Only the top half of the thumbnails show with my 2017 iMac, running Mojave

[Rob-F]

Rob-F,

Its not a practical or affordable to have RFF's website 100% compatible with every obsolete computer out there,
or all the new computers available for that matter.

I see this as a minor display problem not worth spending programming money on.
Problems that need to be fixed for RFF to function well are another matter.

Stephen

No, really I'm not asking for anything expensive. There is likely someone at RFF with some ideas about this. The mere fact that a given action like logging out and in, or changing resolution, makes even a temporary difference, is an important clue. As an old troubleshooter (USAF F-105D Radar Tech), clues must never be ignored. The clues will lead to the answer.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be your answer."
--Sherlock Holmes

 

[raydm6]

I'm wondering if it's an issue with up-loaders using all kinds of aspect-ratios which makes rendering in the random gallery uniformly almost impossible?

 

[boojum]

Does it happen randomly or on all images. Does it happen with Windows or Linux or just Apple?

FWIW I have no problem with W10, W11 or Linux Mint.

 

[Rob-F]

For me, on mt Macs, at any given time, It either happens with all images, or else they all display correctly. Tricks like changing the screen resolution can make the problem go away for a while; then the carriage turns back into a pumpkin, whereupon all images are cut off.

 

[Coldkennels]

Changing your screen resolution or settings on your computer isn't going to do anything.

Here's how the front page looked when I just loaded it:



Only half the images. Back in November I thought that maybe it's an issue with a CSS media query (i.e. a piece of code that checks the size of the viewport and adjusts the layout to suit), but resizing my browser window doesn't fix anything, so it doesn't look like that's the issue:



But as I said back in post #13:

If you refresh the front page a few times, you'll notice that it opens that section with a set height (which matches the height given to it in my screenshot in comment #4), and only when the third image appears, the section increases in height to accommodate the images correctly. Something's obviously going wrong in that step.

In short, whatever piece of code is used to resize the gallery widget - probably Javascript, I'm guessing - periodically isn't loading or isn't running. Could be a server issue, could be a caching issue. You're not going to fix that at your end. It has to be fixed by someone with admin access to the site.

 

[boojum]

Have you tried emulating another OS in a window to see what happens?

 

[Rob-F]

Have you tried emulating another OS in a window to see what happens?

Who Me? I have no idea how to do that!

 

[boojum]

Who Me? I have no idea how to do that!

I believe many Macs can emulate Windows with the proper software. It's not rocket surgery, it's just a series of small steps and then you have the window and away you go.

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Running Windows on your Mac gives you the best of both worlds, allowing you to conveniently use macOS and Windows-only applications side-by-side. However,

machow2.com

 

[raydm6]

Who Me? I have no idea how to do that!

No need to test. I'll do that for you

One way (requires a yearly subscription) is Parallels Desktop for Mac. Probably not worth it for you.

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I am on a 2017 Retina 5k, iMac 27" (macOS Ventura 13.7.5) and I am running Windows 11 Pro inside Parallels Desktop for my windows-based amateur radio apps.

I don't use it for RFF as I use my iMac for that, but I just tested in Windows and it does not fix it for me (at least in two instances - Firefox and Edge browsers).

 

[boojum]

There is a rat in the woodpile, but where?

 

[Coldkennels]

So: multiple screen sizes, multiple OSes, multiple rendering engines (Firefox = Gecko; Min, Chrome, Edge = Chromium; Safari = WebKit).

The problem is at RFF's end, and there's nothing individual users can do to change this behaviour. Whether you get the full image is basically luck - first load of the front page today gave me half images, and a refresh gave me the full image.

I don't envy MP Guy, and I can't say I'm surprised that he's not jumping in to get this sorted. Intermittent faults like this are a nightmare to solve. Too many moving parts.

 

[Rob-F]

The head bartender said there is no need to spend money to fix the problem because it affects only a small number of users or computers. We see now the number is not small. Is that another clue?

 

[Coldkennels]

One thing I learned the hard way is just because you're not hearing about a problem from a lot of people, it doesn't mean a lot of people aren't having the problem. With something like this, X% of people won't notice, Y% of people won't care, and Z% of people won't even think about talking to anyone about it. It's a very small niche that actually take notice and bother reporting things.

On a related note: I've seen multiple video game developers say that porting their game to Linux effectively gave them free QA. This news story from PC Gamer, for instance, says that "Though only 5.8% of his game's buyers were playing on Linux, they generated over 38% of the bug reports. Not because the Linux platform was buggier, either. Only 3 of the roughly 400 bug reports submitted by Linux users were platform specific, that is, would only happen on Linux."

 

[boojum]

I remember a rough rule of thumb with congress is that about 10% of their constituents write, the other 90% are affected but say nothing.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

What happens when running Chrome for the Mac?

 

[Coldkennels]

What happens when running Chrome for the Mac?

Same problem. Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, and Min all use the same rendering engine. No difference between any of them.

(edit: in terms of performance and rendering. There's a huge difference in terms of features and security; no one should be using Chrome in 2025 if they care at all about data security, privacy, and the open web.)

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Chrome works fine under Win10.

If you want a secure computer, pull the NICs out of it and use a Floppy for air-gap transfer. You can hear a virus attacking it.

 

[Jonathan R]

I haven't read the whole of this thread, but evidently the problem isn't yet solved. In case it helps diagnose the issue, I am running Sequia 15.3.2 on an iMac. In Safari (18.3.1) with the DuckDuckGo add-on the thumbnails are complete. Conversely, in DuckDuckGo's own browser (1.134.0) only the top half of each thumbnail is visible.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Running developer mode in Chrome it looks like resizeIframe( obj) is used for the thumbnails. A quick online search indicates that some browsers have issues with this function.

 

[Rob-F]

Same problem. Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, and Min all use the same rendering engine. No difference between any of them.

(edit: in terms of performance and rendering. There's a huge difference in terms of features and security; no one should be using Chrome in 2025 if they care at all about data security, privacy, and the open web.)

Hmm. So I shouldn't be using chrome in the first place. I just did a Google search fior safest browser for Mac. The AI genie said it was "Brave Browser," of which I've never heard. What else is good?