When a Wikipedia article has multiple images, it is nice to click on the first one and then scroll through them using the arrows on the edges of them. In the last couple of days, I have noticed I can’t do that anymore. I need to X out of an image, and then click on the next one; then repeat for all images.
Q: Has something changed at Wikipedia? Or did I somehow fat-finger my settings?
I’m still able to scroll through on my iPad.
Just tested it out on the page for WWII.
It’s not working for me in Safari. I’ve just tried it in Firefox, and I have to X out of the image and click on the next one to see it.
ETA: When I say ‘scroll’, I mean ‘click through a slideshow’.
I’m on an iPhone running Safari on iOS v26.5. On the WWII page (thanks @ASL_v2.0 ) near the top there are six photos.
➜ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II ■
I can scroll through the 6 photos, but interestingly the left / right arrows intermittently do not display. But when I tap where they’re supposed to be (left or right [forward, backward]) the next photo does load.
That’s how I took it as well. All just to say that it works like normal for me.
Are you viewing the mobile site (with an “m” in the url) or the desktop site? I’m viewing the desktop site.
OK, it looks like I’ve ‘fixed’ it. Click on the thumbnail to open it. Then click on the fullscreen icon, and the arrows appear. Click on the ‘normal size’ icon (the one that looks like an Iron Cross insignia on WWII German aircraft and vehicles), and the arrows remain.
That doesn’t work for me.
I’m on Safari on my MacBook.
I’m using Edge on a Win11 PC.
There’s definitely some Wiki weirdness going on. Until I full-screen the image there are no arrows. Once fullscreened there are left/right arrows and other nav buttons. All of which disappear after a couple seconds. But if you tap/click where they were shown, they still work; they’re just invisible. Except for when they don’t.
But at upper right is a counter of the images. e.g. “1/42” on the test page I chose mostly at random. But as I page through the “slide show”, the counter stays on “1/42” even if I’m on the 8th image or whatever.
I tried disabling my ad blocker (uBlock origin) and doing a full refresh. That didn’t change the goofy behavior.
My bottom line:
IMO something is buggily different at Wiki versus before and I suspect each brand of device and browser will manifest slightly different weirdnesses. But weird it surely is.
According to this, there is are some changes to the Wikipedia image browsing feature that are starting to roll out this week. I’m not positive this is related to the OP’s issue, because the way I read this announcement, for now only users who have enabled Beta features in their Wikipedia preferences will see the change. But it seems an odd coincidence if it’s not related. You might want to report the problem you’re having in that thread. Be sure to report as many details as possible: what browser you’re using, what kind of computer, the exact article(s) you’ve seen the problem on, whether you’re logged in to Wikipedia, which Wikipedia skin you’re using, etc.
You don’t need to click the full size button; once you’ve clicked on one of the
images, you can use your l/r arrow keys to scroll through, even though there
are no arrow buttons visible.
I tried that. There are no invisible buttons, so I have to go full screen, then regular screen before there are buttons.
Interesting. I tried @pjd’s suggestion and it worked perfectly on both maximized and unmaximized images. Again Win11 and Edge.
I meant use the l/r arrow keys on your keyboard, not on screen ones.
I’m using Firefox on Win11 PC. I tried the WWII page given above.
I don’t see the arrows but the l/r arrows work…
Unless I click on a picture to enlarge it, after which the arrows no longer work.
PJD’s and Johnny L.A.'s methods both work for me. Chrome on a Windows laptop.
Now if they’d get rid of the “Main” and “Tools” menus that I have to hide every time I open a new page… .
Ah. I see.
I thought it was just me! 
Less than a week ago I started noticing that the left right white button arrows on the image screens were gone; I immediately figured out that using my left and right keyboard keys will still move me from image to image, but the sucky part is when you do that and it turns out that image is the only one in the article (when the left right white arrows were there, you knew their presence meant other pictures existed for that article; now, you don’t find out until you use your keyboard L/R buttons).
On this note: when did Google change the way they do certain image pages? Here’s what I mean: when I google an image, I often use my mouse wheel to “wheel-click” an image, and when you do that the image is opened in a separate white-screened tab and has related images underneath it. But NOW: when you do that, you do still get the “image opened in sep. white-screened tab with related images under it” thing, BUT now it’s different in look and design- the scroll bar is now centered next to the whole images display rather than being on the side of the screen like it used to be, and if you wanna scroll up or down this little display you have to put your cursor within the “column of images”, like what I mean is IF YOUR CURSOR IS NOT OVER THE COLUMN OF IMAGES your scroll wheel won’t scroll you up or down, the cursor has to be within the rectangle of images now, and in the old days I could also just push the up or down arrow keys on my keyboard to make this page go up or down, now that doesn’t work really because the scroll bar is scrunched right next to the “rectangle of images” now as I described above.
I didn’t do a good job of describing some of that, and it’s very niche and specific stuff, so sorry for that