1241801 - Browser just opens with a white screen, except in safe mode

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[u552191]

Attachment: firefox white.PNG

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:43.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/43.0
Build ID: 20160105164030

Steps to reproduce:

Open Firefox - no matter the version. This problem is itching me for a longer period now and I thought it to be a Windows Problem rather a FF problem. 
Now we have already 10.10586.63 and still no improvement. Back then we started with 10.10240.0 (bare metal installation - no migration)
GPU Intel HD 4600, latest drivers (10.18.15.4256)



Actual results:

- Firefox will recurringly open with a completely white screen, not even the typical Windows "window controls" are visible.

- Profile restauration does not help. 

- Otherwise when launching FF in save mode it works.

- A restart of the computer is needed to workaround this issue.




Expected results:

Firefox should open normally, like it does in safe mode.

Comment 1

[u552191]

Attachment: ff white.PNG

I am sorry for my kinky drawings I need to clear out some sections for privacy

Comment 2

[u552191]

Attachment: ff white closing.PNG

also the message when closing FF is affected. But I have to state that I do not have any other graphical issues in Windows except FF.

Comment 3

[u552191]

Attachment: ff save mode.PNG

Firefox is working fine on this machine in safe mode nevertheless. A Profile restauration did not help, even though all addons have been removed during that process. 
Afaik only AdBlock plus was in use and we also use FF Sync.

Comment 4

[Loic]

If it works in safe mode and not with a fresh profile, so probably the issue is about hardware acceleration.

1) Type about:support in the location bar and copy here the section "graphics"

2) Try with HWA disabled:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/forum-response-disable-hardware-acceleration

Comment 5

[u552191]

Hello Loic, 
thanks for your quick reply. Can you imagine why this would be gone after restart and will come up again at a random later time?

Comment 6

[u552191]

Oh, one more thing to add, before the computer ran fine with Windows 7 and FF, and I think that HW Acceleration did exist in previous versions like 39.x branch.

Comment 7

[Loic]

(In reply to Karl Heinz from comment #5)
> Hello Loic, 
> thanks for your quick reply. Can you imagine why this would be gone after
> restart and will come up again at a random later time?

When HWA is enabled?

Comment 8

[u552191]

Yes. It will reproducibly go away after a restart / warm or cold boot and will reappear out of a sudden after Firefox is completely closed and reopened.
I cannot imagine a defective GPU really as it is intgrated in the CPU. It might be related to Intel drivers though.

Comment 9

[Loic]

Maybe driver refresh. That's why we need the info from comment #4.

Comment 10

[u552191]

Padron Loic,
I missed that.

Allgemeine Informationen
------------------------

Name: Firefox
Version: 43.0.4
Build-ID: 20160105164030
Update-Kanal: release
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:43.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/43.0
Fenster mit mehreren Prozessen: 0/1 (Standard: false)
Abgesicherter Modus: false

Absturzberichte der letzten 3 Tage
----------------------------------

Alle Absturzberichte

Erweiterungen
-------------

Grafik
------

Asynchrones Wischen und Zoomen: nichts
ClearType-Parameter: Gamma: 2200 Pixel Structure: R ClearType Level: 100 Enhanced Contrast: 50
DirectWrite aktiviert: false (10.0.10586.0)
Gerätekennung: 0x0412
GPU #2 aktiv: false
GPU-beschleunigte Fenster: 0/1 Basic (OMTC)
H264-Hardware-Dekodierung unterstützt: No; Hardware video decoding disabled or blacklisted
Herstellerkennung: 0x8086
Karten-Beschreibung: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
Karten-RAM: Unknown
Karten-Treiber: igdumdim64 igd10iumd64 igd10iumd64 igd12umd64 igdumdim32 igd10iumd32 igd10iumd32 igd12umd32
Subsys-ID: 00000000
Treiber-Datum: 7-17-2015
Treiber-Version: 10.18.15.4256
WebGL-Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 Direct3D11 vs_5_0 ps_5_0)
windowLayerManagerRemote: true
AzureCanvasBackend: skia
AzureContentBackend: cairo
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0

