Animated GIFs don't animate!! (Argh!)

Factual Questions
1

My father was nice enough to give me his 863MHz Dell Dimension when he got a new computer. The only problem I have with it is that animated GIFs on the web don’t move. This is a Windows XP machine, and I remember my old roommate having the same problem when he upgraded his machine from ME to XP.

I bought a new video card two days ago (nVIDIA GeForceFX AGP 5200), but that didn’t solve anything. I’ve tried installing new drivers. Nope. I’ve asked many, many people this question, but no one has ever been able to help me fix it. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
FoamFighter

2

What browser are you using?

3

I normally use Mozilla, but the problem spans Mozilla, Netscape, and MSIE.

4

In MS Internet Explorer 6.0 under Win98, there’s an option to “play animations in web page” which must be checked. To get to that, I click on tools/Internet options/advanced and scroll down to the multimedia section.

No idea if Mozilla and Netscape have similar options.

5

They do. Believe me, I’ve made sure it was checked over and over again.

Occasionally (maybe once every two months) there will be a period of a day or two where the GIFs do animate. But then it just stops again.

6

Do you have Office installed? If so, do you see AGIFs play in PowerPoint in Slide Show on that machine? (Clipart comes with AGIFs - from PPT you can Insert | Clipart, then choose to search only for animated GIFS).

7

I have Word, but no other office programs. I know that when I try to download a supposedly animated GIF, I only end up downloading the first frame.

8

I’ve got the same issue.
I’m running W2k sp4, IE 6.0.28 on a 1.7GHz w/ 512Mb RAM & “play animations” clicked.

Damnedest thing.

9

I wish I had your problem! I can’t stand blinking ads.
On an earlier version of IE I found out about a Regedit patch to turn off the blinking permanently and was thrilled.
But on the next version the patch didn’t work.
It had something to do with whether the gifs contained “V2.0”, which I guess is the first version that blinked.

10

There are really only two versions of GIFs you’ll ever encounter, versions 87a and 89a (named after the year they were invented). 89a was the first version to support delays between frames, which makes animation possible. The GIF89a specs say that the GIF format “is not intended as a platform for animation, even though it can be done in a limited way.” Yeah, right.

11

Have you tried cleaning out your temp files?

12

Maybe below will help, blatantly ripped from Animation Factory:

Why can’t I save the animation as an animated GIF?

Internet Explorer sometimes has a problem saving out GIF’s when using the method described above. If you have this problem, Internet Explorer will only allow you to save the animation as a BMP. As you may know, BMP is not a valid animation format, and thus all you will be saving is a still frame. To fix this problem, the Internet Explorer cache must be cleared. To clear the cache in Internet Explorer, click the ‘Tools’ menu, select ‘Internet options’, click the ‘General’ tab, under the ‘Temporary Internet Files’ heading, click the ‘Delete Files’ button, and a new window pops up. Now check the ‘Delete all offline content’ check box, then click ‘OK’. The computer may take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour to finish clearing these files. More information on this bug can be found here:
Billy Gates

13

The thing is, I don’t even use MSIE. I use Mozilla. Same issue. And I have tried cleaning out my temp files.

  • Adam
14

Many firewall or security programs also have settings to prevent animated GIFs, Flash animations, etc. from playing. Check those.

15

I use ZoneAlarm Pro. I’ve disabled it and checked. No dice.

  • Adam
16

With other Windows versions, Zone Alarm Pro suggests:

  1. Reboot your system into either Safe Mode or a Command Prompt
  2. Open the Internet Logs directory - e.g. C:Winnt\Internet Logs),
  3. Find “iamdb.rdb” and a file named after your computer with the “.1db” extension.
  4. Delete both of these files.

Also, check which program is associated with GIFs on your system. “associating an extension” only means it is the default or ‘left click’ viewer - you can still send it directly to other programs by using the right click menu. If it’s not associated with your browser, try associating GIF with your browser. If that changes nothing, you can change it back, If that fixes it, you can leave it or associate GIFs with another program that plays more nicely with others.