Hi Travis and all the others!

Thank you very much for your quick and thorough response. Indeed, I’ve read the text but not the sheet above it ;)

On Windows XP I’m using Firefox 52.9.0 ESR or Extended Support Release (not Internet Explorer). And additionally Mypal, based on Firefox 68 Quantum. Both give out the same error as I’ve shown before.

I understand and respect the MediaWiki’s position to stop support for older browsers. But I would like to understand what has been changed in the coding algorithm two weeks ago, so the pictures and maps are not showing up in the browsers I use.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_____

Hi Martini,

Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia! First, I have to tell you that Microsoft stopped supporting (so called "End Of Life") Windows XP in 2014, but I'm sure you are aware of that. I can't directly speak for MediaWiki or English Wikipedia, but at most tech projects I've worked on, browsers that are literally 20 years old are supported on what's called a "best effort" basis. This means that, while the project won't work to actively "break" those browsers, we can't guarantee that they will work tomorrow, or the next day, etc.

All that said, the link you shared (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Compatibility_browser), shows the following:

If we attempt to look up your browser (I assume IE 7 or 8) and Operating System (WIndows XP), we see that neither are listed as "still supported". Your browser would be classified as "Unknown (Grade X)" and the minimum operating system for Windows is Windows 7 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7), which came out after Windows Vista. Windows Vista was the OS version after Windows XP. So your OS is two major versions behind the minimum requirement.

Please feel free to post additional questions.

Thanks,

-Travis

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 7:58 PM Leonid G via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

Dear Wikitechs,

my username is „Martinitolove”, since 12 years I’m contributing in several languages and am very glad to feel myself a part of a greater team to provide knowledge to the world!

All these years I’m using a Windows XP laptop with Firefox 52.9.0 (32-bit) on it, and am quite happy with it (won’t change the system). But since two weeks most pictures and map links are not showing up properly. Here are the screenshots as an example of one page in three languages and an example of a picture file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fYqWSfaJ18Zperk4-9XtwWqPBPZWv4ZL/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fcd9RMvy0dAP8fQT8wQbowOKBJ1XQcUk/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OLszK9GZRb0U_DGI0NFhCqg3H9YmjUrD/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Co47IT2LbCFiX0K84wns7WlrsCGucEvQ/view?usp=s...

Was a coding algorithm at Wikipedia changed or support for older browsers disabled? According to this (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Compatibility_browser) my browser is still supported. If it has been caused by mistake, then could you please turn it back on?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/

Hi Travis and all the others!

Thanks again! Can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to make the pictures and maps again? A plugin or change the code manually? Or is there someone who could do it for me?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_____

Hi Martini,

Glad I could help! I can't speak authoritatively or definitively, but my guess is some CSS was changed to a directive that your browser doesn't support.

Cheers,

-Travis

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 23:16 Leonid G via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi Travis and all the others!

Thank you very much for your quick and thorough response. Indeed, I’ve read the text but not the sheet above it ;)

On Windows XP I’m using Firefox 52.9.0 ESR or Extended Support Release (not Internet Explorer). And additionally Mypal, based on Firefox 68 Quantum. Both give out the same error as I’ve shown before.

I understand and respect the MediaWiki’s position to stop support for older browsers. But I would like to understand what has been changed in the coding algorithm two weeks ago, so the pictures and maps are not showing up in the browsers I use.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_____

Hi Martini,

Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia! First, I have to tell you that Microsoft stopped supporting (so called "End Of Life") Windows XP in 2014, but I'm sure you are aware of that. I can't directly speak for MediaWiki or English Wikipedia, but at most tech projects I've worked on, browsers that are literally 20 years old are supported on what's called a "best effort" basis. This means that, while the project won't work to actively "break" those browsers, we can't guarantee that they will work tomorrow, or the next day, etc.

All that said, the link you shared (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Compatibility_browser), shows the following:

If we attempt to look up your browser (I assume IE 7 or 8) and Operating System (WIndows XP), we see that neither are listed as "still supported". Your browser would be classified as "Unknown (Grade X)" and the minimum operating system for Windows is Windows 7 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7), which came out after Windows Vista. Windows Vista was the OS version after Windows XP. So your OS is two major versions behind the minimum requirement.

