If you are experiencing difficulty downloading and viewing images through Firefox, this article provides some tips that may be useful in resolving the problem.

• This article applies to still image file formats such as PNG, GIF, and JPG. It also applies to animated file formats like animated GIF.

This article does not apply to the following formats:

• Video, such as MPG, WMV, and AVI. For more information, see Video or audio does not play.
• Animated content that is displayed through a plugin:
  • For more information on the Flash plugin, see Using the Flash plugin with Firefox.
  • For more information on the Shockwave plugin, see Using the Shockwave plugin with Firefox.

Table Of Contents

• First steps
• Images do not load
• The image cannot be displayed because it contains errors
• Other reasons why images may not load
• Images load the first time but not later
• Images load but look wrong
• Images load as text or gibberish
• Images do not animate
• Security software
• Images still do not load correctly

First steps

1. You may be able to diagnose problems with the most common image formats and resolve them by running a test.
   1. Run this test.
   2. Check the page to see if any of the images do not load. Try to make the suggested fix in your local computing environment.
   3. To execute the test again when the test page is displayed, press and hold Shift and press Reload in the Firefox toolbar.
2. Clear your Firefox cache.
   1. At the top of the Firefox windowOn the menu bar, click on the ToolsFirefoxEdit menu, and select Options...Preferences....
   2. In the OptionsPreferences window, select the Advanced panel.
   3. Under the Network tab, click Clear Now.
      
      
      
      
3. Clear all cookies from Firefox. Cookies are small files stored by some web sites on your local computer that are used to enhance your experience with the web site when you visit it again. Cookies may change the behavior of some web sites so that you cannot see current images.
   1. In the OptionsPreferences window, select the Privacy panel.
   2. Click Show Cookies....
   3. In the Cookies dialog, click Remove All Cookies. Click CloseClose the Cookies window.
   4. All cookies are removed from Firefox.
4. If you are using ad-blocking software, such as Adblock, a hosts file, or other security software, you should try disabling it to determine if it is the source of the problem.
   • For more information on resolving issues with security software, see the Security Software section below.
5. Verify that you do not have Firefox set to block images from that specific site.
   1. At the top of the Firefox windowOn the menu bar, click on the ToolsFirefoxEdit menu, and select Options...Preferences....
   2. Select the Content panel
   3. Beside Load images automatically, click on Exceptions....
   4. The "Exceptions - Images" window should open. If the site you are having this problem with appears in the list of sites, select it and click Remove Site.
   5. Click the Close buttonClose the "Exceptions - Images" window.
   6. Click OKClose the preferences window.
6. Advanced First Steps
   1. The Firefox preference network.http.pipelining is designed to improve page loading time. Some websites do not support pipelining, which may result in images not being transferred. If you have enabled this preference, disable it:
      1. In the Firefox Location bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.
         • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!, to continue to the about:config page.
      2. In the Filter textbox, enter pipelining.
      3. Right-clickHold down the Ctrl key while you click each displayed preferences, and select Reset.
7. If the above suggestions do not address the problem, please continue reviewing this article.

Images do not load

Firefox enables you to block downloads from specific sites. You should verify that sites from which you are downloading images are not blocked by Firefox:

1. First, you should verify some Firefox preferences.
   1. In the Firefox Location bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.
      
      
      
      • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!, to continue to the about:config page.
   2. In the Filter textbox, enter permissions.default.image.
   3. If the value for permissions.default.image is not set to 1 (the default value), right-clickhold down the Ctrl key while you click on it and select Reset.
2. At the top of the Firefox windowOn the menu bar, click on the ToolsFirefoxEdit menu, and select Options...Preferences....
3. In the OptionsPreferences window, select the Content panel.
4. Verify that Load images automatically is selected.
5. Next to the above option, click Exceptions.... In the dialog, remove any sites from which you are having problems downloading images.
6. Click OKClose the Exceptions window.

The image cannot be displayed because it contains errors

If you receive the message that an image cannot be displayed because it contains errors, see the The image cannot be displayed because it contains errors article.

