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Firefox 17.0.1 will not display properly on my laptop. I have had to revert to the last version in order to be able to write this!

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  • Last reply by Onebrow

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I have had to revert to version 16.0.2 - which works perfectly - because 17.0.1 is virtually unusable on this laptop. I've never had this problem before and I've been using Firefox for many , many, years. It's basically a graphics issue. I can't see my home page if my bookmarks list is in the sidebar - it's just black. But if I close it, the page renders OK. If I try to change pages it seems to be OK. Then as soon as I try to open my bookmarks again the page goes black. If I try scrolling the black part i can see the page in the background but as soon as I stop scrolling it goes black again. If I try long enough, the page will sometimes render, but as soon as I try to do something on the page blocks of it will disappear and then come back if I move the mouse around on it. - And variations of this kind of nonsense. It's a very difficult thing to describe. I've tried restarting Firefox with my addons disabled, and that seems to fix the problem, but I can't find out which is causing it because when I restart with the addons enabled again in order to stop them individually the page rendering issue makes it virtually impossible to do anything, because I can't navigate properly. I've reverted to 16.0.2 permanently for a while, but every time I try to reinstall 17.0.1 the same thing happens all over again. of course Ff keeps prompting me to that there is a newer version and don't I want to install it etc., because of security issues etc. but there doesn't seem to be any point, unless anyone out there has any suggestions as to what's causing this really annoying and frustrating problem.

I have had to revert to version 16.0.2 - which works perfectly - because 17.0.1 is virtually unusable on this laptop. I've never had this problem before and I've been using Firefox for many , many, years. It's basically a graphics issue. I can't see my home page if my bookmarks list is in the sidebar - it's just black. But if I close it, the page renders OK. If I try to change pages it seems to be OK. Then as soon as I try to open my bookmarks again the page goes black. If I try scrolling the black part i can see the page in the background but as soon as I stop scrolling it goes black again. If I try long enough, the page will sometimes render, but as soon as I try to do something on the page blocks of it will disappear and then come back if I move the mouse around on it. - And variations of this kind of nonsense. It's a very difficult thing to describe. I've tried restarting Firefox with my addons disabled, and that seems to fix the problem, but I can't find out which is causing it because when I restart with the addons enabled again in order to stop them individually the page rendering issue makes it virtually impossible to do anything, because I can't navigate properly. I've reverted to 16.0.2 permanently for a while, but every time I try to reinstall 17.0.1 the same thing happens all over again. of course Ff keeps prompting me to that there is a newer version and don't I want to install it etc., because of security issues etc. but there doesn't seem to be any point, unless anyone out there has any suggestions as to what's causing this really annoying and frustrating problem.

Chosen solution

Hello Onebrow, if you want to don't install/update your graphics drivers then try to Turning off hardware acceleration, clear information it is in the above link Tylerdowner's gave as.

thank you

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Chosen Solution

Hello Onebrow, if you want to don't install/update your graphics drivers then try to Turning off hardware acceleration, clear information it is in the above link Tylerdowner's gave as.

thank you

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Hi Tylerdowner - Thanks for your suggestion. I already tried a Reset, but all that did was lose all my settings , search engines etc. and one or two add-ons - as expected. I also already tried updating my graphics driver - both manually, and with Windows Update (Automatic Updates is set to ON anyway, and I've checked the optional ones as well, and though there was nothing relevant there, I installed most of them anyway!) Apparently I'm using the most up-to-date and appropriate driver already! Oh dear........ Going to try turning off hardware acceleration next....

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Well - thanks ideato It was the turning off of hardware acceleration that worked! I appreciate that. It was beginning to drive me nuts, and I've wasted a huge amount of time trying to sort this out. So thanks again, both.

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Note that you can copy the searchplugins folder from the Old Firefox Data folder on the desktop to the current Firefox Profile Folder to restore the search engines that were installed.

If you reset Firefox then a new profile is created and some of your data (bookmarks, passwords, cookies, form data) is automatically imported and your current profile will be moved to the desktop (Old Firefox Data).

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Yeah - thanks cor-el - I sussed that after I did the reset. It's just that the reset didn't work!