Wichtige modifizierte Einstellungen
-----------------------------------

browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
browser.cache.disk.filesystem_reported: 1
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false
browser.cache.frecency_experiment: 1
browser.download.importedFromSqlite: true
browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion: 7
browser.sessionstore.upgradeBackup.latestBuildID: 20160105164030
browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID: 20160105164030
browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone: 43.0.4
dom.apps.reset-permissions: true
dom.mozApps.used: true
extensions.lastAppVersion: 43.0.4
gfx.crash-guard.d3d11layers.appVersion: 43.0.4
gfx.crash-guard.d3d11layers.deviceID: 0x0412
gfx.crash-guard.d3d11layers.driverVersion: 10.18.15.4256
gfx.crash-guard.d3d11layers.feature-d2d: true
gfx.crash-guard.d3d11layers.feature-d3d11: true
gfx.crash-guard.status.d3d11layers: 2
gfx.crash-guard.status.d3d9video: 2
gfx.direct2d.disabled: true
gfx.direct3d.last_used_feature_level_idx: 0
layers.acceleration.disabled: true
media.gmp-eme-adobe.abi: x86-msvc
media.gmp-eme-adobe.lastUpdate: 1453451651
media.gmp-eme-adobe.version: 15
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.abi: x86-msvc
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.lastUpdate: 1453451651
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.version: 1.5.3
media.gmp-manager.buildID: 20160105164030
media.gmp-manager.lastCheck: 1453451648
media.hardware-video-decoding.failed: false
media.youtube-ua.override.to: 43
network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
network.predictor.cleaned-up: true
places.database.lastMaintenance: 1453451785
places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 104858
plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types: application/pdf
plugin.importedState: true
privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs: true
storage.vacuum.last.index: 0
storage.vacuum.last.places.sqlite: 1453451785
ui.osk.debug.keyboardDisplayReason: IKPOS: Touch screen not found.

Wichtige nicht veränderbare Einstellungen
-----------------------------------------

JavaScript
----------

Inkrementelle GC: true

Barrierefreiheit
----------------

Aktiviert: false
Barrierefreiheit verhindern: 0

Bibliotheken-Versionen
----------------------

NSPR
Minimal vorausgesetzte Version: 4.10.10
Verwendete Version: 4.10.10

NSS
Minimal vorausgesetzte Version: 3.20.2 Basic ECC
Verwendete Version: 3.20.2 Basic ECC

NSSSMIME
Minimal vorausgesetzte Version: 3.20.2 Basic ECC
Verwendete Version: 3.20.2 Basic ECC

NSSSSL
Minimal vorausgesetzte Version: 3.20.2 Basic ECC
Verwendete Version: 3.20.2 Basic ECC

NSSUTIL
Minimal vorausgesetzte Version: 3.20.2
Verwendete Version: 3.20.2

Experimentelle Funktionen
-------------------------

Comment 11

[Loic]

The Intel drivers are too old, especially with Win 10. Many drivers released near the official release of Win 10 (in July 2015) are buggy with Win 10, you need to update them to the latest version.

I'm pretty sure it will fix your issue about graphics.

Comment 12

[u552191]

Attachment: this is rather irritating, don't you think?

I checked for newer driver but it says the installed driver is newer than than the one on the Intel Servers. I don't think that Intel has completely dumped their versioning.

Comment 13

[u552191]

but as we can see in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8710908 the installed driver is even another one. I think I will start in safe mode clean up everything with DDU and dl the recent drivers from Windows Update.

Comment 14

[u552191]

Attachment: new driver

I have done what I have stated previously. Now the driver definitely more recent (obtained via WU) but the Intel Updater tool seems to be odd.

Comment 15

[u552191]

I will enable the HW acceleration and observe the behaviour, please let this ticket open. Many thanks for your support!

Comment 16

[Loic]

Don't trust the Intel software or WU to update your CPU/GPU drivers, just go to the Intel website and download them manually according to your model. Some manufacturers can block OEM drivers like Dell or Toshiba.