Other reasons why images may not load

• The site that displays the images may be down or experiencing difficulties. To verify, try loading the site from a different computer or browser.
• Images from a site can be blocked from a right-clickcontext menu. A site could be blocked accidentally by right-clickingholding down the Ctrl key while you click on an image.
• If images such as Google Maps fail to load or to zoom in and out, you must change a preference:
  1. In the Firefox Location bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.
     • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!, to continue to the about:config page.
  2. In the about:config page, enter dom.disable_image_src_set in the Filter textbox.
  3. Verify that the value of dom.disable_image_src_set is set to false.
  4. To change the value, right-clickhold down the Ctrl key while you click the preference name, and select Reset.
• Some pathnames to images contain backslashes (e.g. example.com\MyImage.jpg). In browsers other than Internet Explorer, these pathnames do not load. If you see the image's URL contains a backslash:
  1. Contact the web site's webmaster about the issue.
  2. The Slashy extension provides a workaround for this problem.
• Some sites do not transfer data to you if your request does not include a referring URL (Uniform Resource Locator). To include the referring URL in the request:
  1. In the Firefox Location bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.
     • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!, to continue to the about:config page.
  2. In the about:config page, enter network.http.sendRefererHeader in the Filter textbox.
  3. Verify that the value of network.http.sendRefererHeader is set to 2, which is the default value.
  4. To change the value, right-clickhold down the Ctrl key while you click the preference name, and select Reset.
  5. Verify that all proxies, firewalls, and other security software in your computing environment permit the referring URL to be sent.
• As a security precaution, references to images on your local computer from a remote web site are disabled. If you encounter this restriction and you understand the security implications, you can disable this security measure.

For additional solutions to this issue:

• Error loading web sites

Images load the first time but not later

The RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin extension (installed with RealPlayer) can cause Firefox to show images correctly upon first visit to a web site, but not on subsequent visits or refreshes. Disabling or uninstalling this extension will fix the problem. For instructions on how to disable the extension, see Customizing Firefox with add-ons.

Images load but look wrong

1. If the colors in the image look incorrect, try the solutions in this Web site colors are wrong article.
2. If you are using any sort of web accelerator software, disable it and see if images load properly. For more information, see the documentation that came with the software.
3. If the image is very large, by default Firefox resizes it to fit inside the browser window, which may change its appearance. If you prefer to see the full-sized image, right-clickhold down the Ctrl key while you click the image and select View Image....
4. If you are using the Image Zoom extension, which enables image zooming through the browser window, you can change the display size of the image. In the menu bar, select View, then select Image Zoom, followed by 100% (Original Size).

Images load as text or gibberish

If the image area shows text or some form of gibberish, see this MozillaZine article.

Images do not animate

If animated GIF images are not animating on-screen, you may need to change a Firefox preference:

1. In the Location bar, type about:config, and press EnterReturn.
   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!, to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, enter image.animation_mode in the Filter textbox. This preference determines how to animate multi-frame animated GIF images. Possible values include:
   • none: animated images will never play.
   • once: animated images will play once and then stop animating.
   • normal: (default) animated images will play as normal.
3. Verify that the value of image.animation_mode is set to normal, which is the default value.
4. To change the value, right-clickhold down the Ctrl key while you click the preference name, and select Reset.

Security software

Some security software may identify and block certain images as web bugs or may prevent GIF images from animating. If you are using ZoneAlarm Pro or CA (eTrust) Personal Firewall, you must deselect blocking of web bugs and animation. For more information, see the documentation that came with your software product.

• For a screenshot of the Zone Alarm Pro settings, see this MozillaZine page.

If CA Personal Firewall 2007 is installed and images on certain websites aren't loading, see Pictures do not load on websites since installing CA Personal Firewall 2007 on their company web site.

Images still do not load correctly

If you have tried all of the solutions in this article and images or animations still don't load correctly:

1. Try the rest of the solutions in Web sites look wrong.
2. You can step through the basic troubleshooting article. For more information, see Basic Troubleshooting.
3. In some cases, a corrupt profile can cause images to fail to load. You should create a new profile and activate it. For more information, see Recovering important data from an old profile.

Based on information from Images or animations do not load (mozillaZine KB)