Odd Avvie Probs

[Bamawing]

For the past... I'm not sure exactly how long... I've been having some strange avitar troubles. I'm not seeing half (or more) of the avitars, including my own at the top of the page. I'll only see a few people's... right now I can see CP's and Electric Ian's... and if I'm logged in for a while, they start to come back and I can see a few more of them. (If I post enough times in a single session, I can probably get them all to come back!) I'm not having any trouble at all with smilies and signitures... I can see all the graphics in sig files just fine.

What's even stranger is the fact that I've got "pastel minty" going on right now... but it seems to revert to "board default" after I log out. Well, of course it does, it's supposed to... but it doesn't revert back when I log back in. The first time I noticed this was Christmas, come to think of it... I had to go back and change my settings to get rid of the snowflakes. (Sorry, Nick, I just wasn't crazy about the snowflakes. They made my eyes cross. )

If it helps, I tend to have at least two windows open to Skincell at all times... that way I can be typing up a post while letting another topic load or another post upload. Yes, I'm an impatient little <bleep>. But I've always done this, and never had a problem before...

Any suggestions? It's not like this is the end of the world if this never gets fixed, but I do kinda miss the avvies...

[Nick]

Hiya Bamz,

Cookies are a strange breed

Try clearing your cookies and temp internet files

[Daisey]

good luck there Bama! hope you figure it out..i like looking at them 2

[Bamawing]

Yay!! I (finally) got Dan to talk me through the not-so-complicated process of clearning out  my cookies. Ba-da-bing, the avvies are back!! thanks, Nick!!

[Bamawing]

Ack... and they're gone again.

Just like before... when I loaded this page to put in a reply, the ony avitar I saw was mine. When I posted my reply, my avvie had vanished. Now that I'm modifying my reply, I have no idea whether I'll see it or not. (Right now I don't see it on the top of the page.)

Should I clean out my cookies again? (I can't imagine I've grabbed that many of them in the past few days.) Or do you have any other suggestions?

[Nick]

Hi Bamz,

Try adding skincell.org to your "trusted sites" and see if that helps

[Bamawing]

Well, it's added... lemme log off and then log back on.

Nope. Should I add skincell.org/yabbse/index to the list? I just added skincell.org...

[Nick]

No need, that "add" would apply to the whole of the domain.

So is there any common factor to when they disappear?

[Bamawing]

Not that I can tell, but then, I'm fameously bad at noticing patterns.

For some reason, the ones I see the most frequently are CPs and Gmaw's. Oftentimes they'll be the only ones I'll see on a page. I'm not getting a "broken image..." it's just that the avvie vanishes.

Usually, if I can see the avvie once, then I can see it again. But not always. For example, right now I can see Nick's avvie on his last reply. But I can't see if on any of his other replies. I can't see anyone else's, either.

I haven't had any more trouble with the pastel minty staying put, on the other hand.

Here's something else that may be a clue: remember how guests' access has been denied recently? From what I can tell, that hasn't been resolved... I go to www.skincell.org and click "enter forum" only to be asked to log in before accessing those files. No problem. What's odd is that as I type this, my "user info" box at the top of the screen tells me that there are 23 guests and 8 members browsing the forum. This is even stranger when you consider that I've been noticing that, and durned if the number hasn't been changing... as if guests are somehow entering and leaving, just as normal.

I declare I've entered the computer Twilight Zone...

***modified to add***

Just to confirm my point, when I posted this, the only avitar I saw was mine, in reply number 6. It also said there were now 19 guests and 6 members browsing the forum.

[Bamawing]

Dunno what you did (if anything), Nick, but it's all cleared up now! Thanks!!

[Nick]

OK Bamz,

Can you keep an eye on it and let me know if the problem returns

[Bamawing]

Nick? It's returned.

Grr....

****modified to include a flash of insight***

The avvies aren't the only things vanishing. The pictures that people put in the posts are gone, too. In their place is a link to view the pic. (I'm talking about the pics you can attach to a post using the "additional options" feature.)

I didn't notice the avitars vanishing right away, but I did notice that the pics vanished when we got out new computer. I just assumed that Dan ...or Microsoft... did something to Exploder as an added "safety feature." Yet, when I saw the avitars yesterday or whenever it was, the picures were right there, for my full viewing pleasure.

So I may be closing in on this, eh? We'll get it yet!

[Daisey]

hey Bama you still having problems with the Avvies, cuz mine has started to do the same thing, one min. they are there then they are gone

Daisey

[Bamawing]

Yes, I still am. It's odd becuase I never can tell if they're going to stay up or not...

The only thing I know is that the picures attached to the posts are involved somehow. I really did think it was a thing with the new computer, but I dont' anymore... it's too off-and-on to be.

[Daisey]

ahh, half the time i have no pics or quotes  it says "guest"

[Alohamora]

I used to see all the avatars just fine. But I haven't visited the forum in a little while and today they are all gone, except for my own. I had to overhaul my PC yesterday to get rid of some spyware, so it could be something I did at my end.

[Alohamora]

I guess it was my firewall/security software (mcafee).  I put www.skincell.org on my list of sites to always accept cookies from, deleted the old cookies and signed in again. Now it looks like most of the avatars are back.

...going to look a few more threads...

Oh wait.  there's still quite a few missing. But hitting page refresh brings some more avatars back.  Hmm, this is strange.

[edit]
Now I really think I've got it. It's the Mcafee Privacy Ad Blocker - it seems to think some of the avatars are ads.  It's not constant on which ones it lets through, but when I turn that function off they all show up.

[Nick]

Hi Aloha,

Thanks for sharing that, so you reckon it's McA causing the problems? Interesting.
I haven;t personally tried their FW yet.

[Alohamora]

Yes, it's definately McAfee, but not the firewall itself, it's in the  "Privacy Service -> block ads"  bit.

(In spite of this issue, I really like the McAfee package much better than the Symantec AV I used in the past. )

[Bamawing]

Huh. Dan has forbidden me from messing up the computer, so I'm not even sure what verson of McAfee we have. (Dan knows that I woudl install Linux in a heartbeat, just because I like the idea of freeware. He also knows that I don't know the first thing about mounting a partition, primarily because I'm not sure what a partition is. So he's really justified, although it's a wee-weeer in my book.)

I'm not brave (or dumb) enough to mess with McAfee, so I guess I'll just live my semi-avvie-free lifestyle. It lets them show up some of the time. :shrug: