How to stop IE6 background flicker
Update:
After an upgrade to Apache 2.2 (on Windows) this fix caused errors preventing Apache from starting. I have not had chance to investigate. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK
Whilst working on my latest project, a web portal for an e-learning environment, I was presented with the issue of screen flicker in IE6 for elements using CSS to specify a background image.
Whilst this may be annoying, irritating or just plain ugly to some. For others, particularily those with epilepsy, it could be potentially life threatening.
Being a strong believer in the web being for everyone I set out to fix this issue. A quick google brought up some promising results. Dean Edwards' blog provided me with all the information I required whilst providing some humour based light entertainment at the same time.
this is a browser problem not a server problem. Unfortunately the only way to fix it is by configuring your server.
Luckily I'm a Linux kind-a-guy so setting up Apache took no more than a couple of minutes, a quick reboot of the server and everything was sorted.
Dean also mentions in his blog that there's now a Javascript alternative. However, I tried this solution with out success.
So in summary, for those Apache users like me who want to prevent flickering in IE6 but can't be arsed to read the whole of this blog article.....
Either add to or uncomment the following line to your httpd.conf
LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so
Then, in either your httpd.conf or a relevant .htaccess file add the following:
- #this stops screen flicker in IE
- BrowserMatch "MSIE" brokenvary=1
- BrowserMatch "Mozilla/4.[0-9]{2}" brokenvary=1
- BrowserMatch "Opera" !brokenvary
- SetEnvIf brokenvary 1 force-no-vary
- ExpiresActive On
- ExpiresDefault A18000
- ExpiresByType image/gif A2592000
- ExpiresByType image/jpeg A2592000
- ExpiresByType image/png A2592000
Restart Apache. Voila.
If you're stuck with IIS, check this out
