Not Displaying Subdomain CSS Styles or Images

[Guest]

On one of my PCs, whenever I go to a web site that gets CSS styles or images
from a subdomain instead of the same folder as the URL page, IE Explorer 6
does not display the images or use the styles. It doesn't seem to be going
to or using information from the subfolders.

Thanks for any ideas - this is exasperating, especially when it works on
other PCs that use the same Internet connection. They are not networked -
just pulling the modem cable out of one and putting in the other - two PCs
work, 3rd gets to Internet OK and everything else works except the subfolder
thing.

Also, on the PC with IE6 that's not getting data correctly, other browsers
(Firefox, Netscape) do work correctly.

 

[Charlie Tame]

tools>internet options>security>internet zone>custom button.

Under miscellaneous "Access data sources across domains" or something
similar. Could this be affecting it? Not sure what you mean by subdomain.

Charlie

 

[Guest]

I tried enabling "Access data sources across domains", but that doesn't help.

My terminology seems suspect. Here's the problem scenario: I go to a URL
like, www.website.com. It doesn't look right. Viewing the source, I see
that the CSS styles are coming from www.website.com/css/style.css and that
sheet references images like www.website.com/images/image.jpg that are also
not being displayed. Now that I look further, the browser does display
images from the subfolder /images/ if the reference is right in the URL's
HTML and not via /css/ folder. So the problem seems to be that this PC is not
<displaying, referencing, receiving, or something> the style sheet in the
subfolder and it's only not doing it in IE6 (other browsers work OK).

 

[Bonnie Granat]

How can you say you go to www.website.com, when that URL transfers to
www.doteasy.com automatically?

 

[Guest]

How can you say you go to www.website.com, when that URL transfers to
www.doteasy.com automatically?

 

[Guest]

Sorry - www.website.com was bad example. I did not literally mean
www.website.com - I meant it as an example, as in www.,<anywebsiteIgoto>.com.
For a real URL, I will use the real URL example www.alistapart.com. On all
of my computers but this one, when I bring that site up in IE6, it displays
correctly, but when I bring it up on the computer with the bad IE6, it
displays without the styles that come to that page from the folder
/c/ala.css. For example, the blue background is missing, the styling on the
menu bar is missing, the headings are blue, and the type is big throughout
(even though the text size on IE is set to "medium").

This is just one example. Other sites, including Microsoft's Knowledge base
don't display a thing. And if I try to look at this newsgroup on that
computer I can't read it because the type displays so big I can only see a
few words at a time. The inability to display styles from a subfolder seems
to be one problem. The inability to display some sites and the mess it makes
of others are others.

I have cleansed the machine of ads and spyware, have checked for viruses,
have checked all of the IE6 settings to make sure it matches the other
machines (including the Security>Custom stuff). I've checked newsgroups and
in every instance where I find questions about similar problems, no one seems
to have an answer. I cannot find anything about this in MS Knowledge Base
either.

This has become exasperating enough for me to have installed Firefox to
use instead of IE6. This is another person's machine and they cannot deal
with these technical issues. I would like to have them continue with IE6,
but only if we can solve these problems. And because it's someone else's
machine, I will not be wiping the operating system off and starting over,
which seems like too much to ask someone to do anyway to get a working
browser. I may need to resort to telling them to use Firefox.

I've checked newsgroups and in every instance where I find questions about
similar problems, no one seems to have an answer. I cannot find anything
about this in MS Knowledge Base either.

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

Sorry - www.website.com was bad example. I did not literally mean
www.website.com - I meant it as an example, as in www.,<anywebsiteIgoto>.com.
For a real URL, I will use the real URL example www.alistapart.com. On all
of my computers but this one, when I bring that site up in IE6, it displays
correctly, but when I bring it up on the computer with the bad IE6, it
displays without the styles that come to that page from the folder
/c/ala.css. For example, the blue background is missing, the styling on the
menu bar is missing, the headings are blue, and the type is big throughout
(even though the text size on IE is set to "medium").

Try emulating that same rendering on the other machine so you know
what it represents. E.g. for "blue background is missing" check
in the Accessibility dialog: Ignore colors specified on Web pages.
To make the type big (how big?) use: Ignore fonts sizes specified in
web pages and set View text size to Largest.

If you can't emulate all the differences with simple things like that
you could in addition specify a User Style Sheet to be used as an
override.

