Save as BMP?!?!

[Evil Chris]

ok this really bugs me...

You know how when you right-click on an image you want to save to your hard-drive and all it offers you is the option to save as a BMP?

That's what I am getting this morning. I've cleared my cache, even cleared cookies, and have shut down and re-started my computers and it still does it.

Anyone have an answer to this? It's driving me nuts!

[Visualad]

maybe its tome to throw the :badcomp: out!! ;)

[Evil Chris]

Originally posted by Visualad
maybe its tome to throw the :badcomp: out!! ;) Believe me I have considered it! LOL

[Panky]

Where is the image Chris?

[Gruntled]

Chris,

If you are using IE, and the original image is a gif or a jpg, it's a paraniod setting in your options.

go to Tools, Internet Options, then click the Advanced tab. Scroll all the way down. Look for a checked box that says "Do not save encrypted pages to disk." Uncheck it, and restart your browser.

Should clear it up for you. Let me know how it goes.

[yanik]

Originally posted by Gruntled
Chris,

If you are using IE, and the original image is a gif or a jpg, it's a paraniod setting in your options.

go to Tools, Internet Options, then click the Advanced tab. Scroll all the way down. Look for a checked box that says "Do not save encrypted pages to disk." Uncheck it, and restart your browser.

Should clear it up for you. Let me know how it goes.

That bug sucks!!

This checkbox is uncheckd in my options but i still have the problem...

I think it might be some kind of virus / spyware...

[Gruntled]

Yanik,

It may also be a bad ActiveX control.

Go to Tools, Internet Options, and in the General tab, clear your Temporary Internet files. There is an option to dump all of the Java and ActiveX controls as well. Do so. Then restart the browser and try again.

Let us know how it goes.

:book:

[yanik]

Originally posted by Gruntled
Yanik,

It may also be a bad ActiveX control.

Go to Tools, Internet Options, and in the General tab, clear your Temporary Internet files. There is an option to dump all of the Java and ActiveX controls as well. Do so. Then restart the browser and try again.

Let us know how it goes.

:book:


Thanks Gruntled!!! It worked!!

Hahahba, ive been stuck like that for years.. Saving as bmp, then open and save it back as jpg... lol, what a PITA

Thanks alot!

[TheLegacy]

unfortunately chris same thing has happened to me if the image is a bmp.. all i can do is resave it when its on my computer and change it over to a jpeg

[Evil Chris]

Originally posted by Gruntled
Yanik,

It may also be a bad ActiveX control.

Go to Tools, Internet Options, and in the General tab, clear your Temporary Internet files. There is an option to dump all of the Java and ActiveX controls as well. Do so. Then restart the browser and try again.

Let us know how it goes.

:book: This worked! Thanks for the tip. :D

[Don Soporno]

bookmarked this thread, shit like that happens to me all the time and I can never remember what I did to fix it before so I spend days and even weeks wondering what the hell is wrong but not wanting to ask...LOLOLOL

[Gruntled]

I'm glad it worked for you guys. :blush:

[yanik]

Do you know what causes this ?

I just tried to save a pic and it came back to BMP again! hehe

[webgurl]

bitmap happens i am guessing when your memory is too full i usually delete the internet files and works . Make sure all your browsers are closed reopen it again and right click your image again and should work :cool:

[Mister X]

This stupid bug has been around for a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time. As far as I know it's always caused by the same thing.

If you have your cache size in IE set to a large size, when it gets full there is a delay (that can be several minutes) in flushing old stuff out of the cache to make room for new. While the browser cache is in this state you can only save as BMP because to save as jpeg ( or gif or whatever) what the browser actually does is copy that file from the cache to the location you want to save it to. When the cache is jammed up it actually saves the onscreen image, which is the d/led image that has been converted to BMP for display.

Most people get this problem because by default IE sets the cache size to 5 or 10 % ( I don't remember which just now) of the size of your harddisk. With modern large drives it can be as high as 500 mb to 1 gb. That can cause quite a few problems with performance and page load times.

Fortunately the fix is very easy. In the same place where you can delete the temporary files (and cure the problem temporarily also) just click the settings button. Set the size of the cache down to about 10 MB or so. That will fix the problem for good.

In case you are thinking: "Hey! That will make the cache flush stuff out a lot more often and probably slow things down worse."

That's completely wrong. The size of the cache has absolutely no bearing on how often it is flushed. The cache is dynamic so every time it gets full it gets flushed to make room for new stuff. What determines how often it is flushed is the amount that gets d/led into it, not the size of the cache. When it's flushed it doesn't completely clean things out, it just makes room for what you are currently d/ling. And with a small 10 MB cache it only takes a tiny fraction of the time to flush it that a 100MB or larger cache does. And your jpgs save as jpegs and your browser doesn't bog down.

