GIF-animation don't display in posts

Question

When I upload a GIF animation (for example: https://www.sololearn.com/post/161865/?ref=app ) then the application does not display anything. Just a white screen. The loading bar is sometimes completely gray, sometimes the progress bar moves in blue and stops at the right at the end of the strip. Also, I very rarely see GIFs being displayed in posts of other users. Usually I see a completely white window and text on top. The speed of connecting to the Internet is 20 Mbps both over Wi-Fi and over 3G. youtube at 720p works fine, video calls - also, the speedtest application shows exactly this speed of receiving and transmitting data. I have Android 5.1 (clean) smartphone: Motorola Moto G 1gen

I left the screen with GIFs turned on for 2-3-5 minutes, hoping that the picture would load. But this never happened. I very rarely see animated GIFs in other users' posts. Usually there is also a white screen.

Answer 1

Xyenia
Part 1.
You don't like animated GIFs. I understand you. Let's take a look at some of your statements.

The argument about insufficient computing power is interesting. Sololeaen can be installed on a smartphone with a 1-core processor and 384 Mbytes of RAM and Android 2.3.5? For example, HTC Legend 2011. No? And on this smartphone, even Skype with video calls works perfectly - the champion in terms of CPU power and memory requirements. Well, in 2013-2014 I was definitely working. Video from youtube is played back on this smartphone normally.

Newer smartphones, even cheaper ones, are still more powerful than the 7-year-old smartphones on which Sololearn cannot be installed. Therefore, if a person installed Sololearn on his smartphone, it means that the power for viewing the tape with pictures, where there is GIF-animation - will be quite enough.

I can see that you don't distinguish what you call "giphy" from Sololearn's "Feed", which doesn't show 10 or 100 pictures at a time, but only shows 1 image

Answer 2

Xyenia
Part 2.
You're also saying that someone's tariff plans are limited. If a Sololearn user has such a limited plan that he or she is unable to spend 10 Mbytes to view 20-30 entries in the "Feed" then why open the "Feed" section at all? User can walked into Sololearn - open the lesson, study it, program it. A forum with questions can be opened, in case of emergency. There are no pictures in it.

Sololearn has transferred 251 Mbytes of traffic on my phone via a 3G network of a mobile operator since October 4: a screenshot of https://ibb.co/Mk0C3sj

Sololearn has transferred 1.14 Gbytes of traffic via Wi-Fi since September 24: a screenshot of https://ibb.co/rcPsdDk

Do you think I spend more than 20-30 minutes a day watching the "Feed" section? :) Please send a screenshot from your device: how much mobile and Wi-Fi traffic you used using Sololearn.

Answer 3

Part 3.
You think that with GIF-animation Sololearn will become tasteless and ugly. Maybe. But why don't you talk to the developers about it? Ask them, first, to remove the annoying video ad that jumps out after a few lessons. A video that can last more than a minute.

Ask to remove the video advertisement that is inserted between the posts in the "Feed" section. Ask the developers, finally, to prohibit the download of animated silent GIF users!

Just let the advertisement jump and flash in the feed. You can also prohibit users from uploading pictures at all, even JPG. So that those who have 100 Mbytes per month in 2019, when the whole world uses 3G and 4G, will not waste their precious megabytes.

I want to see how many megabytes a minute of high quality video in advertising takes.

After communicating with the support team, one of the GIF-images began to play, the other one - on my device - did not, but my subscribers - all work. The assumption that animation playback is not allowed was incorrect.

Answer 4

Thanks for the interesting discussion. It’s a pity that they did not take a screenshot and did not show how much Sololearn used up traffic in recent weeks

Answer 5

It isn't your device or connection speeds. Not displaying animated GIFs is deliberate.

Have you ever loaded up the giphy website to see animations slowly loading in as you scroll down? Each and every GIF has it's own payload of numerous frames with different transition types and timing settings.

Regardless of your internet connection plan and speed, you have to imagine users here on SoloLearn, potentially using metered, limited mobile data plans.

Now, throw into the mix, a whole load of animated GIFs throttling the connection as they load and most phones do not have the processing power of PCs or laptops.

If animated GIFs were allowed, it'd be a free for all, making SL looking like a tacky immature teeny bopper site with animated emojis and other superfluous crap!

Less is more and animated GIFs are not needed on here, IMO.

Answer 6

I will concede that your answer is comprehensive and has probably thought me something. It was 1am when I typed my answer, so it's probably bugged with assumptions and misinformation.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm probably biased against animated gifs and let that dominate my thinking.