Please feel free to post additional questions.

Thanks,

-Travis

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 7:58 PM Leonid G via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

Dear Wikitechs,

my username is „Martinitolove”, since 12 years I’m contributing in several languages and am very glad to feel myself a part of a greater team to provide knowledge to the world!

All these years I’m using a Windows XP laptop with Firefox 52.9.0 (32-bit) on it, and am quite happy with it (won’t change the system). But since two weeks most pictures and map links are not showing up properly. Here are the screenshots as an example of one page in three languages and an example of a picture file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fYqWSfaJ18Zperk4-9XtwWqPBPZWv4ZL/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fcd9RMvy0dAP8fQT8wQbowOKBJ1XQcUk/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OLszK9GZRb0U_DGI0NFhCqg3H9YmjUrD/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Co47IT2LbCFiX0K84wns7WlrsCGucEvQ/view?usp=s...

Was a coding algorithm at Wikipedia changed or support for older browsers disabled? According to this (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Compatibility_browser) my browser is still supported. If it has been caused by mistake, then could you please turn it back on?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/

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Hi Dev!

Wow, a cool solution – if it works. Some help setting it up would be appreciated. I was able to download it. But can not install into my Firefox 52.9.0 ESR as it’s stated that I need an updated version for this extension.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_____

Hi Martini,

To fix the issue, try using a tool called User-Agent Switcher. It helps your browser act like a newer version, which might solve the problem with the images and maps.

You can get it here: User-Agent https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/ Switcher for Firefox

Let me know if you need help setting it up!

Best, Dev

On Thu, 26 Jun 2025 at 11:57, Leonid G via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi Travis and all the others!

Thanks again! Can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to make the pictures and maps again? A plugin or change the code manually? Or is there someone who could do it for me?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_____

Hi Martini,

Glad I could help! I can't speak authoritatively or definitively, but my guess is some CSS was changed to a directive that your browser doesn't support.

Cheers,

-Travis

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 23:16 Leonid G via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi Travis and all the others!

Thank you very much for your quick and thorough response. Indeed, I’ve read the text but not the sheet above it ;)

On Windows XP I’m using Firefox 52.9.0 ESR or Extended Support Release (not Internet Explorer). And additionally Mypal, based on Firefox 68 Quantum. Both give out the same error as I’ve shown before.

I understand and respect the MediaWiki’s position to stop support for older browsers. But I would like to understand what has been changed in the coding algorithm two weeks ago, so the pictures and maps are not showing up in the browsers I use.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_____

Hi Martini,

Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia! First, I have to tell you that Microsoft stopped supporting (so called "End Of Life") Windows XP in 2014, but I'm sure you are aware of that. I can't directly speak for MediaWiki or English Wikipedia, but at most tech projects I've worked on, browsers that are literally 20 years old are supported on what's called a "best effort" basis. This means that, while the project won't work to actively "break" those browsers, we can't guarantee that they will work tomorrow, or the next day, etc.

All that said, the link you shared (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Compatibility_browser), shows the following:

If we attempt to look up your browser (I assume IE 7 or 8) and Operating System (WIndows XP), we see that neither are listed as "still supported". Your browser would be classified as "Unknown (Grade X)" and the minimum operating system for Windows is Windows 7 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7), which came out after Windows Vista. Windows Vista was the OS version after Windows XP. So your OS is two major versions behind the minimum requirement.

Please feel free to post additional questions.

Thanks,

-Travis

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 7:58 PM Leonid G via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

Dear Wikitechs,

my username is „Martinitolove”, since 12 years I’m contributing in several languages and am very glad to feel myself a part of a greater team to provide knowledge to the world!

All these years I’m using a Windows XP laptop with Firefox 52.9.0 (32-bit) on it, and am quite happy with it (won’t change the system). But since two weeks most pictures and map links are not showing up properly. Here are the screenshots as an example of one page in three languages and an example of a picture file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fYqWSfaJ18Zperk4-9XtwWqPBPZWv4ZL/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fcd9RMvy0dAP8fQT8wQbowOKBJ1XQcUk/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OLszK9GZRb0U_DGI0NFhCqg3H9YmjUrD/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Co47IT2LbCFiX0K84wns7WlrsCGucEvQ/view?usp=s...

Was a coding algorithm at Wikipedia changed or support for older browsers disabled? According to this (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Compatibility_browser) my browser is still supported. If it has been caused by mistake, then could you please turn it back on?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/

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On 2025-06-27 05:05, Leonid G via Wikitech-l wrote:

Hi Dev and all the others!

I’ve found the last working uaswitcher-1.4.67.xpi version of the file (from here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/ versions/ <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/ versions/>), but Firefox gives me the message: The add-on downloaded from this site could not be installed because it appears to be corrupt. I even tried to load it as a temporary add-on – same result. What should I do?

On a clear morning’s mind I’m very skeptical if this tool will solve my issue. Wikipedia is not actively blocking the use of my browser. Its CSS seems to have been changed so the pictures and maps do not show up.

So back to my question: can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to see the pictures and maps again? A plugin or change the code manually? Or is there someone who could do it for me?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

I'm not aware of any changes on our side that would cause this. Just for fun, I dusted off a VM running Windows XP and installed Firefox 52.9.0 on it, and I can see all images on Wikipedia. Screenshot: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F62561956

I think the best advice you got so far is from Tim: this may be an issue with your laptop. Make a backup of your data soon before it dies on you. Then test on another laptop or a fresh Windows installation, and see if you still have this problem.

On Thu, 26 Jun 2025, at 20:05, Leonid G via Wikitech-l wrote:

[…] On a clear morning’s mind I’m very skeptical if this tool will solve my issue. Wikipedia is not actively blocking the use of my browser. Its CSS seems to have been changed so the pictures and maps do not show up.

So back to my question: can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to see the pictures and maps again? […]

The error symbol in place of the images means that CSS is not relevant here.

CSS is robust and protected against unknown rules. It's very rare that a CSS issue could cause an image to be hidden. The only way that CSS will hide an image, is if a developer intentionally applies a rule like opacity 0, display none, or visibility hidden. This could in theory be done as part of an animation, and perhaps the second part of such animation is unsupported, in which case it could remain hidden. This would be in our control to fix. However, if this was the case, the place where the image goes would be blank, not display the "broken image" symbol that you see.

As Tim points out, this symbol seems to only be there in your screenshot for certain image image types and not others (JPEG vs PNG). That further confirms there is no styling issue as that would apply to all image thumbnails equally.

Did you try opening it in a new tab? For example, open this link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan....

This is a direct image URL. There is no HTML, CSS or JavaScript in our control when viewing this. If the image fails there, then there is most likely something defect in the browser or operating system. If you really want to rule it out further, I suggest to download ("save as") the JPEG image from this exact URL on someone else's computer, and send it to yourself / to this computer (perhaps by email) and then drag it into a new Firefox tab / empty browser window to view it. Does it work there? If that works, but the same image by URL does not, then we can revisit if there's something else going on.

-- Timo

Hi Martini,

When you say the error 429 "comes out" what does that mean? Where is that error displayed?

Thanks, -Travis

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 10:40 PM Leonid G via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hello Timo,

thank you very much for the explanation regarding CSS. Then it’s not the root of my problem!

By the way, who is Tim? I haven’t got his message.

The error symbol in my screenshot is appears NOT for certain types. Some jpg’s show perfecty up, but most are shown as errors. This goes for png and others as well.

Yes. Every wiki link to a picture of Ryazan on this page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg) doesn’t work for me. An error

“Too many requests - 47f834a351bd” comes out:

*If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.*

*Request served via cp5030 cp5030, Varnish XID 514771340*

*Upstream caches: cp5030 int*

*Error: 429, Too many requests - 47f834a351bd at Fri, 27 Jun 2025 05:27:01 GMT*

But the link to the source works perfectly well.

And your link:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan....

works for me fine as well.

On the Supermium, that is overloading my system, I can see all wiki pages perfectly, with all pictures and maps intact. And on Firefox 52 and 68 not. So the problem is not with WinXP, it’s somewhere between the old versions of Firefox and Wikipedia.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

On Thu, 26 Jun 2025, at 20:05, Leonid G via Wikitech-l wrote:

[…]

On a clear morning’s mind I’m very skeptical if this tool will solve my issue. Wikipedia is not actively blocking the use of my browser. Its CSS seems to have been changed so the pictures and maps do not show up.

So back to my question: can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to see the pictures and maps again? […]

The error symbol in place of the images means that CSS is not relevant here.

CSS is robust and protected against unknown rules. It's very rare that a CSS issue could cause an image to be hidden. The only way that CSS will hide an image, is if a developer intentionally applies a rule like opacity 0, display none, or visibility hidden. This could in theory be done as part of an animation, and perhaps the second part of such animation is unsupported, in which case it could remain hidden. This would be in our control to fix. However, if this was the case, the place where the image goes would be blank, not display the "broken image" symbol that you see.

As Tim points out, this symbol seems to only be there in your screenshot for certain image image types and not others (JPEG vs PNG). That further confirms there is no styling issue as that would apply to all image thumbnails equally.

Did you try opening it in a new tab? For example, open this link:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan....

This is a direct image URL. There is no HTML, CSS or JavaScript in our control when viewing this. If the image fails there, then there is most likely something defect in the browser or operating system. If you really want to rule it out further, I suggest to download ("save as") the JPEG image from this exact URL on someone else's computer, and send it to yourself / to this computer (perhaps by email) and then drag it into a new Firefox tab / empty browser window to view it. Does it work there? If that works, but the same image by URL does not, then we can revisit if there's something else going on.

-- Timo

---

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Hi Martini,

Ah ok. I'm not going to investigate further, but I didn't see any JavaScript requests when I clicked that link. So my best guess (and something to think about for anyone else looking into this for the sheer mystery of it) is that it is something at the protocol layer. That is, maybe some Wikipedia servers started speaking HTTP/2, or changed their HTTP implementation, and the old version of Firefox doesn't understand it and re-requests the URL many times in succession. Just a wild guess.

Cheers, -Travis

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 10:50 PM Leonid G leonidg@gmx.net wrote:

Hello Travis,

On this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg for example, when I press the link at “Other resolutions: 315 × 240 pixels https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg/330px-Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg ”.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

---

Hi Martini,

When you say the error 429 "comes out" what does that mean? Where is that error displayed?

Thanks,

-Travis

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 10:40 PM Leonid G via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hello Timo,

thank you very much for the explanation regarding CSS. Then it’s not the root of my problem!

By the way, who is Tim? I haven’t got his message.

The error symbol in my screenshot is appears NOT for certain types. Some jpg’s show perfecty up, but most are shown as errors. This goes for png and others as well.

Yes. Every wiki link to a picture of Ryazan on this page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg) doesn’t work for me. An error

“Too many requests - 47f834a351bd” comes out:

*If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.*

*Request served via cp5030 cp5030, Varnish XID 514771340*

*Upstream caches: cp5030 int*

*Error: 429, Too many requests - 47f834a351bd at Fri, 27 Jun 2025 05:27:01 GMT*

But the link to the source works perfectly well.

And your link:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan....

works for me fine as well.

On the Supermium, that is overloading my system, I can see all wiki pages perfectly, with all pictures and maps intact. And on Firefox 52 and 68 not. So the problem is not with WinXP, it’s somewhere between the old versions of Firefox and Wikipedia.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

On Thu, 26 Jun 2025, at 20:05, Leonid G via Wikitech-l wrote:

[…]

On a clear morning’s mind I’m very skeptical if this tool will solve my issue. Wikipedia is not actively blocking the use of my browser. Its CSS seems to have been changed so the pictures and maps do not show up.

So back to my question: can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to see the pictures and maps again? […]

The error symbol in place of the images means that CSS is not relevant here.