It would also be interesting to work the opposite way and see what would
happen if you copied the ala.css to a local file on the problem machine
and used it as the User Style Sheet. Similarly, what does the print.css
that comes from the same site do? Hmm... seems to be used in Print
Preview. Ha. Your site actually has a page with examples that you
could use to cause more extreme size differences via a User Style Sheet
override:

< http://www.alistapart.com/articles/relafont/ >


Sometimes if you flip enough bits in the registry around the ones which
appear to be stuck you can effect a repair. Also, if you make these
changes only via the IE Tools menu and it doesn't seem to have any
effect, I would try making them using the Internet Properties tool
instead (ostensibly the same dialog but with a different title started
from the Control Panel's Internet Options applet.) There are a few
settings and commands which seem to work better that way,
especially when iexplore.exe is not an active process.


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---

 

[Guest]

Thank you Robert for suggesting this approach. I made a small stylesheet and
a small piece of html, and tested them on the local machine. What I noticed
here was that IE was picking up changes in font-family, font-style, and
font-size regardless of which folder I put the css into, but it was not
picking up any background URL or color information.

After many, many hours of googling and tinkering this began to suggest some
kind of accessibility issue. Given the large type issue that accompanied the
CSS styles problem, I suspected a High Contrast setting somewhere. However,
the machine in question did not have the accessibility wizard or the
accessibility control panel in the usual place (Start>Control
Panel>Accessibilty), so when I was rifling the machine looking for funky
settings I didn't see a clue.

Hours later, I found a post that directed me to the access.cpl file (this
stuff might be easy to find out about for you professionals, but I'm a "handy
homeowner/pc slave", not a MS guru - e.g., I did not know until this evening
that .cpl was a control panel thingy). I found it on the hard drive,
double-clicked, and lo and behold, in the Display options, the Use High
Contrast box was checked. When I unchecked and applied, EVERYTHING GOT
BETTER INSTANTLY.

I also noted that the display theme that was applied reverted to another
theme. So the thing that caused this in-excess-of-24-hours problem solving
adventure, was that the PC owner had selected a high contrast scheme (but
nowhere on the theme did it suggest that it was high contrast or anything
special), the accessibility control panel is missing from the control panel
options, and there was no clue visible anywhere that a special accessibility
option had been applied.

AARRRRGGGH! But thanks again Robert. I appreciated that you provided an
approach and not a pat "answer".

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

the accessibility control panel is missing from the control panel

options, and there was no clue visible anywhere that a special
accessibility option had been applied.

This strikes me as a refinement of the sort of confusion that
we have already been attributing to malware. So now we know
it is not enough just to inspect the Accessibility settings in the
Internet Options dialog.

Thanks for sharing your solution.


Robert
---

Thank you Robert for suggesting this approach. I made a small stylesheet and
a small piece of html, and tested them on the local machine. What I noticed
here was that IE was picking up changes in font-family, font-style, and
font-size regardless of which folder I put the css into, but it was not
picking up any background URL or color information.

After many, many hours of googling and tinkering this began to suggest some
kind of accessibility issue. Given the large type issue that accompanied the
CSS styles problem, I suspected a High Contrast setting somewhere. However,
the machine in question did not have the accessibility wizard or the
accessibility control panel in the usual place (Start>Control
Panel>Accessibilty), so when I was rifling the machine looking for funky
settings I didn't see a clue.

Hours later, I found a post that directed me to the access.cpl file (this
stuff might be easy to find out about for you professionals, but I'm a "handy
homeowner/pc slave", not a MS guru - e.g., I did not know until this evening
that .cpl was a control panel thingy). I found it on the hard drive,
double-clicked, and lo and behold, in the Display options, the Use High
Contrast box was checked. When I unchecked and applied, EVERYTHING GOT
BETTER INSTANTLY.

I also noted that the display theme that was applied reverted to another
theme. So the thing that caused this in-excess-of-24-hours problem solving
adventure, was that the PC owner had selected a high contrast scheme (but
nowhere on the theme did it suggest that it was high contrast or anything
special), the accessibility control panel is missing from the control panel
options, and there was no clue visible anywhere that a special accessibility
option had been applied.

AARRRRGGGH! But thanks again Robert. I appreciated that you provided an
approach and not a pat "answer".