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My Firefox screen has recently started flickering for no apparent reason making the browser unusable.

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Hillsboy56

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The flickering is like a strobe streaking across the screen. It affects portions of the screen, not all, making those portions unreadable. It seems to get worse when I move the pointer across the screen I constantly upload the latest software versions and patches for both Firefox and my Mac (OS X 10.7.5)

The flickering is like a strobe streaking across the screen. It affects portions of the screen, not all, making those portions unreadable. It seems to get worse when I move the pointer across the screen I constantly upload the latest software versions and patches for both Firefox and my Mac (OS X 10.7.5)

All Replies (6)

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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.

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This did not make any difference :-(

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Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Firefox Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes).

If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:

  • Click the menu button New Fx Menu, click Help Help-29 and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:

  • On Windows: Hold the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • On Mac: Hold the option key while starting Firefox.
  • On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run firefox -safe-mode
    (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)

When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".

SafeMode-Fx35

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, theme, or hardware acceleration. Please follow the steps in the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article to find the cause.

To exit Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help others with the same problem.

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Again - does not solve the problem Now the screen intermittently splits itself diagonally from bottom left to top right, bottom triangle black.

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You did close (quit) the Firefox application after disabling hardware acceleration?

You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.

On Mac closing all open windows isn't enough, you need to quit the Firefox application.

  • "3-bar" menu button > Exit (Power button)
  • Windows: File > Exit
  • Mac: Firefox > Quit Firefox
  • Linux: File > Quit

You can also try to reboot the computer.

Does this issue show in a screenshot?

  • Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
  • Make sure that you do not exceed the maximum size of 1 MB
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yes I have closed firefox and also fully rebooted - still the issue persists refer screen shot