Troubleshooting

The following are common errors that can arise while working with the countdown timers.

If the issue continues after you attempted the suggested solution, contact customer support.

Issue Possible cause Solution
In the message, the countdown timer is displayed wider than the product image, even though the original file for the countdown timer has the same width. The global message width for your Optimizely Campaign template or your paragraph is smaller than the width of the countdown timer. Make the global width of the message or the width of the paragraph the same as the width of the countdown timer, or reduce the countdown timer width.
A gap between the product image and the countdown timer. A margin is defined for your content paragraphs. Set the margin for your content paragraphs to 0.
Animated countdown timers are not animated in Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook (version 2007 and above) does not support animated GIFs. Open the mailing in Microsoft Outlook using the View in browser view.
The generated animated countdown timer exceeds 1.5 MB even though the uploaded background image is significantly smaller. Optimizely Campaign generates an animated GIF with a total of 60 images from the single background image. The file size increases exponentially and exceeds the factor 60 because Optimizely Campaign adds the timer for the countdown timer to your background image. Reduce the file size of your background image. The recommended maximum size is 20 KB. Also, avoid using complex graphic designs such as patterns, photo scenes, many colors, color gradients, and so on.

Even if you use a highly compressed JPEG with a file size of a few KB, if it contains many colors, the subsequently generated GIF animation may exceed 1.5 MB.

The countdown timer is not animated. A non-animated time format was selected in the countdown timer's settings. Under Countdown Timer, select the affected countdown timer and click Edit. In the Settings area, in the Format drop-down list, select a time format that has the addition (animated) and click Save.
The image URL field function is not replaced with the corresponding countdown timer. The image URL field function was added directly to the mailing content, like the image tag field function. Insert the image URL field function into the source code as follows: <img src="{countdownImageUrl:0123456789}"/>.