1122939 - Artifacting in UI - in toolbars/menus around content area

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[jessijames52]

Attachment: Untitled-2.jpg

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0
Build ID: 20150108202552

Steps to reproduce:

This has been going on since v33.x or so. Was hoping subsequent revisions would fix but seems to get worse with each new rev. I have scanned for the familiar malware an virus/trojan and system comes up clean all the time. I have even gone so far as completely remove Firefox from system and reinstall with fresh copy from your site and reinstalled/restored all favorites and addons to support my normal workflow but still end up with artifacts.


Actual results:

Pressing "home" button on menu toolbar creates dark grey blotches on other portions of toolbar namely the Download indicator and Refresh button but not limited to either. Extent of the blotching seems to be limited to Firefox toolbars/menu areas only and most all blotching occurs on the UPPER/TOP portion of the UI not the lower. Content area is artifact free. Some of the artifacts will strobe on/off with mouse movement around other portions of the tool bar.


Expected results:

Toolbar area should remain clean of artifacts at all times no matter what button is pushed or mouse-over of toolbar icons.

Comment 1

[jessijames52]

Attachment: Untitled-1.jpg

Comment 2

[jessijames52]

Spoke too soon about not see artifacts IN actual content. Seems the twitter login page is showing and artifact as well now. See capture "twit.jpg"

Comment 3

[jessijames52]

Attachment: twit.jpg

Comment 4

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Can you go to Help > Troubleshooting Information, and copy/paste the "graphics" section, please?

Comment 5

[jessijames52]

Attachment: troubleshooting.txt

Comment 6

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Adapter Description: Intel(R) 4 Series Internal Chipset
Adapter Drivers: igdumd64 igd10umd64 igdumdx32 igd10umd32
Adapter RAM: Unknown
ClearType Parameters: Gamma: 2200 Pixel Structure: R ClearType Level: 100 Enhanced Contrast: 400
Device ID: 0x2e12
Direct2D Enabled: true
DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.2.9200.16492)
Driver Date: 10-4-2012
Driver Version: 8.15.10.2869
GPU #2 Active: false
GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 11 (OMTC)
Subsys ID: 02761028
Vendor ID: 0x8086
WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) 4 Series Internal Chipset Direct3D9Ex vs_3_0 ps_3_0)
windowLayerManagerRemote: true
AzureCanvasBackend: direct2d
AzureContentBackend: direct2d
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0


Milan, does this ring any bells?

Jessijames52: if you use Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled, to restart in safe mode, does the problem occur in

Comment 7

[jessijames52]

OK. Very strange. 

WHEN RESTARTING IN [SAFE MODE-ALL ADDONS DISABLED] - the artifacting stops. 

When restarting in back in [REGULAR STARTUP mode all addons/plugins enabled] the artifacting returns. 

HOWEVER, IN [REGULAR STARTUP MODE-with ALL PLUGINS/EXTENSIONS DISABLED MANUALLY] and restarting, PROBLEM WITH ARTIFACTING REMAINS! 

What is the difference between [REGULAR STARTUP MODE with ALL MANUALLY DISABLED plugins/extensions] as opposed to [SAFE MODE/ALL ADDONS DISABLED]???

Comment 8

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to jessijames52 from comment #7)
> What is the difference between [REGULAR STARTUP MODE with ALL MANUALLY
> DISABLED plugins/extensions] as opposed to [SAFE MODE/ALL ADDONS DISABLED]???

Sorry, I should have explained this before asking you to test it. Despite its name, restarting in safe mode ("with add-ons disabled") does a bunch of other things - particularly, it turns off graphics hardware acceleration. You can do this manually from [Tools] [Options] [Advanced] [General], and then untick "Use Hardware acceleration when available".

If the problem remains after that, you could go to about:config and turn off layers.offmainthreadcomposition.enabled .

Obviously, all this stuff should work without you having to toggle any of these... I'm hopeful Milan has ideas on how to address that. :-)

Comment 9

[jessijames52]

(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #8)
> (In reply to jessijames52 from comment #7)
> > What is the difference between [REGULAR STARTUP MODE with ALL MANUALLY
> > DISABLED plugins/extensions] as opposed to [SAFE MODE/ALL ADDONS DISABLED]???
> 
> Sorry, I should have explained this before asking you to test it. Despite
> its name, restarting in safe mode ("with add-ons disabled") does a bunch of
> other things - particularly, it turns off graphics hardware acceleration.
> You can do this manually from [Tools] [Options] [Advanced] [General], and
> then untick "Use Hardware acceleration when available".

The above suggestion has fixed the artifacting even REG-Startup/all plugs/ext's enabled.

> If the problem remains after that, you could go to about:config and turn off
> layers.offmainthreadcomposition.enabled .
> 
> Obviously, all this stuff should work without you having to toggle any of
> these... I'm hopeful Milan has ideas on how to address that. :-)

Yes that would be nice to know. Something changed from ~v33.x to present that caused this
anomaly with the HW-Accell setting to simply appear out of no where. Have always had
that setting ticked on and never changed the overall setup of machine/OS or FF in that time. 
Got this same kind of thing happening on another similar machine which the above fix will 
get applied as well. Thanks for the info!

Will this report stay open until you hear from your other source or now that a "fix" 
has been found simply close the report?

Comment 10

[Bas Schouten (:bas.schouten)]

This does look like some sort of driver bug, although that driver/device combination shouldn't be that are. Very odd, is it possible for you to update your driver?

Comment 11

[jessijames52]

(In reply to Bas Schouten (:bas.schouten) from comment #10)
> This does look like some sort of driver bug, although that driver/device
> combination shouldn't be that are. Very odd, is it possible for you to
> update your driver?

Would be very possible. When can you get DELL to release one? :)

Comment 12

[jessijames52]

Since implementing this;
> [Tools] [Options] [Advanced] [General], and
> then untick "Use Hardware acceleration when available".

The artifacting has gone away. Then noticed that when downloading anything and
checking progress clicking on the big bold "down arrow" download button on the
toolbar that the button itself would disappear totally until one moused-over it
again...

So implemented this;
> If the problem remains after that, you could go to about:config and turn off
> layers.offmainthreadcomposition.enabled.

The disappearing DL button seems to have abated itself now.

Comment 13

[jessijames52]

Problem is when using FF now even simple scrolling on a web page is choppy/chunky and hard to follow due to the hardware acceleration being turned off. Applied the 35.0.1 update and still same artifacting with HW accell turned on. I.E. 11 does not do this hence even if there were a vid driver update available (running latest driver at this time) it's highly skeptical this issue would go away. As I stated previously this all started back around FF v32-33.x.x. What if any changes were made around that time that could cause this kind of problem?

Comment 14

[Milan Sreckovic [:milan] (needinfo for best results)]

The off main thread compositing, which is full of goodness (among other things, it allows asynchronous, and thus much smoother video) showed up in that timeframe and is exercising additional graphics functionality, and some of the drivers have trouble with it.  You may be able to get a (temporary) reprieve with setting layers.offmainthreadcomposition.enabled to false?

Comment 15

[jessijames52]

(In reply to Milan Sreckovic [:milan] from comment #14)
> You may be able to get a (temporary)
> reprieve with setting layers.offmainthreadcomposition.enabled to false?

Already implemented that one. Doesn't seem affect the artifacting issue. It does eliminate a related tool bar issue of disappearing toolbar icons. Only thing so far that affects artifacting is the HW accell setting. Might be time to switch to chrome or IE. Neither of those have any issues of this kind.

Comment 16

[Gregory Pappas [:gregp]]

Unable to reproduce in recent versions.