GIF Does Not Display in IE

I came across a gif recently on a website that loaded fine in most browsers but failed to load in IE (Internet Explorer). Fortunately, I remembered a similar problem in the past (that I spent way too long figuring out).

Issue

The issue was the image file was actually a PNG but the filename had been changed from image.png to image.gif. Most browsers handled this mislabeling by gracefully and displayed the image anyway. Unfortunately, IE does not handle this gracefully.

Solution

If you have a file ending in .gif that displays in most browsers but not in IE, try renaming it to end in .png.

Sal Ferrarello (@salcode)

Sal is a PHP developer with a focus on the WordPress platform. He is a conference speaker with a background including Piano Player, Radio DJ, Magician/Juggler, Beach Photographer, and High School Math Teacher. Sal can be found professionally at WebDevStudios, where he works as a senior backend engineer.