Background image not showing on iPad and iPhone

Question

I want to create a section with a background covering it in a mobile web page, so I was using the following CSS code:

#section1{
    background: url("background1.png") auto 749px;
    height: 749px;
}

The background is showing correctly on Android (Chrome, Firefox ...), but it is not showing at all on iPhone or iPad (Safari, Chrome iOS ...). I have tried to set these properties using jQuery when the DOM is ready, but no luck. I read that the size might be a problem, but the image is about 700kB (1124x749px) so it should accomplish the Safari Web Content Guide rules. Which is the problem?

Netta

Answer 1

There's a problem with your CSS rule:

Your using the shorthand notation in which the background-size-property comes after the background-position-property and it must be separated by a /.

What you're trying to do is to set the position, but it will fail as auto is not a valid value for it.

To get it to work in shorthand notation it has to look like this:

background: url([URL]) 0 0 / auto 749px;

Also note that there's a value called cover, which may be suitable and more flexible here:

background: url([URL]) 0 0 / cover;

The support for background-size in the shorthand notation is also not very broad, as it's supported in Firefox 18+, Chrome 21+, IE9+ and Opera. It is not supported in Safari at all. Regarding this, I would suggest to always use:

background: url("background1.png");
background-size: auto 749px; /* or cover */

Here are a few examples and a demo, to demonstrate that behavior. You'll see that Firefox for example shows every image except the fist one. Safari on the other hand shows only the last.

CSS

section {
    width: 200px;
    height: 100px;
    border: 1px solid grey;
}

#section1 {
    background: url(http://placehold.it/350x150) auto 100px;
}

#section2 {
    background: url(http://placehold.it/350x150) 0 0 / auto 100px;
}

#section3 {
    background: url(http://placehold.it/350x150) 0 0 / cover;
}

#section4 {
    background: url(http://placehold.it/350x150) 0 0;
    background-size: cover;
}

Demo

Try before buy

Further reading

MDN CSS reference "background"
MDN CSS reference "background-size"

<'background-size'>
See background-size. This property must be specified after background-position, separated with the '/' character.

Homoio

Its not really fix for iPad or iPhone, its limited – Shuster

@TejasTank Can you explain, what you mean? – Homoio

Given solution note, not fix safari or ipad issue, also written in answer, really it not working too – Shuster

It does't matter even 1000 year ago corrected, in contex to Questation, Answer marked is wrong. Its matter only worked in iPad or iPhone. – Shuster

@TejasTank I still don't understand what you mean by saying: "Its matter only worked in iPad or iphone". The OP's problem was that he used the shorthand notation wrongly. If this isn't the case in your situation, you might ask another question, so that somebody can help you. – Homoio

No arguments, in context to questation, answer is wrong so I downvoted, Also absulte not perfect answer for given problem domain. Even I tested it did not work. – Shuster

Answer 2

My problem was that iOS doesn't support background-attachment: fixed. Removing that line made the image appear.

It looks like there are workarounds for a fixed background image though: How to replicate background-attachment fixed on iOS

Adversaria

help me out also check if you don't have multiple media queries pointing to the same screensize. I overlooked an aspect-ratio – Suck

Answer 3

I hope this will help someone in despair. In my case, it was the size of the image that was too big, so the iPad just wasn't loading it (and it was right actually).

Diminishing its size and quality solved the loading issue.

Robichaux

Answer 4

The problem was not solved when I tried to use properly the background in shorthand. It works when I split the background property:

#section1{
    background: url("background1.png");
    background-size: auto 749px;
    height: 749px;
}

Netta

Answer 5

Reduce the image size if nothing else works -- iOS doesn't like large image sizes on mobile and simply won't display the image if it's too large.

Great fundamentals by @insertusernamehere! No matter what I did I couldn't get my image to show up...until, I went back to basics. The image size was too large and iPhone didn't like loading an image of that size, over 700kbs. So, I reduced it to 32kb and we were in action.

Chronic

Answer 6

background-attachment: fixed; is not supported by IOS.

You can fix this by keeping the image in the div and positioning the div.

Hope this will work.

Tingle

Answer 7

Background image disappears on the IOS Browser (iPhone/iPad). This is the code i used:

/*CSS*/
.bg-image {
    background: url([URL]) center/cover no-repeat;
}

Market

Answer 8

Alternatively, img src works on all browsers. It adds the Background Images acc to devices resolution.

<div class="download">
  <picture>
    <source srcset="/images/ios-device-mobile-v2.png" media="(max-width:450px)"/>
     <source srcset="/images/ios-device-mobile-v2.png" media="(min-width: 600px)"/>
    <img src="/images/ios-device.png" class="imgright">
  </picture>
</div>

This piece of code is tested on iPhone Safari, Android Chrome and web Safari. Hopefully, This will help.

Elo

Answer 9

I had an negative text-indent that was throwing my background image off the page, so color:Transparent it is then.

Anaemic

Answer 10

I didn't see anyone specifically say this, but you have to define the width too. Makes since, since I set the background size to "contain" - it has to know what the container's dimensions are.

Once I did, the background rendered as expected.

@media only screen and (max-width:599px) {
  [id=banner] td { width:480px !important; height:223px !important; background:url('image') no-repeat 0 0 !important; }
}

@media only screen and (max-width:479px) {
  [id=banner] td { width:320px !important; height:149px !important; background:url('image') no-repeat 0 0 !important; background-size:contain !important; }
}

Note: The background URL needs to be defined for both breakpoints so that it works for iPhone 5 (iOS7).

Thales

Answer 11

Add a background-color solved my problem

background-color: #F4F4F2;

Rwanda

Answer 12

I had to set input { opacity: 0; } for my input + span {} icon to show up.

Radiolucent

Answer 13

I don't have a real solution/reason for my similar issue but my background-image PNG image simply wouldn't show up until I moved it to a new folder in my (Cordova) iPad app. I literally moved it from /css/images/sweden/myimage.png to /css/images/sv/myimage.png and it started working. The other odd thing is that ALL other images in the original folder work fine (as background-image). Super strange. If I find the true reason/fix I'll report back.

Tumefacient

Answer 14

I tried resizing my background image, made it way too small to test the theory, but it still wouldn’t show on any browser on the iPad (and presumably an iPhone). Tried other solutions that are listed here – still no good. Then I noticed that the element had inherited display: table;. Added display: block; to override that and the background image now displays on all divices that I've tested it on.

Oboe

Answer 15

It's an old issue, i would like to share my solution here. iOS bigger image than the dimension ignores rendering, please use appropriate use size, not the css height/width. The actual image should not be more than 150% larger in size than the rendering viewpoint.

Monophagous