For example, this is from my book site. The page (so you can see the book cover) and then the PDF link: https://www.paintedjay.com/muses.html https://www.paintedjay.com/PDFs_New_PJay/DrawingOutTheMuses_cover.pdf

Here is another example. You can see a full color infographic if you scroll down this page a little bit: https://insideoutcenter.org/network.html And here is the PDF from my portfolio: https://www.alexandrialevin.com/PDFs-new/InfoGraphic_InsideOut.pdf (this gives an example of the gradient showing up, but not flat color)

Thank you.

I have this problem too, since a pair of weeks or so. I'm running Firefox 102.1 on Windows 11. Almost all the PDF documents have colors inverted (from white to black/gray) and all the colors appear as a light gray. Some images in PDFs are fine, but, most of the others are totally messed as well as the text parts. I have attached the screenshots of a random public available PDF to show the problems I'm experiencing, for comparison the same file as viewed with another reader. I'm currently using external readers because this problem is preventing me to read many parts of the docs, hoping for a solution soon.

Well, not the automatic "glad to hear it", but thank you, Andrea, for letting me know I'm not the only one seeing this problem.

If enough of us report this problem, hopefully it will be fixed with the next update. I had to put notices on my portfolio site about it.

For example, this is from my book site. The page (so you can see the book cover) and then the PDF link: https://www.paintedjay.com/muses.html https://www.paintedjay.com/PDFs_New_PJay/DrawingOutTheMuses_cover.pdf Here is another example. You can see a full color infographic if you scroll down this page a little bit: https://insideoutcenter.org/network.html And here is the PDF from my portfolio: https://www.alexandrialevin.com/PDFs-new/InfoGraphic_InsideOut.pdf (this gives an example of the gradient showing up, but not flat color)

Looks normal to me, but I'm on Windows 10 and use a boring business monitor with the standard system theme and color profile. If you are using a wide gamut monitor and especially if you are using a custom monitor profile, that might be a factor.

As a first step, could you double-check that your Firefox is **not** implementing a High Contrast mode? There are tips for that in this article: Disable high contrast mode in Firefox.

I went through the steps on "Disable high contrast mode in Firefox". "Never" was my default setting.

No changes.

It's difficult to think of another setting that could affect the color scheme of the viewer, and add-ons shouldn't be able to change colors in the viewer, either.

I assume you have not created a userContent.css file to modify how pages appear.

Could you try this test:

New Profile Test

This takes about 3 minutes, plus the time to test some PDFs.

Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.

Take a quick glance at the page and make a mental note of which Profile has this notation: This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted. That is your current default profile.

Click the "Create a New Profile" button, then click Next. Assign a name like July2022, ignore the option to relocate the profile folder, and click the Finish button.

Firefox will switch your default profile to the new one, so click the Set as Default Profile button for your regular one to avoid an unwanted surprise at your next startup.

Scroll down to July2022 and click its Launch profile in new browser button.

Firefox should open a new window that looks like a brand new, uncustomized installation. (Your existing Firefox window(s) should not be affected.) Please ignore any tabs enticing you to connect to a Sync account or to activate extensions found on your system to get a clean test.

Do PDFs look any different in the new profile?

If PDFs have the wrong colors:

We're done here and you can quit the extra window without affecting the windows in your regular Firefox profile. (July2022 will remain available for future testing.)

If PDFs look okay:

Let's test whether Firefox changes any settings in the new profile during the first several minutes of the first run. Leave that window open for 5 minutes, then quit the extra window and after 20 seconds launch a new one from the about:profiles page.

Any difference during the second session?

I tried to do what you said and using the test profile it works fine, no more problems on colors. As I'm curious I tried to use a profile called "default" that was already saved and also that works fine, switched back to "default release" (the one that was originally active) and the problem reappears. So it seems a problem only of the "default release" profile.

Hi Andrea, thank you for testing. I wish I could guess the setting causing this problem. Do you notice any theme-related differences between the three profiles?

Thank you. I don't have time today to spend more time on this, but I will test it this week.

It really is a change in the new Firefox version, though. I never had a problem until now, nor is it an issue on other browsers.

Hi Andrea, thank you for testing. I wish I could guess the setting causing this problem. Do you notice any theme-related differences between the three profiles?

Hi, after a bit of search and comparison I found that in the "colors" setting section the text and background colors were reversed and "use system colors" wasn't active. Turned on use system colors and now PDF work fine on the problematic profile. Idk why that was changed.

Hello,

I am glad to hear that your problem has been resolved. If you haven't already, please select the answer that solves the problem. This will help other users with similar problems find the solution.

Thank you for contacting Mozilla Support.

Hi Dropa. That is the web page screen shot. At that point the infographic is a PNG and not a PDF. Images are fine.

The PDF version is at this link:

https://www.alexandrialevin.com/PDFs-new/InfoGraphic_InsideOut.pdf

Hi jscher2000. The new profile test works. Thank you. What do I do now? If I make that one my default browser, I lose all my bookmarks. What do I do now?

Also, this does not solve the problem of other people coming to my portfolio site via Firefox (from LinkedIn for example) to see my work, and then getting bad-color PDFs. It's a Firefox issue that showed up with the latest release.

Hi jscher2000. The new profile test works. Thank you. What do I do now? If I make that one my default browser, I lose all my bookmarks. What do I do now?

You could do what Andrea mentioned. Open the Settings page (Preferences page) in both profiles and compare the settings under Appearance/Color to see whether something there might be causing the issue.

Also, this does not solve the problem of other people coming to my portfolio site via Firefox (from LinkedIn for example) to see my work, and then getting bad-color PDFs. It's a Firefox issue that showed up with the latest release.

I'm not able to see the problem myself, so our best hope is to identify the problem setting, and then try to get it fixed in a future version.

Hi jscher2000. I did what you said with the two versions of Firefox open. They match exactly in the color profile, but the PDFs show as before. The update from last week is now two shades of black (100% and 98%), and the new browser window shows all the original PDF colors.

I suspect, hope, and guess that it will be corrected in the next Firefox update.

Thank you for your help. Now I know about profiles and creating new ones.

Maybe there are @media rules active that force sufficient contrast (layout.css.prefers-contrast.enabled = true).

I have exactly the same issue since about three weeks ago. The issue is still there with Firefox 103 on MacOS 12.4.

Creating a new profile works but I don't want to lose all my passwords, extensions, etc. I also tried "use system colors" and "layout.css.prefers-contrast.enabled" but they make no difference on my side. Could anyone give more suggestions how I might solve this issue?

You can try to rename prefs.js to prefsOLD.js to see if this is about an about:config setting saved in the file.

@cor-el did you mean to rename prefs.js under the profile root directory (/Users/...../Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/.....default-release-3/prefs.js)? I tried that, but it has no effect other than automatically generating a new prefs.js after I restart Firefox.

The problem is still there in 103.

The problem is not the PDFs. They render perfectly fine in other browsers. It is with the latest two versions of Firefox (at least).