Animated guild icons briefly disappear on first hover while animated variant is loading

Expected behaviour The static guild icon should remain visible while the animated variant is loading. Once the animated image has finished loading/decoding, the client could switch from the static icon to the animated version. A slow first transformation should therefore not cause the guild icon to disappear temporarily.

Reproduction steps

1. Set an animated guild/community icon.
2. Ensure the animated variant is not currently cached, or wait until a new media-proxy transformation is required.
3. Open the guild list.
4. Hover over the animated guild icon.
5. Observe that the static icon briefly disappears while the animated=true asset is loading.
6. Hover again after the asset has been cached; the animation appears immediately.

Build information

Stable Web 2026.1003.2520, Linux (x64), Firefox 157.0, Locale en-US

Affected surface

Web app

Instance

Self-hosted, release tag v1, PostgreSQL 16 (postgres:16-alpine)

Evidence

Observed behaviour

Animated guild/community icons can briefly disappear when hovering over them for the first time after the animated variant is not already cached. The static icon is visible normally. When hovering, the client requests the animated variant using /media/icons/...?...animated=true. While that request is being processed, the existing static icon disappears completely, leaving an empty icon slot until the animated image has finished loading. This is particularly noticeable with larger animated icons. On my self-hosted instance, one icon requires approximately 1.6–1.8 seconds for the media proxy transformation. The issue is mainly visible on the first uncached hover. Once the animated asset is cached, subsequent hovers are immediate and the icon no longer disappears. The tested icons were originally selected through Fluxer's built-in Klipy GIF picker. However, when the issue occurs, the icon is already being served by Fluxer as a normal guild asset through /media/icons/..., so the visible issue appears to be related to loading/switching to the animated guild icon variant rather than to the Klipy API itself.

Screenshots

Normal state — the static guild icon is visible: image Hover/loading state — the same guild icon temporarily disappears while the animated variant is loading: image