G'day Melody
HTML is off for everyone as far as I know.
I don't think that's the problem. I've had the same thing happen to me that you described and I'm trying to remember what the problem was and how I fixed it. It's wake up time in Australia and after I consume one cup of caffeinated coffee I'm sure I'll remember. Meanwhile, I'll go to my user options and see if I can figure out if there's a box there that needs to be unchecked or checked. I think this is something that'll be easy to fix.

Edited to add: I tried a few things, but I can't for the life think of what happened when that was going on for me. If I do think of it I'll come post it Melody. Meanwhile someone else might know.

I know that if I'm using Quick Reply I can't do it unless I click on "Go Advanced". I take it that you mean you can actually see the gifs there but when you click they don't work??? Is that right?