So there ya go... Problem, explanation and solution.

[Rochard]

Webgirl and MisterX hit it on the nose. Being as we are on the Internet more often than not we quickly overload our IE browser. This happens to me once a week.

[Gruntled]

Like I was telling EC, wherever I am, the internet connection tends to be rather good. There is no need to cache much of anything. When the cache grows too large, the browser will lag longer, trying to decide whether it has seen the image before or not, than it would have taken to go ahead and download and display the image again.


The caching was implemented during a time when 80 or 90 percent of internet users were still using dialup.

[yanik]

I see..

Thanks! :)

Well i put my cache to 10mb but i still get bmps :/

At least its shorter to clear :P

[facialfreak]

Yep ... all that happened is you filled your internet cache

emptying it and rebooting solves the problem (empty ALL your temp files while you are at it, Im betting it has not been done for a while.

I have repaired computers for years, and this "problem" is all too common. I've seen people about to buy a new machine because of it.

Here is a tip for ANYBODY reading this:
Set your Internet Options >> Temporary Internet Files >> Settings >> amount of disk space
to 10 (TEN) MB - not nine, not 11, not 150, but TEN :cool:

You'll find that Windows can manage it's cache quite nicely at this amount (BTW ... 10MB is huge for a simple cache file), and that will reduce the frequency of (if not completely solve) this issue :D

Would anybody benefit from/like if I were to add weekly tips such as this?

[facialfreak]

OK .... Mr X beat me to it, but I did not read his post thoroughly
I did not mean to step on your feet man:bonk:

(setting it to anything lower than 10 will cause the system to use unnecessary resources, as it looks for the oldest entries to delete - unless you have a 4.2 Ghz dual processor machine, I would not suggest it. 10MB has been a "known secret number" amongst techies for along time)

[MadMax]

Thanks guys, that's been aggravating me for a while now. I've gotten into the habit of right-clicking the banner and emailing it to myself.

[yanik]

Thanks again hehe

Ive set it to 10 but still... everything is bmp...

Any other trick ? :P

[facialfreak]

What OS you on yanik? XP?

you need to dump ALL temp files on your computer (TEMP / TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES / as well as anything that ends in .tmp or begins with ~ (tilde))

If you are on XP, there is a super sweet utility that will assist you in cleaning unnecessary files and overall tuning your system

http://www.driverheaven.net/dforce/showdoc.php?doc=txp_about

[l3vi]

When I first had this problem it took me two days to fig it out. LOL

[Gruntled]

I set my cache as low as possible. I've never noticed a performance issue.

[[tuka]]

Originally posted by Mister X
In case you are thinking: "Hey! That will make the cache flush stuff out a lot more often and probably slow things down worse."

That's completely wrong.

True, in fact, the more you clear your cache the faster you go!

can even have it auto in "advanced" : "empty temporary internet file folder when browser is closed"

[pf69.com]

that is an old IE bug...

[yanik]

Yes i run XP, downloaded tunexp but it didnt fix the bug :P

[facialfreak]

In TuneXP inder Misc, there is an option called System File Check

Click on that, and have your OS installation disc handy.
It will cross check your essential system files against the ones in the installation disk, and will correct/re-install any system files that have become corrupted, without touching any other files on your hard drive.

(basically the same VERY HANDY tool that Win2000 Pro had built in - Start >> Run >> sfc.exe)

[pf69.com]

why dont you use another browser?

[Mister X]

Originally posted by facialfreak
OK .... Mr X beat me to it, but I did not read his post thoroughly
I did not mean to step on your feet man:bonk:

(setting it to anything lower than 10 will cause the system to use unnecessary resources, as it looks for the oldest entries to delete - unless you have a 4.2 Ghz dual processor machine, I would not suggest it. 10MB has been a "known secret number" amongst techies for along time) Hehe. No problemo. Better to have 2 good answers than none. ;)

[Mister X]

Originally posted by yanik
Yes i run XP, downloaded tunexp but it didnt fix the bug :P You might want to do a reinstall of XP. Sometimes that's the only thing that works to fix bugs in IE and media player. Just put in your XP cd and click install. When it gives you the option make sure you pick UPGRADE so you don't end up formatting your drive. It will be a pain in the ass spending a couple hours at Windows Update getting all the patches again but will probably fix your problem. There are some applications that might need to be reinstalled or have the serial number entered again but the large majority of them will be okay and all your data and settings are still there.

Just don't forget to change the cache size back to 10 mb again after because I think it gets reset to the defaults after reinstalling.