CSS is robust and protected against unknown rules. It's very rare that a CSS issue could cause an image to be hidden. The only way that CSS will hide an image, is if a developer intentionally applies a rule like opacity 0, display none, or visibility hidden. This could in theory be done as part of an animation, and perhaps the second part of such animation is unsupported, in which case it could remain hidden. This would be in our control to fix. However, if this was the case, the place where the image goes would be blank, not display the "broken image" symbol that you see.

As Tim points out, this symbol seems to only be there in your screenshot for certain image image types and not others (JPEG vs PNG). That further confirms there is no styling issue as that would apply to all image thumbnails equally.

Did you try opening it in a new tab? For example, open this link:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan....

This is a direct image URL. There is no HTML, CSS or JavaScript in our control when viewing this. If the image fails there, then there is most likely something defect in the browser or operating system. If you really want to rule it out further, I suggest to download ("save as") the JPEG image from this exact URL on someone else's computer, and send it to yourself / to this computer (perhaps by email) and then drag it into a new Firefox tab / empty browser window to view it. Does it work there? If that works, but the same image by URL does not, then we can revisit if there's something else going on.

-- Timo

---

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It should be possible to see whether the browser is indeed firing off many requests by using the network monitor. See https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/network_monitor/index....

On Fri, 27 Jun 2025 at 07:00, Travis Briggs audiodude@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Martini,

Ah ok. I'm not going to investigate further, but I didn't see any JavaScript requests when I clicked that link. So my best guess (and something to think about for anyone else looking into this for the sheer mystery of it) is that it is something at the protocol layer. That is, maybe some Wikipedia servers started speaking HTTP/2, or changed their HTTP implementation, and the old version of Firefox doesn't understand it and re-requests the URL many times in succession. Just a wild guess.

Cheers, -Travis

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 10:50 PM Leonid G leonidg@gmx.net wrote:

...

Hello Travis,

On this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg for example, when I press the link at “Other resolutions: 315 × 240 pixels https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg/330px-Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg ”.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

---

Hi Martini,

When you say the error 429 "comes out" what does that mean? Where is that error displayed?

Thanks,

-Travis

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 10:40 PM Leonid G via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hello Timo,

thank you very much for the explanation regarding CSS. Then it’s not the root of my problem!

By the way, who is Tim? I haven’t got his message.

The error symbol in my screenshot is appears NOT for certain types. Some jpg’s show perfecty up, but most are shown as errors. This goes for png and others as well.

Yes. Every wiki link to a picture of Ryazan on this page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_map_of_Ryazan.jpg) doesn’t work for me. An error

“Too many requests - 47f834a351bd” comes out:

*If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.*

*Request served via cp5030 cp5030, Varnish XID 514771340*

*Upstream caches: cp5030 int*

*Error: 429, Too many requests - 47f834a351bd at Fri, 27 Jun 2025 05:27:01 GMT*

But the link to the source works perfectly well.

And your link:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan....

works for me fine as well.

On the Supermium, that is overloading my system, I can see all wiki pages perfectly, with all pictures and maps intact. And on Firefox 52 and 68 not. So the problem is not with WinXP, it’s somewhere between the old versions of Firefox and Wikipedia.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

On Thu, 26 Jun 2025, at 20:05, Leonid G via Wikitech-l wrote:

[…]

On a clear morning’s mind I’m very skeptical if this tool will solve my issue. Wikipedia is not actively blocking the use of my browser. Its CSS seems to have been changed so the pictures and maps do not show up.

So back to my question: can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to see the pictures and maps again? […]

The error symbol in place of the images means that CSS is not relevant here.

CSS is robust and protected against unknown rules. It's very rare that a CSS issue could cause an image to be hidden. The only way that CSS will hide an image, is if a developer intentionally applies a rule like opacity 0, display none, or visibility hidden. This could in theory be done as part of an animation, and perhaps the second part of such animation is unsupported, in which case it could remain hidden. This would be in our control to fix. However, if this was the case, the place where the image goes would be blank, not display the "broken image" symbol that you see.

