Loading external JPGs with AOL

1

Hello…

I am having a problem with a picture viewer I built for a client of mine. I thought all was well until my father took a look at the work on his AOL connection. I understand AOL sucks, etc, etc. BUT I cannot seem to figure out why I am having the problem I am. Telling my client that AOL bites is not going to cut it :frowning:

The thing I cant figure out, is that the Flash piece works completely EXCEPT for the fact that the external images do not load (on AOL). If you look at the page: http://www.dspics.net/AOLtest_1.html it should work… except on AOL.

I have placed some of the images directly in the Flash movie and that works fine: http://www.dspics.net/AOLtest_2.html

So it must have something to do with my code? Problem is it works on other browsers, etc??

I found a post on Kirupa: http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56429&highlight=aol

Where reverendflash says: “anyone on Mac OS9 or below, and AOL, can only see player 4 or below.”

The Macromedia website says that is not the case:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/productinfo/systemreqs

UGH. Anybody had any similar problems? Any ideas? As you can see in my movie, I have some debug text showing that the paths are correct. It is driving me crazy!!!

Thanks,
tROCK

2

I believe I read somewhere that the AOL browser converts all .JPG to .ART files. Consequently, when flash tries to load, say, cat.jpg in an AOL browser, it doesn’t exist in the browser’s interpretation because it’s now cat.art. Since Flash isn’t looking for cat.art (it’s looking for cat.jpg) it ends up displaying nothing or an error.

3

Thanks for the response. I have heard some weird things about the AOL browser, and your explaination seems to fall in line with that. But, that means that NO Flash site which loads external JPG’s works in the AOL environment… that cant be true - can it?

Plus arent you bypassing the AOL browser by loading into the Flash Player?

Anybody else have any ideas?

4

Unfortunately, I believe it’s true. I believe that the site data is read by the browser before the activex flash player…so by the time it gets to the flash player, the interpretation of *.jpg files has changed. The AOL browser has been retooled to hunt for *.art files versus *.jpg files, but there’s no “Flash Player for AOL” so the player is still looking for *.jpg files. Just another reason to log into AOL as a dial-in but use Firebird for surfing!!

5

UrbanFalcon… you are right!!

I found this on the Macromedia website:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/jpg_to_art.htm

Their explaination would also explain why some websites CAN load dynamic images into the AOL environment. It is a server setting.