Comment 17

[u279076]

The latest driver for your GPU is available here:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25489/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10-15-40-4th-Gen-

If that doesn't resolve your issue we'll need you to narrow down when this first began. If you can try rolling back to Firefox 42 or earlier to see if the issue reproduces, that would be good.

Thanks

Comment 18

[u552191]

Hello Anthony,

I have downloaded the latest driver from the Intel webpage which matches your link. 
However the driver package will "update" the Intel to a driver version called 20.19.15.4300 / Timestamp 1st Oct. 2015. Even though the package has another build. Later Win 10 will again update this driver to a more recent version like stated before.

Nevertheless the problem still persists. 

Luckily by today Intel has released new drivers for all 4-6th gen Intel HD iGPUs
20.19.15.4352 (15.40.14), that I can use further testing. I will report if this driver finally resolved the issue.

Comment 19

[u552191]

With the newly announced driver now the HD 4600 runs on driver version 20.19.15.4352 15th Dec. 2015

Comment 20

[u552191]

The issue is gone with Intel driver 20.19.15.4352.

Comment 21

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

Jeff, what do you think about blocking Windows 10 drivers < 20.19.15.4352 ?

Comment 22

[u552191]

@Milan not a good idea to be honest. 

The block request would be only valid for a handful of iGPUs namely

4th (Devils Canyon) /5th (Haswell) Core Processors with HD/Iris Graphics 
this driver package is designed for.

very unfortunately and unlikely to Nvidia there is no "generic drivers" across many or all Intel iGPUs so the version number are differing.
this is an overview from a german site 
http://www.computerbase.de/downloads/treiber/grafikkarten/intel-grafiktreiber/

you will notice the chaos that Intel has about drivers 

first they had a bundle including even the latest 6th gen but now it is split in a different package and this goes same to Ivy Bridge (3rd gen) and Sandy Bridge (2th gen) etc etc.

Comment 23

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

I tried the same driver on the same hardware and wasn't able to reproduce the problem. If you switch back to the 10.18.15.4256 driver (https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2015/08/04/new-intel-iris-iris-pro-and-hd-graphics-production-driver-for-windows-10-64-bit) can you reproduce the problem?

Comment 24

[u552191]

for some reason the issue reappeared using the same driver (20.19.15.4352) when it was gone, and same FF version 44.0.2 I will upgrade to latest FF now and see what happens.

@Jeff can you try to reproduce this on the same hardware and driver using Teamviewer 11. I admin most of the time when I have this issue I am using a remote connection, also the bug also now appears with other apps just like Intel Driver Updater. So it seems it is merely a Windows rather than a Firefox only issue meanwhile. However there are differences in case you have a look on the screenshot.

Comment 25

[u552191]

Attachment: issue reappeared with same driver, Windows 10.586.164 but also now affects other applications in parts.

Comment 26

[u552191]

upgraded to 45.0.1, also changed from x86 to x64, however all FF messages / Windows are still white (blank), logging off the Windows user and relogging does not help. Only way to workaround this issue is to start in safe mode (certainly turning off hardware acceleration in FF might help too), or again restarting the computer will help to workaround this issue aswell. Imho there is something wrong with the Windows driver stack / Intel driver as this computer with the HD4600 is the only one out of many installations where I see this issue.

Comment 27

[u552191]

Now after a restart the Windows UX (startmenu), FF and Intel driver update UI is functioning properly again, as many times before. I am irritated why Intel wants to downgrade the driver (refer screenshot) could it be that they revoked the current build?
Do you think I should downgrade to their "latest version"?

Comment 28

[u552191]

Attachment: Intel driver updater says the current driver with a more recent build number is outdated and superseded by the 15.x build

Comment 29

[Loic]

For Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600, the latest drivers are  15.40.18.4380:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25860/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10-15-40-4th-Gen-?product=81496

Comment 30

[u552191]

Hi Loic I will try this driver you provided.

Comment 31

[u552191]

Since Intel driver version 20.19.15.4424 the issue is gone. Bless the gremlins.