Animated gif in News article transformed to still image

[TGiersberg]

Target SharePoint environment

SharePoint Online

What SharePoint development model, framework, SDK or API is this about?

SharePoint REST API

Developer environment

Windows

What browser(s) / client(s) have you tested

• 💥 Internet Explorer
• 💥 Microsoft Edge
• 💥 Google Chrome
• 💥 FireFox
• 💥 Safari
• mobile (iOS/iPadOS)
• mobile (Android)
• not applicable
• other (enter in the "Additional environment details" area below)

Additional environment details

SharePoint Online News page

Describe the bug / error

The Bug

Animated GIF files set as set as thumbnail in page properties are rendered to still image (just the first frame). After publishing e. g. in see all news overview (but also in the news webpart) you see the still image instead of the animated one.

See screenshot, still image on the left, animated one on the right in page properties.

my investigation

Looking at network traces I found calls to

GET https://boehringer.sharepoint.com/_api/v2.1/shares/<id>/driveItem/thumbnails/0/c400x99999/content
{
  "@odata.context": "https://boehringer.sharepoint.com/_api/v2.1/$metadata#oneDrive.thumbnail",
  "height": 99999,
  "url": "https://westeurope1-mediap.svc.ms/transform/thumbnail?provider=spo&inputFormat=gif&[redacted for readability]",
  "width": 400
}

westeurope1-mediap.svc.ms/transform/thumbnail seems to be some Microsoft service to generate the thumbnails - my hypothesis is that gif is not resized correctly from this service and instead a still image (first frame) is returned.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a new news page in SharePoint Online
2. Set animated gif as thumbnail via page properties
3. Publish
4. View page in any aggregated view (e. g. the see all news view or the news webpart)

Expected behavior

GIF images should be resized to the thumbnail size and stay animated after resizing.
Alternatively, GIF images should be served as is, without any transformation applied.

Bonus points for updating documentation and letting the editor know GIF is not supported.

[Amey-MSFT]

Helllo @TGiersberg,
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We will look into it and get back to you shortly.

[Amey-MSFT]

Hello @TGiersberg,
We were able to reproduce the issue, and we are investigating it. We have logged this as a bug, and our engineering team will look into it.
Thank you!