Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox 50.0 and Poor Loading/Rendering of PDF files

more options

I just updated to Firefox 50.0 a few hours ago. Aside from graphics just loading more slowly and with more jerkiness in general, when Firefox loads a PDF file in the browser, sometimes it works, but other times the graphic doesn't load and the loading screen becomes "embedded" on other tabs once I click over. Sometimes if I navigate back this corrects itself. Other times, this doesn't work, and even after trying to minimize the screen it doesn't. I usually have to close out of my current session.

Not sure what changes were made, but as usual, this Firefox update is REALLY glitchy with rendering graphics.

I just updated to Firefox 50.0 a few hours ago. Aside from graphics just loading more slowly and with more jerkiness in general, when Firefox loads a PDF file in the browser, sometimes it works, but other times the graphic doesn't load and the loading screen becomes "embedded" on other tabs once I click over. Sometimes if I navigate back this corrects itself. Other times, this doesn't work, and even after trying to minimize the screen it doesn't. I usually have to close out of my current session. Not sure what changes were made, but as usual, this Firefox update is REALLY glitchy with rendering graphics.

All Replies (7)

more options

Hello,

Try disabling graphics hardware acceleration. Since this feature was added to Firefox, it has gradually improved, but there still are a few glitches.

You will need to restart Firefox for this to take effect so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).

Then perform these steps:

  1. Click the menu button New Fx Menu and select Options on Windows or Preferences on Mac or Linux.
  2. Select the Advanced panel and then the General tab.
  3. Uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available.
  4. Restart Firefox and see if the problems persist.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

If the problem is resolved, you should check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in these Knowledge base articles:

Thank you.

more options

I'd turned off hardware acceleration and updated by graphics drivers long ago. No, this is not the problem.

more options

Can you please navigate to the about:support page, via the Firefox address bar? Then please let us know the numeric value of the Multiprocess Windows field.

more options

1/1 (Enabled by default)

more options

This issue is likely caused by the new e10s feature. It is fairly new and there are still some bugs with it at the moment.

You can try disabling it by going to the about:config page in your Firefox address bar. Change the browser.tabs.remote.autostart value to false and change the extensions.e10sBlockedByAddons value to false.

After you restart Firefox, the e10s feature should be disabled and the multiprocess field should say 0/1.

more options

Now that I've done this, video playback is horrific. The playback freezes like every two seconds making video playing completely unwatchable. How do I fix THIS new problem?

FireFoxFan1 modificouno o

more options

To fix this new issue, simply revert the settings that I mentioned above back to true.

It sounds like you may have found a performance bug with the newest version of Firefox. I recommend filing bug report on Bugzilla so that the developers can investigate the issue further.