455406 - Incorrect link colors, weird hover behavior, underlines borked

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Will Martin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1

I've run across a puzzling problem with link colors in Firefox 3.  I've seen it in a couple of different places, but the test case I'm referring to here is at:

http://instructors.cwrl.utexas.edu/

The page at that location validates to XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and has valid CSS 2.1.  The link colors are behaving oddly.  The style sheet says that the links should be color #CC5600, which is a light orange.  But when I load the page, some of them are showing up as #0056CC -- the red and blue values have been flipped, and so the links come out blue.  But not all of them are affected.  Here's a screenshot:

http://instructors.cwrl.utexas.edu/~martin/link_colors/initial_load.png

My first thought was that there must be a conflicting style rule somewhere which is selectively setting the link color to #0056CC.  But I checked, and there's not.  The page has seven style sheets, and none of them contain the text "#0056CC".  The color might have been specified using rgb notation, that is as rgb(0, 86, 204), so I checked for that too -- but none of the stylesheets contain any rgb() notations at all.

The links sometimes change color on hovering, and sometimes do not.  I've identified two distinct sequences of events.  The first works like this:

1) I move my mouse over one of the affected links;
2) The link turns the correct orange, and has an orange underline;
3) I move my mouse off the link onto an area of the document which is NOT a link;
4) The link remains orange.

The second works like this:

1) I move my mouse over one of the affected links;
2) The link turns the correct orange, and has an orange underline;
3) I move my mouse off the affected link onto one of the unaffected links immediately below it, without passing over any non-link portion of the document;
4) The link reverts to blue;
5) I move my mouse back onto the affected link without passing over any other section of the document;
6) The affected link REMAINS blue, but has an orange underline;
7) I move my mouse off the affected link;
8) It turns orange again.

When the affected link is orange, I can move my mouse on-and-off it and it'll stay orange, as long as I don't hit any other link.  BUT, if I scroll the page down so the links go off screen, and then scroll back, then they revert to blue.  If I switch tabs and come back, they revert to blue.   Some more screenshots:

Restored to orange
http://instructors.cwrl.utexas.edu/~martin/link_colors/after_mouse_over1.png

Blue with mis-matched underline color
http://instructors.cwrl.utexas.edu/~martin/link_colors/after_mouse_over2.png

And as if that's not weird enough, I've observed the same behavior in Opera 9.5, but not in IE 7 or in Safari 3.1.  It makes me wonder whether there's something wrong with the OS -- Win XP, fully updated, running under Bootcamp on two different sets of Mac hardware, both recent iMac machines.  I've got a hundred and fifty machines showing this behavior -- but when I tested with Firefox 3 on other computers, like my Win XP laptop or my dual-boot Ubuntu/XP box at home, it works just fine.  It's only affecting the mirror we use at my workplace to maintain identical workstations across several classrooms/labs.  As I was submitting this bug, I noticed that it also affects:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi

As you can see here:

http://instructors.cwrl.utexas.edu/~martin/link_colors/bugzilla_screenshot.png

I note that all the affected links in both Bugzilla and my test page are links inside H2 elements.  Could that have something to do with it?

At this point I have three theories:

1) Something about my install of Win XP is borked, and it's affecting Opera and Firefox 3, but not Firefox 2 or any other web browser.

2) There's some sort of weird interaction with Bootcamp which is causing it.

3) Evil pixies.

I don't know what else to do to diagnose the problem.  Bug 424249 looks similar, but it looks as though they thought it was fixed.

Has anyone else come across this?  It's driving me nuts.  I've had students commenting on how weird it is that the hover colors don't behave consistently, and it irritates me every time I have to look at it.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
See Details.
Actual Results:  
See Details.

Comment 1

[Mats Palmgren (inactive)]

Works for me, Firefox 3.0.1 on Linux and MacOSX 10.5.4.
(All links are orange and the underline is orange when I hover them.)

Comment 2

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

WFM too, on Windows XP.

Comment 3

[Thiago Belem]

I'm having the same problem...

I checked if i uninstall my video card drive (ASUS EAH3650 Silent) the problem's solved... But when I reinstall it, no matter from where (CD or download) the problem goes on again.

Sorry about my english :)

Comment 4

[Thiago Belem]

And my system is:
OS: Windows XP 64bits SP2 - Full Updated
Video card: ASUS EAH3650 Silent - 512Mb DDR3 (Drive downloaded from manufacturers site)

Comment 5

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This is a mass search for bugs which are in the Firefox General component, are
UNCO, have not been changed for 500 days and have an unspecified version. 

Reporter, can you please update to Firefox 3.6.10 or later, create a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles, and test again. If you still see the issue, please update this bug. If the issue is gone, please set the status to RESOLVED > WORKSFORME.

Comment 6

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply from reporter, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.