As Tim points out, this symbol seems to only be there in your screenshot for certain image image types and not others (JPEG vs PNG). That further confirms there is no styling issue as that would apply to all image thumbnails equally.

Did you try opening it in a new tab? For example, open this link:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Old_map_of_Ryazan....

This is a direct image URL. There is no HTML, CSS or JavaScript in our control when viewing this. If the image fails there, then there is most likely something defect in the browser or operating system. If you really want to rule it out further, I suggest to download ("save as") the JPEG image from this exact URL on someone else's computer, and send it to yourself / to this computer (perhaps by email) and then drag it into a new Firefox tab / empty browser window to view it. Does it work there? If that works, but the same image by URL does not, then we can revisit if there's something else going on.

-- Timo

---

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FWIW, I tried changing my user agent string to such ancient values as "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 4.0; Win64; x64; rv:10.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0" and "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:40.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/40.0", neither of which reproduced the problem being described.

On Sat, 28 Jun 2025 at 00:49, Bryan Davis bd808@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 9:06 PM Leonid G via Wikitech-l wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Hi Dev and all the others!

I’ve found the last working uaswitcher-1.4.67.xpi version of the file

(from here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/versions/), but Firefox gives me the message: The add-on downloaded from this site could not be installed because it appears to be corrupt. I even tried to load it as a temporary add-on – same result. What should I do?

...

On a clear morning’s mind I’m very skeptical if this tool will solve my

issue. Wikipedia is not actively blocking the use of my browser. Its CSS seems to have been changed so the pictures and maps do not show up.

Your User-Agent is old. A lot of the misbehaving web crawlers we are seeing these days spoof very old Firefox and Chrome User-Agents. I am 99.9% certain that your traffic is ending up in a low rate limit bucket tracked at our CDN edge because of the relative age of your web browser.

Bryan

Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation Principal Software Engineer Boise, ID USA [[m:User:BDavis_(WMF)]] irc: bd808 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/

On Sat, Jun 28, 2025 at 1:49 AM Bryan Davis bd808@wikimedia.org wrote:

Your User-Agent is old. A lot of the misbehaving web crawlers we are seeing these days spoof very old Firefox and Chrome User-Agents. I am 99.9% certain that your traffic is ending up in a low rate limit bucket tracked at our CDN edge because of the relative age of your web browser.

Hi,

yes, specifically, his browser is old and the connection is most likely coming from the same ISPs we've seen disruptive crawling, that caused some local unavailability of our media files. So what Bryan said is correct - you were most likely caught in one of the filtering rules we've created to respond to that attack.

I am sorry you got caught up in that traffic, but at the time that was the only option we had to keep serving images to a good portion of asia and the americas.

We usually keep rules live for 30 days, as policy, after an attack. Given the crawler seems to have stopped (that's not a given, a lot of crawlers keep flooding us with requests for months after being blocked...) I will disable the filter early.

That will unblock you for now, but please be aware that if you use such an old browser you're prone to have your traffic confused with abusers and thus blocked, especially on upload.wikimedia.org where we have less signals to tell apart a very old but real browser and a crawler pretending to be one.

I would follow the suggestions you received: ideally, use a OS/browser that don't have dozens of unpatched vulnerabilities when browsing the internet; if you don't want to do that, at least change your UA if you get blocked again.

Cheers,

Giuseppe

Hi,

I don't think you need an extension to set the user agent in Firefox.

See instruction at various place on the web, such as at https://www.whatismybrowser.com/guides/how-to-change-your-user-agent/firefox

Will Avery

On Fri, 27 Jun 2025 at 04:06, Leonid G via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hi Dev and all the others!

I’ve found the last working uaswitcher-1.4.67.xpi version of the file (from here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/versions/), but Firefox gives me the message: The add-on downloaded from this site could not be installed because it appears to be corrupt. I even tried to load it as a temporary add-on – same result. What should I do?

On a clear morning’s mind I’m very skeptical if this tool will solve my issue. Wikipedia is not actively blocking the use of my browser. Its CSS seems to have been changed so the pictures and maps do not show up.

