Ancestry Image Problem

[Tim]

Good questions, lets hope that helps get you an answer.

 

[Pauline]

Good questions, lets hope that helps get you an answer.

No response at all as yet from Ancestry so I've emailed again asking to be updated on any progress.

Meanwhile, I see that Ancestry have been making some amendments to the image viewer page this week, and that for those getting the normal 3 options from the save menu dropdown, the middle one now says "Save to your computer" rather than "Save to my computer".

The changes haven't fixed the problem, though - I'm still getting the "Save image" option.

I have been looking through the page html to see if I could spot anything which might determine which version of the dropdown is displayed and have used a file comparison tool to find where the html differs for the page displayed on my computer and that displayed on my husband's, who is getting the "Save to my/your computer" option.

Apart from a couple of numbers near the bottom of the page, which I don't know the significance of, and which seem perhaps to change with every visit to the page, the html for both versions of the page seems to be identical, and both contain the wording for the two different dropdowns - "Save to my/your computer" and "Save image".

This suggests to me that the programmers intend the dropdown to display differently in different circumstances but doesn't get me any closer to why and what the differing circumstances are.

Oh well, I'll just have to hope Ancestry can come up with something helpful next time, and that they will answer my 3 questions.

 

[Tim]

Fingers crossed then.

 

[peter]

I don't know what the wording is on Ancestry Library Edition, but it seems likely that it doesn't refer to 'my' or 'your' computer. Just a thought....

 

[Pauline]

I don't know what the wording is on Ancestry Library Edition, but it seems likely that it doesn't refer to 'my' or 'your' computer. Just a thought....

Yes, I too would guess there must be something different for the library edition.

In the html, towards the bottom of the page & the same in both versions, I found

"isInstitutional":false,"isLibraryEdition":false,"

I'm guessing this means it's worked out that we're not using the Library Edition?

 

[Pauline]

Oh well, I'll just have to hope Ancestry can come up with something helpful next time, and that they will answer my 3 questions.

Finally a reply from Ancestry but it's just as useless as all the others. No answers to my 3 questions, and instead a request for a screenshot (um, been there, done that, did it last week), and a suggestion that I add ancestry.com.au as a trusted site. (Not sure how that's supposed to help when I'm using the UK site and have already told them adding ancestry.co.uk and ancestry.com as trusted sites didn't make any difference.) They also referred me yet again to their help pages.

Talking of which, Ancestry's help page on saving images (Answer ID4524) tells you to click the Save button and then select Save to my computer, so I've added some feedback on that page saying that they don't advise what you should do when you don't get offered that option. Maybe this will help draw someone's attention to the issue.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Many thanks for all your experimenting, Bob. I was beginning to think it must be all down to an incorrect setting in my brain.


Now I'll have to wait and see if the technical team can come back with something more helpful.

Just picked up your post Pauline having been away for a week visiting family. Nice one. You have done well to get your questions referred on to their IT people. I just hope you have more joy than I did getting a similar response from Ancestry. We can but hope.

 

[Pauline]

Just picked up your post Pauline having been away for a week visiting family. Nice one. You have done well to get your questions referred on to their IT people. I just hope you have more joy than I did getting a similar response from Ancestry. We can but hope.

Hmm. I was naïve enough to believe that when I was told that my questions would be referred on, they actually would be. However, 10 days on it appears that no one beyond the customer "help" team have looked at this issue. My repeated requests for the technical people's answers to my questions were ignored until finally on Monday I was told "the answers the technical team would give you would be the same as you have already been given".

Their latest response (yesterday) was to tell me that after carefully reviewing everything I'd told them so far they now knew what the problem was - it was caused by using older versions of Flash Player!! Since I always keep Flash up to date and am now using a later version than I was when the Ancestry website was working normally, I am somewhat less than convinced. Moreover, I've tried viewing images with Flash disabled and everything displays exactly the same.

I think I have almost given up hope of ever getting anything sensible back on this issue and for the time being at least will have to make do with downloading images via the inferior "Save image" function.

Meanwhile I remain mystified as to what may be causing the issue. One thing I have noticed is that when trying the Ancestry website on an iPad (using Safari) and an Android tablet (using Chrome and Dolphin, in both desktop and mobile modes), I get "Save image" rather than the "Save to my computer" option. (This is using the full website, not their mobile app version.) I know tablet computers work differently but could there be some clue here?

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Pauline you mentioned you'd seen the source code that listed the two different options in the code but didn't understand how it worked out which to show. I've not been able to replicate the issue myself but I'd be happy to have a look at the code snippet to see if I can work out what is going on. Perhaps having a technical person saying the precise cause might help? I don't hold out too much hope as they do tend to do a good head in sand ostrich impression, but we can but try.

 

[Pauline]

Pauline you mentioned you'd seen the source code that listed the two different options in the code but didn't understand how it worked out which to show. I've not been able to replicate the issue myself but I'd be happy to have a look at the code snippet to see if I can work out what is going on. Perhaps having a technical person saying the precise cause might help? I don't hold out too much hope as they do tend to do a good head in sand ostrich impression, but we can but try.

Many thanks for the offer. I take it from what you say that you have a subscription to Ancestry? As far as I can see, although there seem to be minor variations in the selection of Javascript files etc between different browsers, in IE10 (at least) the viewer page is the same whichever version of the Save button dropdown is displayed, so even though you can't replicate the issue, the code and associated files for the page should be the same.

