Images appear over compressed in IE6 (and other browsers) yet fine on secure sites

[cosmic-cookie]

Four days ago I noticed that the google logo and subsequently other
images on websites looked badly compressed. JPGs are wobbly/blurred,
GIFs are chunky and if gradients are present they are showing in 3 or 4
colours as if computer was in safe mode, yet all look fine on secure
sites. I also noticed that I cannot 'save target as' on some images.

Machine Details: HP Pavilion Laptop zv6004EA, AMD sempron procesor
3000+, 548 MHz, 224 mb RAM, Windows XP Home 2002 (5.1, Build 2600),
SP2, Page file 328mb used, 215mb available, DirectX 9.0c.

I searched online for possible reasons as to why this might be
happening and here's what I have tried so far:

Please note: I closed down IE6 and rebooted after each point listed
below.

1. Cleared cache, temp files folder, checked settings for monitor
(colours - currently 32bit, resolution which is 1024x768, tested all
acceleration levels).

2. Completed system scan for viruses which was fine

3. Completed system scan for spyware which was fine

4. Completed virus scan from Mcafee website which was fine.

5. Checked virus defs were up-to-date on mcafee site all fine

6. Checked windows updates - none critical or relevant.

7. Deleted all unused non-windows programmes.

8. Deleted all downloaded objects, restarted and browsed - no change.

9. Uninstalled sun java (recently installed a month ago) just to see if
anything happened - no change.

10. Disconnected my wireless belkin card and connected via my Motorola
V3 on Orange GPRS (I have connected to internet before using this and
images were fine). No change.

11. Graphics/Video Card Drivers - Checked for updates for ATI Radeon
Xpress 200m on ATi site and microsoft site and only found a windows
update for thedriver but no joy.

12. Ran DXDIAG and all tests passed, just as I finished I got a error
message from windows saying it was going to close the programme for
security reasons. I restarted the DXDIAG and during the 'Check for WHQL
digital signatures' I got the error mesage 'DxDiag has detected that
there may have been a problem accessing DirectShow the last time this
programme was used. Would you like to bypass DirectShow this time?'
When click yes it carries on, when click no it crashes the diagnostic
tool only.

13. Defragged machine. No bad sectors.

14. Tried changing windows theme to basic.

15. Turned off internet security and browsed and no change.

16. Change all internet options that could be set to default back to
default - no change.

17. Checked content advisor - it was not enabled. Enabled it and
disabled just to check. nada.

18. In internet options/advanced 'automatic image resizing' and 'smart
image dithering' unchecked, but tried checked also.

Another ominous thing that has been bugging me is when I close my
browser there is another page behind momentarily that says
'about:blank'. I have searched for reasons why this is happening but
nothing conclusive.

I am losing my marbles here and would appreciate some help.

Thanks in advance.

Melanie

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

Four days ago I noticed that the google logo and subsequently other
images on websites looked badly compressed. JPGs are wobbly/blurred,
GIFs are chunky and if gradients are present they are showing in 3 or 4
colours as if computer was in safe mode, yet all look fine on secure
sites. I also noticed that I cannot 'save target as' on some images.

Machine Details: HP Pavilion Laptop zv6004EA, AMD sempron procesor
3000+, 548 MHz, 224 mb RAM, Windows XP Home 2002 (5.1, Build 2600),
SP2, Page file 328mb used, 215mb available, DirectX 9.0c.

I searched online for possible reasons as to why this might be
happening and here's what I have tried so far:

Please note: I closed down IE6 and rebooted after each point listed
below.

1. Cleared cache, temp files folder, checked settings for monitor
(colours - currently 32bit, resolution which is 1024x768, tested all
acceleration levels).

2. Completed system scan for viruses which was fine

3. Completed system scan for spyware which was fine

4. Completed virus scan from Mcafee website which was fine.

5. Checked virus defs were up-to-date on mcafee site all fine

6. Checked windows updates - none critical or relevant.

7. Deleted all unused non-windows programmes.

8. Deleted all downloaded objects, restarted and browsed - no change.

9. Uninstalled sun java (recently installed a month ago) just to see if
anything happened - no change.

10. Disconnected my wireless belkin card and connected via my Motorola
V3 on Orange GPRS (I have connected to internet before using this and
images were fine). No change.

11. Graphics/Video Card Drivers - Checked for updates for ATI Radeon
Xpress 200m on ATi site and microsoft site and only found a windows
update for thedriver but no joy.

12. Ran DXDIAG and all tests passed, just as I finished I got a error
message from windows saying it was going to close the programme for
security reasons. I restarted the DXDIAG and during the 'Check for WHQL
digital signatures' I got the error mesage 'DxDiag has detected that
there may have been a problem accessing DirectShow the last time this
programme was used. Would you like to bypass DirectShow this time?'
When click yes it carries on, when click no it crashes the diagnostic
tool only.

13. Defragged machine. No bad sectors.

14. Tried changing windows theme to basic.

15. Turned off internet security and browsed and no change.

16. Change all internet options that could be set to default back to
default - no change.

17. Checked content advisor - it was not enabled. Enabled it and
disabled just to check. nada.

18. In internet options/advanced 'automatic image resizing' and 'smart
image dithering' unchecked, but tried checked also.

Another ominous thing that has been bugging me is when I close my
browser there is another page behind momentarily that says
'about:blank'. I have searched for reasons why this is happening but
nothing conclusive.

I am losing my marbles here and would appreciate some help.

Thanks in advance.

Melanie

Do you have any kind of Web Accelerator installed? These will do this.

 

[cosmic-cookie]

Hi Frank,

RE: Your question: Do you have any kind of Web Accelerator installed?
These will do this.

Thanks for reply, to answer your question, no, I have no web
accelerator installed to my knowledge.

