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PNG files suddenly display black for many users.

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Dale

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Jan 17, 2007, 11:15:01 AM1/17/07
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I have been using Microsoft Image Composer for saving screen captures as PNG
format since probably 1998. I have always used Image Composer and always
used PNG for screen shots, and never had any problems in all these years.

I haven't done a screen shot on a web page for perhaps a year so I can't say
exactly when this started but when I added some screenshots to my website a
couple weeks ago, and again last night, those PNG images display as just
black rectangles in IE for some users. For other users, they display
properly.

They display black for some IE7 users and display properly for some IE7
users. They display black for some IE6 users and display properly for some
IE6 users.

What's changed? What can I do to fix it?

Dale
--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA

Ludwig

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Jan 17, 2007, 2:33:14 PM1/17/07
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IE 6.0 could never display true .png files and some could display .png only
if they were saved in a 256 color .png format like 256 color .gif files.
"Dale" <dale...@nospam.nospam> wrote in message
news:554A979B-89C6-4214...@microsoft.com...

Dale

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Jan 17, 2007, 3:00:01 PM1/17/07
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It sure has been doing a great job of faking it then. :)

--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA

Ludwig

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Jan 17, 2007, 6:52:14 PM1/17/07
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http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngstatus.html#browsers
Some browsers have changed

"Dale" <dale...@nospam.nospam> wrote in message
news:7E1C7FAE-DAF6-4B4A...@microsoft.com...

Walter Wang [MSFT]

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Jan 18, 2007, 4:15:29 AM1/18/07
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Hi Dale,

Is it possible for sending me those PNG files so that I can test it on my
side and verify the behavior? Thanks.

Regards,
Walter Wang (waw...@online.microsoft.com, remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

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Dale

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Jan 18, 2007, 12:21:03 PM1/18/07
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That was a very interesting article, Ludwig. Thanks for sending the link.

I find it odd, though, that this problem occurs both on IE 6 and IE 7 as the
result of a change to IE 7. Apparently this update has been applied to IE 6
through Windows Update as well.

I downloaded GIMP and opened and re-saved my PNG images with no other
changes and the default PNG settings in GIMP seem to have fixed the problem.
I guess it's time to let go of my long-time relationship with Microsoft Image
Composer - considering it hasn't been updated for nearly 10 years.

Thanks,

Dale
--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA

Ludwig

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Jan 18, 2007, 4:56:20 PM1/18/07
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Don't be hasty, Image Composer is still one of the favorites and is used by
many and it has a .gif saving ability that no other has. Well maybe Photo
draw v2.

"Dale" <dale...@nospam.nospam> wrote in message
news:BDCF7966-E474-4DDE...@microsoft.com...

Dale

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Jan 22, 2007, 2:11:01 PM1/22/07
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Walter,

Thanks for your reply. I tried to reproduce this issue so I could send you
a defective file. I don't know if installing GIMP changed the behavior or
not but though I could reproduce the problem at will before installing it,
now that I installed and used GIMP to fix all the images that were giving me
trouble, I cannot reproduce the problem.

Thanks,

Dale
--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA

Dale

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Jan 22, 2007, 5:48:00 PM1/22/07
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Walter,

I spoke too soon. The problem still does exist; I just had not found enough
browsers to test on yet. I finally opened the images at the office and saw
still have the problem. This same image is one that worked on my PC at home
and my laptop over the weekend.

The link for the image is: http://www.dalepreston.com/images/untitled.png.

Thanks,

Dale
--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA

Walter Wang [MSFT]

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Jan 22, 2007, 10:51:44 PM1/22/07
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Hi Dale,

I've got some confirmed information about PNG support in IE:

* IE6 doesn't support PNG
* IE7 does support PNG

This conforms to my test result: the PNG file you sent to me displayed
black in IE6 and displayed ok in IE7.

If you found some PNG files are not displayed correctly in IE7, please help
me simply the reproduce steps and I will report this to product team.

Dale

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Jan 23, 2007, 1:21:02 PM1/23/07
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Thanks, Walter. I find this reply a bit odd since I have been following
these same procedures for using PNG in IE 6 for years and while I couldn't
swear to it, I think even back to IE 5 and IE 4. I am certain about using
Image Composer back that far but I can't swear about what file formats I
saved screenshots as. Like I said, I know for sure IE 6 supported it until
recently.

In any case, I have a suitable workaround by using GIMP instead of Image
Composer to create the PNG files.

Thanks again,

Dale
--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA

Walter Wang [MSFT]

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Jan 24, 2007, 5:22:48 AM1/24/07
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Dale,

Thanks for the update.

I got these information from developers of IE team. I believe there might
be different kinds of PNG and IE6 doesn't fully support all of them, that's
why we publicly state that IE6 doesn't support for PNG. You could also find
some related KB regarding IE5 or IE6's support for PNG.

That said, IE7 should support PNG now. If you do find some PNG files are
not supported by IE7, I believe it would be helpful for IE team to improve
in future versions.

At last, thank you for sharing the experience of using GIMP to save the png
files.

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