I know roughly where the wording of the Save dropdown menu appears in the html code, but I haven't been able to work out what determines which version to display, and if it is in the html document or one of the javascript files. I think it may be the largest javascript file that is calling up the wording in the html, but as I've never gone beyond basic website design I'm very much out of my depth.

I have downloaded a viewer page with all its files in IE10, so I could email these to you if you can't get them yourself. But I think it may involve looking at rather more than just a snippet, so please don't worry if it looks like being too lengthy a task.

Thanks again.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

I have an ancestry.co.uk subscription and wasn't sure if it might be different if you were on .com .ca .au etc.

 

[Bob Spiers]

I know I've mentioned it before but my Vista PC using IE9 always produces the 'Save to your computer' but I had not hitherto tried using Chrome in Vista. Surprisingly this produces the 'Save image' response as with all other attempts using all other browsers in both Windows 7 or 8.1

 

[Pauline]

I have an ancestry.co.uk subscription and wasn't sure if it might be different if you were on .com .ca .au etc.

Ours is .co.uk as well.

 

[Norman]

I too have looked at the source code for the page concerned. These pages are database driven and are generated on the fly. There are many JavaScript files referenced and the logic as to how the page is presented will be held within one, or more, of those. Without downloading the files concerned it would be difficult to determine why each of us gets differing page presentations. It's almost certainly the result of a check that's being performed on your PC that results in a different answer to ours and, as such, it's almost certainly your PC that is causing the anomaly.

BTW, I can't replicate the problem using Chrome, IE or Firefox.

 

[Pauline]

I know I've mentioned it before but my Vista PC using IE9 always produces the 'Save to your computer' but I had not hitherto tried using Chrome in Vista. Surprisingly this produces the 'Save image' response as with all other attempts using all other browsers in both Windows 7 or 8.1

That's intriguing. Until now it has seemed that people have been getting the "Save image" option either on all browsers on a particular computer, or on none of them.

 

[Pauline]

I too have looked at the source code for the page concerned. These pages are database driven and are generated on the fly. There are many JavaScript files referenced and the logic as to how the page is presented will be held within one, or more, of those. Without downloading the files concerned it would be difficult to determine why each of us gets differing page presentations. It's almost certainly the result of a check that's being performed on your PC that results in a different answer to ours and, as such, it's almost certainly your PC that is causing the anomaly.

I have to agree that something on my PC is triggering the anomaly but what, and why it suddenly started happening, I just can't work out. I did upgrade from IE9 to IE10 recently but I can't be sure if the issue started before or after the change.

I experimented recently by saving the page to my computer when viewing an image - not as an mhtml file, but complete with its linked folder containing all the javascript and css files etc. I then disconnected from the internet and opened the html file from my desktop and still got the "Save image" option. I then transferred the file and linked folder to my husband's computer (on which Ancestry is behaving normally) and when he opened it (also in IE10) he got the normal "Save to your computer" option.

This would seem to me to confirm that:
1) Both options are programmed into the page and Ancestry must know why they did this and what determines who gets which version
2) There is, as Norman says, almost certainly something on my computer which is determining that I get the "Save image" option rather than the one I am supposed to get.

I have now had a further response from Ancestry saying they have escalated this issue to their Development team. I shall have to wait and see if it actually reaches them, and what response they may give.

 

[Pauline]

I forgot to say that Ancestry also suggested trying a Clean Boot and then seeing if the issue persisted - it does. I guess this rules out any of my added programs and drivers causing the issue?

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Your approach is sound there is something in the code that shows different menus based on different conditions but as Norman said its not at all obvious what the conditions are. Since the programmers must have coded the different approaches it CANNOT be drivers, rebooting machine etc etc it MUST be something to do with the way the browser is interpreting the data.

 

[Pauline]

Eureka!

After further experimentation, I think we've cracked it. Being fairly certain that there were no differences between IE10 on my computer and IE10 on my husband's computer, we started to consider what differences there might be between our computers that could be triggering this issue, and one obvious difference was our monitors: I have a rather old 4:3 format monitor (1024 x 768 pixels), whereas his is a newer 16:9 one (1366 x 768).

Resetting his monitor resolution to 1024 x 768, we could then replicate the issue ("Save image" rather than "Save to your computer") on his computer, in both IE10 and Firefox. Reverting to the default resolution took him back to the correct version of the menu.

One slight spanner in the works with this is that we have an ancient laptop running XP and IE8, also with a display resolution of 1024 x 768, and we're getting the correct "Save to your computer" option on that. However, the html code for the page has some comments at the top which I think suggest that it uses different javascript files depending on whether you have IE7, IE8, IE9 or an unspecified version later than IE9.

So presumably having IE10 is not of itself the issue, but the update nevertheless triggered it, and I'm guessing that the different javascript file used by IE10 and later contains something about screen resolution.

And this takes me back to one of my original thoughts, that somehow something in the page's code was identifying my computer as a tablet rather than a desktop. Well, if you assume that only tablets will have a screen resolution at 1024 x 768 or less these days, then maybe there was something in that thought after all - and I did suggest this to Ancestry nearly a fortnight ago.

So now I need to report this back to Ancestry and see what they make of it. But I'd be interested to hear anyone else's further thoughts on this.

 

[peter]

Yes, if I set my screen resolution to 800x600 (and restart IE11) then I also get Save Image.

Well done!