Could it have been installed by Mcafee, Windows update or something
else automatically installed with an update or new software?

What are the most typical/popular web accelerators?

I did read about isp's using web accelerators suggestions in previous
posts, that's why I actioned number 10 in my first post.

regards,
Melanie

 

[cosmic-cookie]

Just wanted to add, I have spent the last couple of hours searching on
bt's site, google groups and google to find out if my ISP uses a web
accelerator and can't find anything. I did come across an article about
a company that offers internet connection accelerator service and I am
experiencing all of the 'symptoms' but have never installed or found
anything on my machine. I have had the same wireless modem with
wireless router and bt broadband service for 10 months and experienced
no problems like this before.

How on earth can I find out if my internet browsing is being routed via
similar servers without my authorisation/knowledge?

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

Just wanted to add, I have spent the last couple of hours searching on
bt's site, google groups and google to find out if my ISP uses a web
accelerator and can't find anything. I did come across an article about
a company that offers internet connection accelerator service and I am
experiencing all of the 'symptoms' but have never installed or found
anything on my machine. I have had the same wireless modem with
wireless router and bt broadband service for 10 months and experienced
no problems like this before.

How on earth can I find out if my internet browsing is being routed via
similar servers without my authorisation/knowledge?

Go to Start | Run and type
msconfig

On the startup tab see if there is anything suspicious.

 

[cosmic-cookie]

Hi Frank,

Re: Go to Start | Run and type msconfig - on the startup tab see if
there is anything suspicious.

I would not know what was suspicious, i ran msconfig and took a
screenshot for you to see if you might be able to identify it. Please
visit:

http://www.melaniecook.co.uk/startup.jpg

I have overcompressed this image, the quality's not great.

Thanks,
Melanie

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE]

Hi Frank,

Re: Go to Start | Run and type msconfig - on the startup tab see if
there is anything suspicious.

I would not know what was suspicious, i ran msconfig and took a
screenshot for you to see if you might be able to identify it. Please
visit:

http://www.melaniecook.co.uk/startup.jpg

I have overcompressed this image, the quality's not great.

Thanks,
Melanie

First I would try unchecking the first six items on the first page and qtask
and iTunesHelper on the second page. Reboot and see what that does.

 

[cosmic-cookie]

Hi Frank,

Thank you for your help but that did not work so I spent the afternoon
checking to see if I could find any more about a web accelerator that
mcafee had on their ad banners, I thought that might have been the
problem. I also fiddled around with my belkin wireless utility, checked
to see I had the right WEP key, restored to previous point etc and
eventually ended up with no connection at all except to the router (I
knew this as I could still access the router home page from this
machine).

I re-read the booklets that came with my belkin router and network card
and no dice, and thought I would contact Belkin support (Europe: 00800
223 55 460) to see if they had any bright ideas. They did. They told
me to go to 'Start' then 'Run' and type 'services.msc' and hit 'Ok'.

In the services window that opened I had to select 'Services (local)'
to display the contents in the right window pane and find 'Wireless
Zero Configuration'. I was told to right click 'Wireless Zero
Configuration' and select 'stop', something happened too quick for my
eye and my connection was restored, so I opened ie6 and up pops google
home page and all graphics are back to perfect quality.

Hope this helps someone else too and thanks so much for your time
Frank.

Kind regards
Melanie

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Just thought I'd add that I have exactly the same problem, and it began at
roughly the same time, so I wonder if there was a virus/piece of
spyware/update etc that came out last week which might have changed some
settings...?

Though I also use a belkin router, stopping the 'wireless zero
configuration' made no difference on my system. However, I can get any page
to display at full quality by holding down ctrl and clicking refresh. A very
simple example would be the google logo that shows in the top left of the
screen after you have run a search and the results are listed. Unfrotunately
there doesn't seem to be an option to upload the images here to demonstrate
the difference, but the difference is very obvious easy to describe, because
as well as the pre-refresh image looking much blockier/grainier, it is on an
off-white background, whereas after the refresh, the icon's background is
white like the rest of the page. This would tally with the information I get
when right clicking the image and viewing the properties - i.e. the
resolution of the image hasn't changed, but it's size has - so I guess it
must be something to do with the colour depth that has changed:

Before hard refresh:

Protocol: HyperText Transfer Protocol
Type: Paint Shop Pro X Image
Address (URL): http://www.google.co.uk/images/logo_sm.gif
Size: 1694 bytes
Dimensions: 150x55 pixels



After hard refresh:

Protocol: HyperText Transfer Protocol
Type: Paint Shop Pro X Image
Address (URL): http://www.google.co.uk/images/logo_sm.gif
Size: 4707 bytes
Dimensions: 150x55 pixels


By the way, I'm pretty sure this isn't something to do with an isp
accelerator, as there are two computers in my house, both running off the
same router, and only one of them has this problem.

Also, this bug seems to effect firefox as well, but doing a hard refresh in
firefox doesn't make any difference.

If anybody could shed some further light on this, it would be much
appreciated!

 

[cosmic-cookie]

Hi Ben,

Both images look the same to me (?)

Before I actioned the wireless zero thing I uninstalled sun java as it
was the only recent thing that I installed. I also checked for updates
on the microsoft site and found a update for belkin driver in the non
critical stuff. Hope that helps.

Kind regards
Melanie

 

[Guest]

Hi Melanie,

Thanks for the reply.

The reason why both pictures look the same is that they are the same - only
look different on my computer!

After a few days defragging computer, removing spyware, changing settings,
etc. etc. to no avail, the problem resolved itself.

On closer inspection it was effecting both computers in my house, so I'm
guessing that it was some kind of acceleration provided by the ISP (BT
broadband) that they were trialling without bothering to warn the users.

Thanks again,
Ben