1448406 - Firefox Android 59.0.1 - displays small rectangle part of whole display screen

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[wb0gaz]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0
Build ID: 20180315163333

Steps to reproduce:

First start after phone boot-up, select firefox android app icon from home screen, problem visible immediately and is 100% repeatable.


Actual results:

At first start after boot phone, display is normal very briefly (100 milliseconds) then changes on its own so that any web page displays small rectangle only near upper left corner. (top of screen, almost to left of screen, about 20% of total screen height, about 15% of total screen width), entire remaining area of screen is white. The small rectangle shows portion of the underlying expected display at normal scale (small rectangle content is not scaled down.)

After first minute or two, dismiss app (press home button) then revisit firefox, display is normal and remains normal until next reboot.


Expected results:

Normal operation (can see whole display screen) at first boot-up.

Comment 1

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

Thanks for reporting – is this a new issue or have you seen it in the past?

Tentative triage: non-critical as it only affects the app immediately after startup.

Comment 2

[wb0gaz]

This first appeared after update to 59.0.1 via automatic update in google play store. I had not seen the issue before (I do not know the prior version, however, I did see firefox update one time recently and since then the problem has been evident.)

The problem affects all web pages visited. I am using no settings other than "out of the box" default settings. I do use firefox account to synchronize bookmarks, etc., among other machines I use.

The phone is a ZTE Z353VL on tracfone network in USA, which in this case is using Verizon infrastructure. The phone is "flip phone" style with very low screen pixel resolution (compared to most modern smartphones.)

The ZTE353VL is running Android 5.1.1 (which does not appear to have changed since the phone was put in service).

Today I tried a different test: boot up the phone in the morning, then try first access to firefox about 8 hours later (with no intervening access to firefox.) In this (one-time) example, operation was normal from the first web page accessed (i.e., the reported problem did not appear.)

The issue mostly pertains to the first few minutes of use - I have not found a consistent way to get normal display after start-up; generally after a few minutes of use the display renders normally.

I am happy to run other tests if you specify procedure.

Comment 3

[wb0gaz]

Tonight Firefox updated to 59.0.2; after it updated (the phone has been on all day) I started it and got the same small rectangle sub-window I described previously. I navigated to "about:firefox" and in order to read the version number (which now shows 59.0.2) it was necessary to scroll horizontally and vertically until I could see portions of the version number in the small visible area.

(continuing after the update download...)

When I use the refresh function, the screen refreshes, but only the small rectangular area is visible before, during and after the refresh.

I tried closing the phone (it is a flip phone), re-opening it (which upon opening it takes me to the home screen regardless of what application/window was open when I close the phone), then I re-selected the firefox icon, which took me to the previously open URL page. For a very brief (<< 100mSec) moment when I first accessed the firefox icon it appeared to display the entire screen (containing about:firefox), then it reverted to the small rectangle area.

The menus (3 dots) can be accessed and displays normally.

The "tab" selector (where you select among open windows) when in the tiling state (where you can select among different tabs/windows) shows the scaled-down version of the window properly.

When I have two tabs/windows available (1 and 2 for example), the tab/window selector shows both scaled windows properly, however, selecting either of the windows shows only its small rectangle view.

(about 15 minutes after the update)

I've been fiddling with this tonight for about 15 minutes, at this moment I selected home screen, then re-selected the firefox icon, and it is now displaying normally. Switching between the two (available) tabs/windows behaves normally - both are fully visible.

###

I do not know how to exit firefox for android (so I cannot fully close it and restart it.)

As I've not been trying to test systematically, I cannot say for certain if Firefox ever reverts to the "small rectangle" state once it's started behaving normally during a given session.

Needless to say, Firefox is not reliably usable in this state; while I am happy to assist with testing anyone wants, I cannot use it as it stands.

Comment 4

[Bogdan Surd, QA [:bsurd, NI]]

Devices:
 - Google Pixel (Android 8.1.0);
 - Samsung Galaxy S8 (Android 8.0);
 - HTC Desire 820 (Android 6.0.1);

Tried to reproduce this on the following devices, but everything worked as expected. Don't have any flip phones on hand here to test this issue on one of those.

Comment 5

[wb0gaz]

Here is my work-around until there is fix:

When I power-up/boot the phone, I immediately start firefox, but don't access any web page (I simply return to home screen after firefox starts). Note - rendering of "speed dial" page (which is seen on start-up) at this point is normal, but accessing any web page would result in the small rectangle display.

I then avoid using Firefox for a few minutes after boot up + application start.

Following a delay (duration I have not tried to measure precisely, but I think 5 minutes is probably sufficient), any subsequent access to Firefox is normal display (I do not see the small rectangle problem.)

Comment 6

[wb0gaz]

This problem is no longer evident following an update now to version 60.0.1

Firefox on this phone is behaving normally with respect to the problem I reported beginning about 2 months ago.

Comment 7

[Mira Lobontiu (Android QA)]

Taking into consideration Comment 6, I will close this issue as Worksforme.