Dynamic Mopics - Now you see me - Now you don't

[cameroti]

Hi,

Well I have set up a store and it is running - http://www.craftainers.com.au

But, heres a strange thing. Dynamic Mopics works, but eratically. Sometimes it will work 10 times in a row, then the very same images will not pop up. It is recognising that a big image is available becaue the 'click to enlarge' is appearing below the thumbnail in the product box, but when you click on it - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't! Sometimes you can get it to work by refreshing the page, sometimes you can't. Once a particular image is working, it will keep working until you browse off the thumbnail page. The next time you come back, it might work it might not!

I have tried replacing all the files - I downloaded the Dynamic Mopics v3.0 contribution (great effort all round Joshua if your out there!) to allow me to identify all the necessary files, then I sourced the corresponding files from a clean download of RC2 and updated my installation with these clean RC2 files - no change.

I have tried switching to the fallback template in case it was my template that was the problem - no change.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of behaviour?

Any ideas on where I can look next?

Check it out - wierd!

Cheers
Tim

[michael_s]

What browser are you using? I cannot reproduce your problem on your site. I clicked dozens of images, on dozens of products. All popups worked 100% of the time...

It looks more like a connectivity issue or browser compatibility maybe (I used firefox without any problems).

[cameroti]

Thanks Michael - strange, I am testing using both FireFox 1.0.7 and Internet Explorer 6.0. I have tested on both a lap top and desk top (same network) with the same results????

I have gone in again (minutes after you) and I can not get the images to pop up?

Any thoughts on what would be causing it for me and not you - or more precisely, any pointers on where to look to identify a connectivity issue??

Cheers
Tim

[michael_s]

Check your browsers pop-up blocker...

[cameroti]

MMmmm - I had that sinking feeling - I went and checked and.. pop ups were not blocked. Sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesnt, so it is one of those incredibly annoying problems.

Thanks for your help Michael, much appreciated. Any other ideas??

Cheers
Tim

[michael_s]

Turn off your software firewall and test. Turn of hardware firewall and test.

It is obviously not a problem with your site, as I cannot reproduce it at all. It is your connectivity, your computer, something on your end for sure.

[cameroti]

and the guilty party is...... Norton Internet Security "Anti Spam" features. Buried in this feature is another configurable pop up blocker. I played with the settings and now everything works fine (various test computers are all on same network system - so all had same problem).

Can't explain the variable nature of the problem - pop ups should have been blocked all the time, but I suspect a combination of the security features, firewall, connectivity combined to create the intermittant problem.

Thanks to Michael for helping me work through this issue. Brilliant support.

Cheers
Tim

[michael_s]

The explanation for the variable nature of the problem = Norton Internet Security is sub-standard software by all comparisons and should be removed from your system! You would not believe how much of my time gets wasted by Norton each month, through support issues soley caused by their application...

You would be much better off with a NAT router (pretty much any router these days), AVG free antivirus and Pest Patrol (the best performing anti spyware program out there).

[recusant]

There's another way of looking at that Norton issue. I know there's probably a combination of factors involved here but, supposing it was just a Norton problem, there's not much point in switching off Norton to get your site to work if a sizeable percentage of your customers are still using it. We have to at least try to design sites that work for the user whether they have Norton installed or not. For example, I used to use Java applets, liberally, until MS effectively put a stop to it - too many new PCs were not Java-enabled and most people are not going to bother to go to the Java download site just to be able to see something on a page they're already losing interest in because something doesn't work for them; they just assume the page is flawed... click - they're gone.

I agree about Norton - it's a bloody nuisance - but it's pretty well established and probably not going to go away overnight. Same thing goes for Norton-blocked image sizes - having to avoid 250x250 and all the banner image sizes. It's an arrogance but we're stuck with it. I feel exactly the same about supermarkets but people keep going to them and supporting them! We mostly have compromise to get our pages to render on as many screens as possible.

I've just spent days trying to get Dynamic Mopics to work. If it has an inherent Norton issue, even when it's set up properly, it's been a total waste of time from my point of view.

So, here we go... - how do I uninstall Mopics from inside the template system? Is it just a matter of removing the database entries and removing the Mopics lines everywhere or do some of them have to be replaced with the original code?

[recusant]

Apologies to Josh Descant - a great many people, including myself, do appreciate your work on Dynamic Mopics so, instead of saying it's not working for me, I should admit that I probably did something stupid - just can't allocate any more time to try to figure what!