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The LightBox Image Display Option Stopped Working, Recently

Last week, the popular display option, Lightbox, used for showing full size images in Blogger blogs, stopped working.

Anxious blog owners reported that full size images are now being displayed in a normal browser window, with the browser back arrow required to return to the blog display - instead of the elegant black background overlay with the mysterious "X" which closes the overlay. The problem appears to affect all images in the blogs affected.

An immediate sampling of the forum problem reports suggested that it's likely that all Blogger blogs are affected. Since not all blogs may contain enough images, and be owned by people who are attentive enough, we are not seeing massive volumes of problem reports.

We did open a rollup discussion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, where we are gathering a good sample of the blogs involved. To date, no obvious affinity has been discovered, in the over 100 responses posted.

Today, we have a mysterious suggestion, posted in a forum discussion, which may provide a workaround for the problem.

We are advised to add a brief snippet of code to the template.

<script src='http://www.blogger.com/static/v1/jsbin/2321381434-lbx__fr.js' type='text/javascript'/>

The snippet in question is added to the very end of the template, using the "Edit HTML" option, in the dashboard Template wizard, after </body>, and before </html>.
</script>
</body>
<script src='http://www.blogger.com/static/v1/jsbin/2321381434-lbx__fr.js' type='text/javascript'></script>
</html>

I added this snippet of code to the template for this blog. I don't use a lot of images in this blog - but you may examine one previous post, where you will find a picture. If you click on that one picture, you will see the full size image displayed in Lightbox format - which was not the case, earlier today.

The code snippet in question is hosted in "blogger.com", so it should be safe. And, it's not difficult to add - or to remove. That said, I have no idea if it may conflict with other code - so anything is possible. It is marginally more reliable than third party code.

I've done no further testing of this fix, so I'll await your feedback. You may comment here - or in the rollup discussion.

Comments

Perpetua said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
That code doesn't seem to do anything for me.
Oops. It DID work for me! I'd been messing with the Lightbox settings and forgot to turn it back on. So as far as I'm concerned, this workaround works!
Yes!!! It works!!
Yes!!! It works!!
MikeyB said…
Works for me! Thank you!!
Unknown said…
Works fine. Thank you very much for the blog post.

Only the X is not as elegant as before ;-)
Tony said…
Works for me as well. I like the new "Sur" instead of "of" in the photos tag.

Thanks!!!
Unknown said…
Well it works for me on a third party template.
Thank you.
temp said…
Added at the end of the template. Can not save, the error - The markup in the document following the root element must be well-formed. What to do? Help.
Nonpasaran said…
Works for me too, Thank you!
Unknown said…
Thanks a lot, your workaround seems to work perfectly.

Cheers,
Thomas
Boracevikel said…
It really works. thanks
It works for me too. Yippie! Thanks a lot. Greetings, Joke
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said…
Workked just fine at
http://paintthephoto.blogspot.gr/
but I jave many blogs. Now the code must be insert in all blogs or sould I wait for a Blogsot solution ?
Unknown said…
Worked hust fine at

paint the photo
Now sould I insert the code to all my blogs or wait for a Blogger solution?
Sue K. said…
oh my gosh, it worked ... and I'm the person on the scale of 1 to 10 in computer compentency that ranks -1229

Thank you soooooooooo much.
Sue/Colorado
Perpetua said…
I take it all back. I've managed to add the fix and it works. Many thanks.
ShySongbird said…
Thank you so much. I'm not good on HTML stuff but after some time trying to find exactly where to place it and a few failed attempts I did it....and it works!! Again thank you so much :-)
Tapio said…
Hi,

Greetings from Finland. Worked great for my blog - http://www.tapiolantakamailla.com

Thanks :-)

regs,
Tapio
Valb said…
it works!!! thank you very much.
Peter said…
My blog is a customized template and doesn't end with body><html, but the work around worked perfectly by inserting the script right before <html (which is the last thing on the template page)
Thanks!!!
Lydia said…
thank you, this worked for me.
Ania said…
Thank you so much! :D
Lena said…
Thank you! It works!!!
Lena said…
Thank you! It works!
Carol Griswold said…
Thanks a million. It was easy to do, even for a novice!
Leigh said…
I didn't even know I had this problem until I got here and read this post. The fix worked! Google had better find the mystery person who came up with the code and hire them real quick!

I actually dropped by to see if there was any word on the broken link widgets. It's affecting a lot of folks and they're going nuts. The best news on Blogger is usually found here!
Anonymous said…
Thanks. It's works.
Lorraine said…
The script works in my blog, thanks. It's a shame it doesn't help it to work in all the other blogs we look at though. I do wish blogger would get this sorted.
Awesome, it works! Thanks for the fix!
It works for me too. Great job !
AbsurdLola said…
Yes, it works!
Thank you so much!
Wow! its worked for me too. Cheers!
Yay! Seems to work for me too... thank you so much!
Alison x
Zerstoren said…
Code worked for me, THANKS!!
Oh My Goodness...it worked. I wasn't exactly sure where to put it as I had a lot of script in between the body and html code...but I just copied it and pasted the snippet right before the html at the bottom and my light box works now! Thank you so much!
Mats Svensson said…
No need for it now.
Google seems to have fixed it.
Staff said…
Thank you kindly.
Anonymous said…
unfortunately, it didnt work for me. :(

im using an edited template so im thinking only the blogger-ready templates have this capability. can you please check? thanks
Paula said…
Thank you so much! I just started my blog a couple of months ago. I couldn't figure out why I was selecting lightbox, but it wasn't working. Your solution worked like magic! Thanks again!

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