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Firefox won’t display images, shows black boxes instead.

  • 4 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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Firefox won’t display images, shows black boxes instead.

From time to time firefox will not load random websites’ images and show black boxes instead. This have been happening for a few months already on two desktop computers with windows 8 and 8.1. To solve the issue, usually have to wait for a few minutes and refresh the page a few times. Restoring/cleaning cache/setting permissions doesn’t help.

Firefox won’t display images, shows black boxes instead. From time to time firefox will not load random websites’ images and show black boxes instead. This have been happening for a few months already on two desktop computers with windows 8 and 8.1. To solve the issue, usually have to wait for a few minutes and refresh the page a few times. Restoring/cleaning cache/setting permissions doesn’t help.

All Replies (4)

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You can try these steps in case of issues with web pages: Can you right-click such a not loading image and click "Reload Image" or is this choice absent?

You can open the Web Console (Firefox/Tools > Web Developer). Check on the Network tab if content from a specific domain is blocked and has a file size 0 (zero).

Boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test.


You can try these steps in case of issues with web pages:

You can reload web page(s) and bypass the cache to refresh possibly outdated or corrupted files.

  • Hold down the Shift key and left-click the Reload button
  • Press "Ctrl + F5" or press "Ctrl + Shift + R" (Windows,Linux)
  • Press "Command + Shift + R" (Mac)

Clear the cache and remove cookies only from websites that cause problems.

"Clear the Cache":

  • Firefox/Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Cached Web Content: "Clear Now"

"Remove Cookies" from sites causing problems:

  • Firefox/Tools > Options > Privacy > "Use custom settings for history" > Cookies: "Show Cookies"

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window
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I think I have the same issue as described above, pressing ctrl + shift + r as suggested by cor-el shows the image. But nothing seems to provide a permanent fix. Is there a way to stop the black boxes appearing in the first place? Thanks.

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Hi slow, if Ctrl+r doesn't help but Ctrl+Shift+r does help, that can indicate that the image files in the cache became corrupted.

That's pretty unusual, but I remember several users reporting one scenario in which cache corruption was common, and that was on Samsung Windows 8 systems with an application called Samsung Support Center (or Samsung Support Centre). In its heyday in 2013, uninstalling that application stopped further corruption of browser caches.

There may be other programs that touches Firefox's cached files, whether to enhance privacy, or to clean up temporary files, or to try to download/save media from the cache. If you have anything along those lines, see whether you can disable the feature that touches Firefox's cache.

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We have seen reports that a NVidia display driver could be causing such issues with images not loading.

  • [/questions/1048972] turning off hardware acceleration fixed my image loading issue (NVidia)