshed the page several times, but no results. I repeat, on the profile if I click on the image, it works, but in the various messages and threads the avatar does not move. About you, have you tried uploading another one? Maybe the problem arises after changing several.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

This is only my second image i uploaded, identical to the first but with a little swap animation.

edit: Curious it lists avatars as jpg, though the original file is a gif...

I ran it through gifsicle and told it to encode it 'carefully' (i'd assume there's some stuff that can be dropped but breaks some programs with animations involved). See if that doesn't work...

Second animation _b loaded and resaved using microsoft gif animator. See if either work for you.

 

[Karnik]

Since I registered I have changed 5 or 6 (all around 140kb) and they all worked perfectly. Today I changed another one and then none of them worked anymore. ??‍

This one should be cracking his knuckles.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Since I registered I have changed 5 or 6 (all around 140kb) and they all worked perfectly. Today I changed another one and then none of them worked anymore. ??‍

This one should be cracking his knuckles.

I concur he does when i view it. Saved 2 versions of the gif for you to try in the previous post. (You replied sooner than expected)

 

[Karnik]

I've tried both but they don't work. Anyway thanks for the try. ?

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Alright, next step. Rebuild from scratch!

Extracted images, re-injected, optimized...

edit: I hope it isn't just a low resolution since they suggest 400px but this is 152px...

 

[Karnik]

Nah, that doesn't work either. For me this has nothing to do with it. Read what I wrote; they always worked before!
In my opinion, I have exceeded a certain amount of total space available per user, for the profile picture (having changed several in the space of a few weeks).
Is there any other way to clear my profile cache, other than Chrome history?

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Well your avatar isn't animated for me either, so clearing your cache doesn't affect mine.

It might be a glitch where in the system they recompress the image to a single image (Gog does this, but then pointing to the original shouldn't give you a gif).

Last try. Upscaled and rebuilt the animation. No clue if this will do it.

 

[Karnik]

While the others, when I clicked on them in my profile, animated themselves on a black background, this one once loaded remains static. So even worse. ??‍ Thanks anyway for your interest.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

I tried your avatar. doesn't work. reloaded mine... doesn't work now...

Yep something glitched on the site. Not sure what exactly, unless they are moving away from animated gifs.

 

[Karnik]

Yep something glitched on the site. Not sure what exactly, unless they are moving away from animated gifs.

As I assumed in the opening post, perhaps an update to the site.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Hmmm looked in another thread and found murderdoll, glanced at the page source.

Murder doll's avatar (which works) points to: /data/avatars/l/3/3350.jpg?1733098500
My profile image points to: /data/avatars/l/3/3229.jpg?1735505337
and /data/avatars/h/3/3229.jpg?1735505337

My animated image is located at /data/avatars/o/3/3229.jpg?1735505337

Also looks like the forum wants the avatars to be 192x192... not that it means much.

 

[Karnik]

And what does all this mean?
In my opinion, if those who now have a working avatar (gif) will change it, neither the new nor the old one would work anymore. Something on the site has been altered recently. ?

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

making certain assumptions, 3229 is my userID. the /3/ is just a hash shorthand to divide up users based on the first number for efficiency reasons.

The l and o? That i'm not sure on. L could just be for lazy loading (or large), but that doesn't change much for Murderdoll.

But on the upload for the image likely updates the user information pointing to the current image, and probably points them all to the static, as likely there's 2-3 image references in the table for users for different uses throughout the site. Saving the two here i get a small and large version of my avatar at 24k and 113k, while the animated is 2.1Mb.

I don't know. Whoever manages the site sources can probably figure it out. I wouldn't expect much to get fixed til the weekend is over.

 

[Karnik]

Another conjecture of mine is that in view of the numerous users registered here they want to reduce the amount of space (data) available for each one, in order not to overload the site. But in this area of knowledge I admit that I am ignorant. ? ??‍

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Either files are saved in the Database as a BLOB (BLock Of Binary data) or they are saved as files (I'd wager files). Assuming the upload limits on files is the same for avatars (under 3Mb) that doesn't give you a lot. Even a million users with 5Mb avatars would only give you 5Gb at the max. And likely you'd put 30-100Gb for a site, or with static avatars and no uploading you could get away with a couple GiGs, and run on a pi.

Also if they wanted to save space they would only have 1 avatar, not 3.

 

[C.Endfield]

Noticed this too when I tried to add some fancy blingee gif effects on my picture. Below 1MB and it does not show any animation :(

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

HI. Since I changed avatar a little while ago, its animation no longer works. I tried the old ones (that previously worked) and others, all under 140 kb: they only work on the profile, but not in the posts of the various threads.
Is this a new change to the site, by any chance?
I lost the only joy in my life.... ?
Thank you.

Edit: my guess is that there has been an update to the site... ??‍

So you are saying you upload a gif as an avatar and then it becomes a static jpg?
Can you upload a the gif in question to test?

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Can you upload a the gif in question to test?

Mine should be animated too, and is already uploaded.

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

Mine should be animated too, and is already uploaded.

And it showed the animation before?
Can you try reuploading it once more I changed something.

 

[Karnik]

Can you try reuploading it once more I changed something.

It works now, chief! You have already solved the issue! You are a living legend! ?

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

And it showed the animation before?
Can you try reuploading it once more I changed something.

Before trying to help karnik, yeah.

Reuploaded, and now it seems to be good again. Curious to know what was wrong.

 

[C.Endfield]

Quite odd, when I select to upload a new profile picture, it shows the animation there, but not anywhere else.

(Tried to capture the .gif image effect in a screenshot, lol)

Edit: Followed the advice of the other pals around here. Reuploading did the trick, but this time I did it by just clicking on the avatar instead of navigating to account settings. Let me see if it will keep the animation when trying to reupload there.

Edit 2: Hum, also works from uploading the picture in Account settings. Either way, cool stuff :)