After leaving Firefox running for a day or two, graphical problems appear.
On my computer running Firefox 63 on Linux Mint 17.3, with Intel 945G graphics, there are graphical issues that crop up after leaving the browser running for a while. It sometimes leads to crashing of tabs. When the tabs are restored, the problem persists. It seems to be a problem that develops in the main process, as the child processes crashing, or being killed, doesn't fix the problem. Only stopping and restarting the browser fixes it, but only temporarily! Over months of crash reports, I thought it might be fixed for me, though my patience has worn thin. I'd like this problem to go away.
The problem appears primarily as an issue with scrolling. I'll scroll down a screen or two, and instead of the content further down the page appearing as expected, stuff from further up wraps around and shows again. Sometimes jumping down a whole screen with the pagedown key works, but that may fail also, occasionally even mixing strips of the content further down the page, with some from further up the page.
I have had other graphical problems in the past, many months ago, and I can't say I recall the exact settings I changed then, to prevent the sort of vertical pixelation issue I had before. Text was nearly unreadable.
Things have been a bit complicated.
All Replies (7)
It sounds like a problem between Firefox and the graphics driver software, but it's odd that it doesn't start immediately, but after something else (unknown) occurs.
Maybe the tab crash is related? Could you share some of the submitted report IDs from the tab crashes. The easiest way is to copy the codes that start with bp from the about:crashes page and paste them into a reply.
More info on that: Firefox crashes - asking for support
I don't recall the last time tabs specifically started crashing, before the whole browser went down, so these might not reflect that. There are scads of them, and I can't tell which is which. I hope that you may find something relevant and helpful in these most recent ones. Thank you for looking.
bp-35c822e1-b739-472d-b64d-5463d0181203 12/2/18 7:05 PM
bp-7a0faa30-403a-4939-9d18-007430181127 11/27/18 6:37 PM
bp-3f4b4ed8-12b4-47e1-85cc-24f830181122 11/22/18 6:46 PM
bp-cb52759a-80b3-4845-a4ed-0ac8d0181119 11/19/18 3:19 PM
Edit to add: The mentioned graphical glitches appeared again, and I attempted to edit a bookmark before restarting the browser. The bookmark editing dialog did not appear, and the browser crashed.
This is another symptom that sometimes crops up. Opening a menu or dialog box after the graphics start glitching may lead to a crash.
This most recent crash: bp-21eac079-25ba-4014-96d9-cd4960181207 12/7/18 2:09 AM
Modified by Sterrence
Thank you for the crash reports. Three out of four seem to start going off the rails after calling libGL.so.1.2.0 which could be triggered by sites that composite graphics such as mapping sites.
I wasn't able to determine whether this is the latest release of the Intel drivers for Linux Mint. If it is not the latest version, try updating. If it is the latest version, you may need to turn off this setting:
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste ACCEL and pause while the list is filtered
(3) If the layers.acceleration.force-enabled" preference is bolded and "modified" or "user set" to true, double-click it to restore the default value of false
Thanks, jscher2000.
jscher2000 said
(3) If the layers.acceleration.force-enabled" preference is bolded and "modified" or "user set" to true, double-click it to restore the default value of false
I've found that setting was modified, and have reset it to the default, then restarted the browser.
I assume that will fix it, though the problem doesn't appear instantly, so I don't have much certainty yet. Will check back in a couple days, and hopefully, mark this solved?
jscher2000 said
I wasn't able to determine whether this is the latest release of the Intel drivers for Linux Mint. If it is not the latest version, try updating. If it is the latest version, you may need to turn off this setting:
I am not sure either. I assume I have the latest stable version, as I accept most software updates offered to me through the Mint Update Manager.
Edit to add: Unfortunately the graphical problem has recurred. The browser hasn't outright crashed, and I haven't closed it or killed it yet. If it crashes, I'll submit another report.
Edit to add, again: It was increasingly frustrating to use the browser in that state, so I closed it. It crashed during closing. It generated three crash reports. A submitted one at 6:23, and also unsubmitted ones at 6:20 and 6:21.
bp-c3c3e4c3-91c0-4f55-a184-bb3660181209 12/9/18 6:23 PM
Modified by Sterrence
Bumping, in case the edits to my last reply did not do so. It sure feels like it didn't.
Hi PAGulley, the crash report doesn't point me toward a specific suggestion.
As a Windows person, I don't have a lot of suggestions for graphics issues on Linux, unfortunately.
Thanks for the reply, and your prior attempts, jscher2000. At least I'm assured someone may see this. Now we play the waiting game.