So back to my question: can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to see the pictures and maps again? A plugin or change the code manually? Or is there someone who could do it for me?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

PS: @Thomas – thank you very much for your opinion and recommendations to use Linux. The main reason for me to stay with WinXP are the programs I’m using – Word, Excel, Outlook 2003. With the next version of Office M$ has changed the structure to tabbed toolbar, which I find awful. I’ve been using it for many years in the office of the company I’ve been working for and, though even installing a plug-in to change it back to menus toolbar, find it highly less intuitive. So I’ve returned to my 2003 and am happy with it for over 22 years now!

We must always keep in mind that the companies are not for helping the people, but for making money for themselves. Thus we must help ourselves and each other. And not let the state control these companies – more bureaucracy has never been to the better. That’s how the world ticks.

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Hi Martini,

To fix the issue, try using a tool called User-Agent Switcher. It helps your browser act like a newer version, which might solve the problem with the images and maps.

You can get it here: User-Agent Switcher for Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/

Let me know if you need help setting it up!

Best, Dev

On Thu, 26 Jun 2025 at 11:57, Leonid G via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hi Travis and all the others!

Thanks again! Can I do something in my side, except for changing the system or the browser, to make the pictures and maps again? A plugin or change the code manually? Or is there someone who could do it for me?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

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Hi Martini,

Glad I could help! I can't speak authoritatively or definitively, but my guess is some CSS was changed to a directive that your browser doesn't support.

Cheers,

-Travis

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 23:16 Leonid G via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hi Travis and all the others!

Thank you very much for your quick and thorough response. Indeed, I’ve read the text but not the sheet above it ;)

On Windows XP I’m using Firefox 52.9.0 ESR or Extended Support Release (not Internet Explorer). And additionally Mypal, based on Firefox 68 Quantum. Both give out the same error as I’ve shown before.

I understand and respect the MediaWiki’s position to stop support for older browsers. But I would like to understand what has been changed in the coding algorithm two weeks ago, so the pictures and maps are not showing up in the browsers I use.

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

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Hi Martini,

Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia! First, I have to tell you that Microsoft stopped supporting (so called "End Of Life") Windows XP in 2014, but I'm sure you are aware of that. I can't directly speak for MediaWiki or English Wikipedia, but at most tech projects I've worked on, browsers that are literally 20 years old are supported on what's called a "best effort" basis. This means that, while the project won't work to actively "break" those browsers, we can't guarantee that they will work tomorrow, or the next day, etc.

All that said, the link you shared ( https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Compatibility_browser), shows the following:

If we attempt to look up your browser (I assume IE 7 or 8) and Operating System (WIndows XP), we see that neither are listed as "still supported". Your browser would be classified as "Unknown (Grade X)" and the minimum operating system for Windows is Windows 7 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7), which came out after Windows Vista. Windows Vista was the OS version after Windows XP. So your OS is two major versions behind the minimum requirement.

Please feel free to post additional questions.

Thanks,

-Travis

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 7:58 PM Leonid G via Wikitech-l < wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

Dear Wikitechs,

my username is „Martinitolove”, since 12 years I’m contributing in several languages and am very glad to feel myself a part of a greater team to provide knowledge to the world!

All these years I’m using a Windows XP laptop with Firefox 52.9.0 (32-bit) on it, and am quite happy with it (won’t change the system). But since two weeks most pictures and map links are not showing up properly. Here are the screenshots as an example of one page in three languages and an example of a picture file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fYqWSfaJ18Zperk4-9XtwWqPBPZWv4ZL/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fcd9RMvy0dAP8fQT8wQbowOKBJ1XQcUk/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OLszK9GZRb0U_DGI0NFhCqg3H9YmjUrD/view?usp=s...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Co47IT2LbCFiX0K84wns7WlrsCGucEvQ/view?usp=s...

Was a coding algorithm at Wikipedia changed or support for older browsers disabled? According to this ( https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Compatibility_browser) my browser is still supported. If it has been caused by mistake, then could you please turn it back on?

Thanks and kind regards!

Martini

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