Why does the firefox rendering engine go berzerk and display garbage?
As I scroll or as I go to a new page, most any time, the display within the Firefox window becomes mis-displayed. That is pehaps as diagonally across the window or perhaps a sub display field will be displayed distorted diagonally. I could send a screen shot. This happened a little when using Thunderbird, which I understand has the same rendering engine but not lately. If I close Firefox and restart it, it might behave for a while. It quickly starts problems again. Right now, as I type this, this sub window for entering text is blinking on and off and it has now started going diagonal in its display. At the same time, I can continue to enter text. Is there a way to send you screen shots? As I type this and went on down the page, trying to copy and past the trouble shooting information requested below, I had a great deal of trouble with the screen flipping around. Finally I noticed the link to copy it all to the clipboard to paste below. I cannot tell you if it made it because I cannot get the window below to display properly.
Chosen solution
Instead of starting in Safe Mode you can try disabling Use hardware acceleration when possible in Tools (Alt + T) > Options > Advanced > General and restart Firefox normally.
You can also take a screenshot using the PrtSc / SysRq key on the keyboard. This takes a shot of the whole desktop, copies it to memory/clipboard and you can paste it into any graphics program, save it and upload it. To take a shot of just the active window press Alt and the above key together.
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Hi,
Please check if this happens in Safe Mode. You can also attach a screenshot on this page below Post a Reply > Add images: Browse ...
Check and tell if its working.
I have previously turned off all extensions and add ons. I have no theme on other than the original standard.
I tried to crate some screen shots but every time I start to use the snipping tool, it re renders the screen in translucent mode and the errors go away. I will have to go to a lot of trouble to get into safe mode, but I will shortly.
The easiest way to solve the problem is of course to start using another browser. I like Firefox however and do not consider IE to be very safe.
Chosen Solution
Instead of starting in Safe Mode you can try disabling Use hardware acceleration when possible in Tools (Alt + T) > Options > Advanced > General and restart Firefox normally.
You can also take a screenshot using the PrtSc / SysRq key on the keyboard. This takes a shot of the whole desktop, copies it to memory/clipboard and you can paste it into any graphics program, save it and upload it. To take a shot of just the active window press Alt and the above key together.
Turning off hardware acceleration seems like it has fixed the problem. Only more time will tell for sure. It is still on for windows itself. I do not think it is a problem with my video card. will click the solved it button as soon as I am sure.
Updating the graphics drivers may help. Usually the updates once made available after fixing bugs, errors etc. would be listed in the Windows Control Panel > Windows Update > Optional updates section. Otherwise you may have to find it manually from the manufacturer's website. You needn't do this, unless absolutely necessary.
I have the latest graphics card drivers. That it might be a graphics card problem was my first thought. I ruled that out when I realized that it really only just happened with Thunderbird and especially Firefox. Also it would hold off for a while on restarting Firefox. Why Firefox cannot use the graphics drivers for hardware acceleration properly is still an open question. My life is now much easier as I am not fighting the browser constantly.
Thank you for the feedback. This isn't necessary but I think it would be helpful to the Firefox developers if you could file a small bug report @ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/