1714781 - Invisible vertical scrollbar on all pages

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1753830

(Core :: Widget: Gtk, defect)

Description

[ysard]

Attachment: issue_firefox_no_scrollbar_button_after.jpeg

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:89.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/89.0

Steps to reproduce:

Update to version 89.0 (64bits)
Platform : GNU/Linux, KDE 4.12.4

Actual results:

Hi, just after the update I noticed that the buttons of the scrollbars have all disappeared except on the sites which voluntarily customize them (Youtube for example).
This is a color problem (same color for button and bar), since blind selection of the button with the mouse works.

The addon https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/custom-scrollbars/ partially solves the problem; but the special pages (about: *) are still affected because it cannot act on them ...

Tested with the default theme, and many other themes, the problem is recurrent except for some black themes which show the button in clear.

The flat themes are known for their small contrast differences between the elements of the interface (This particular causes problems for visually impaired); here, the navigation is clearly impacted.

Expected results:

The button on the scrollbar should be visible...

Comment 1

[Andrei Purice]

Hey ysard,
I'm trying to reproduce this on the latest versions of Firefox Nightly 91.0a1 (2021-06-09), beta 90.0b5 and release 89.0 but it looks good on my side.

Can you test the issue while in Safe Mode? You can find helpful info here : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode .
Can you try using a new profile for a few days? You can find more about creating a new profile here : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-and-diagnose-firefox-problems#w_6-create-a-new-firefox-profile .
If possible, you can test this issue on the nightly build as well. Download the build from : https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/nightly/all/ .

Comment 2

[ysard]

Hi, I should indeed have done the test on a new profile. Please excuse me.

The problem therefore remains intact on :

• a new profile (and on my old profile in troubleshooting mode), 89.0 (64 bits)
• beta, 90.0b6 (64-bit) (old and new profile)
• nightly, 91.0a1 (2021-06-11) (64-bit) (new profile)

Also, the pdf viewer is affected by the problem and its scroll bar cannot be modified by the addon I mentioned above.
And obviously, the horizontal scrollbar is also affected like the vertical one.

Comment 3

[ysard]

After investigation it appears that the system colors for the scrollbar button is not taken into account by Firefox.

On this link you will find the illustration of the problem.
https://nsa40.casimages.com/img/2021/06/12/210612064326145723.png

It looks like a hard coded default color value.
In any case, I did not find any attribute in my theme that could modify it.

This was not the case before Proton. This is a regression ...

Comment 4

[privsoft]

I'm experiencing the exact same problem since the latest update.

It appears the dark scrollbars appear fine but anything on a light background makes the scrollbars disappear, I'm not entirely sure if this is related to the site customising the scrollbar via CSS or simply all light backgrounds.

Same problem with a new profile.

I'm running Manjaro with i3wm.

Comment 5

[ysard]

(In reply to privsoft from comment #4)
Hi, if your special pages of Firefox are affected, it is the same regression.

about:addons, about:config, about:support, etc. should have a visible button on their scrollbars, but it is not the case and it is not editable by any addon (these pages are protected).

Comment 6

[privsoft]

(In reply to ysard from comment #5)

Thanks, I've just checked and I tested with the default "System theme" the backgrounds are dark on the special pages. The scrollbar is visible but when clicked to drag/move it handle disappears so you lose it's position. I believe this is grabbing xresources color scheme (which works fine in every other application).

Visiting the www.bbc.co.uk website which has a white background, the scrollbar completely disappears.

A perfect example is here: https://codepen.io/devstreak/pen/dMYgeO
The code editor areas all have custom css on their scrollbars (appear dark for me), the handles work perfectly. However, the area below showing the output has a white background and I can't see the scrollbars - see a screenshot here: https://ibb.co/ftxDQx6

My only solution currently is to use the "Custom Scrollbar" plugin

Comment 7

[Andrei Purice]

Setting a component for this issue in order to get the dev team involved.
If you feel it's an incorrect one please feel free to change it to a more appropriate one.

Comment 8

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

I ran FF89 on a Kubuntu 20.04 system and tried several different Firefox themes (including "system") as well as several different KDE themes, and the scrollbars remained visible. I'm not sure exactly what combination of settings would required to experience the problem here.

Probably more of a Widget issue than Layout, if we're not always retrieving the right colors from the system.

Comment 9

[privsoft]

Jonathan,

If it helps here is my configuration:
WM: i3
GTK Theme: Breeze [GTK2], Vertex-Maia [GTK3]
Icon Theme: Vibrancy-Full-Dark-Teal
Font: Noto Sans, 10

A copy of my ~/.Xresources - https://pastebin.com/8EsGK5b7

I also use polybar, compton and NVIDIA drivers - if any of it helps!

Comment 10

[Emilio Cobos Álvarez (:emilio)]

I think this should be fixed by bug 1714103. With that gtk theme I get visible scrollbars on Nightly, can you confirm?

Comment 11

[ysard]

Attachment: firefox_98_scrollbar_contrast.png

As you can see the color of the theme is not used by Firefox.

Comment 12

[ysard]

Attachment: firefox_98_scrollbar_contrast_windows11pref.png

No contrast problem with the widget.non-nate-theme.scrollbar.style=5 pref

Comment 13

[ysard]

(In reply to Emilio Cobos Álvarez (:emilio) from comment #10)

I think this should be fixed by bug 1714103. With that gtk theme I get visible scrollbars on Nightly, can you confirm?
Hi, sorry for the delay.

To respond to your question... Yes and No.

• Yes, the scrollbar is visible now (almost on FF 98).
• But No, the color of the Desktop theme is still not used. It may be related to my version of KDE although I'm not the only one concerned.

In any case, the contrast between the button and the bottom of the scrollbar is a disaster for the eyes: i.e. difficult to discern.
Contrast problems seem recurring (tabs are also affected see bug 1705072 and bug 1704347).

My problem can be solved with the use of the pref widget.non-nate-theme.scrollbar.style=5 that activates the Windows 11 appearance but it is a trick that many people will not have the reflex to apply.

I added 2 new images to the topic, showing the difference in contrast between the default configuration under KDE and a Windows 11 type scrollbar.

Comment 14

[Emilio Cobos Álvarez (:emilio)]

So we apparently don't use your theme colors probably because your gtk scrollbars use images. The unthemed scrollbar color contrast on GTK is an issue, but it was fixed in bug 1753830, so Nightly and beta should have decent contrast in the scrollbars. Let me know / reopen if that's not the case.

Comment 15

[ysard]

(In reply to Emilio Cobos Álvarez (:emilio) from comment #14)

So we apparently don't use your theme colors probably because your gtk scrollbars use images. The unthemed scrollbar color contrast on GTK is an issue, but it was fixed in bug 1753830, so Nightly and beta should have decent contrast in the scrollbars. Let me know / reopen if that's not the case.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1753830 ***

Tested on beta 99.0b5, the color theme is still not used, but yes the contrast is decent and usable.
I hope that the explicit fallback colors specified in the commit will not complicate a future update, but it's OK for now.
Thank you for these corrections and your precious time.