1749096 - White flash during Firefox startup

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Theme, defect)

Description

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: white-flash -firefox.mp4

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:95.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/95.0

Steps to reproduce:

I am using Win7 SP1 with custom dark OS theme and Firefox 95.0.2 + dark theme.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:95.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/95.0
Starting Firefox by double click

Actual results:

An annoying white flash appears before the initial page is loaded (please see video enclosed)
White flash appears with no regard to what type of home page is chosen. It appears with the default Windows 7 theme too.

Expected results:

Starting Firefox without white flash.
If I use this AutoHotkey script to start Firefox
run firefox.exe,,Hide
white flash disappears, as you can see in the last Firefox start in video attached. Flag Hide is not respected by Firefox, but white flash during startup is gone.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::Theme' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Andrei Purice]

Hey zbynek,
I tried reproducing this issue on the latest versions of Firefox Nightly 97.0a1 (2022-01-10), beta 96.0b9 and release 95.0.2 but couldn't reproduce it on Windows 7.

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 .
Also a fresh new profile could help. 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 3

[[e-mail]]

Hey Andrei,
Safe mode - issue persists
New profile - issue persists

• after creating a new profile accidental fix with AutoHotkey script does not work anymore, even after deleting new profile
  Nightly 98.0a1 (2022-01-10) (64-bit) - issue persists

Comment 4

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:dao, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 5

[9uk780eqn]

Hi! I have the same problem, here is additional info.

• OS: Windows 10 (default dark mode and default apps set to light - switching those change nothing)
• Firefox 105.0.2 (64-bit)
• Nightly 107.0a1 (2022-10-07) (64-bit)

Problem occurs with custom theme installed: I tested on several different dark/colorful themes from AMO with solid colors and with a picture as background - no difference, white flash all the time at launch.

On a default dark theme (Firefox) I caught white flash once, but then couldn't reproduce.

Comment 6

[9uk780eqn]

Examples:
https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/cat-fishing/
https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/simplly-dark/

Comment 7

[Alexandru Trif, Desktop QA [:atrif]]

Attachment: 1749096.gif

Hello! I tried to reproduce the issue from comment 5 on Windows 10x64 with default dark mode and default apps set to light using Firefox 105.0.3, 106.0, and Firefox 107.a1 (2022-10-12) by opening and closing Firefox with themes from comment 6 but with no luck (please see the attached screen recording).

@9uk780eqn do any of the solutions mentioned in comment 2 work for you? Or maybe if you have the time you could help us find a regression range using mozregression? You can try to make a new profile and then install the theme that reproduces the issue on that profile and then add the path from about:profiles page inside Mozregression GUI>Profile Selection > Profile. Thank you for your contribution!

Comment 8

[9uk780eqn]

(In reply to Alexandru Trif, QA [:atrif] from comment #7)

Created attachment 9298387 [details]
1749096.gif

Hello! I tried to reproduce the issue from comment 5 on Windows 10x64 with default dark mode and default apps set to light using Firefox 105.0.3, 106.0, and Firefox 107.a1 (2022-10-12) by opening and closing Firefox with themes from comment 6 but with no luck (please see the attached screen recording).

@9uk780eqn do any of the solutions mentioned in comment 2 work for you? Or maybe if you have the time you could help us find a regression range using mozregression? You can try to make a new profile and then install the theme that reproduces the issue on that profile and then add the path from about:profiles page inside Mozregression GUI>Profile Selection > Profile. Thank you for your contribution!

Thank for the gif, I see what I missed and why you can't see it. Here is more info on steps to reproduce and about comment 2.

Case 1 - theme from AMO with unaltered new tab background color, Website appearance: Dark

Steps:

1. Create a new profile, restart browser.
2. Go to AMO, install dark/colorfull theme with unaltered new tab background color. Examples:
   https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/cat-fishing/
   https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/simplly-dark/
3. Go to Settings - General - Website appearance, select "Dark".
4. Close browser.
5. Start browser.

Actual result

white flash appears before the initial page is loaded

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEIFhri9hQQ

Expected result

Starting Firefox without white flash.

Case 2 - theme from AMO with dark new tab background color, Website appearance: any

Steps:

1. Create a new profile, restart browser.
2. Go to AMO, install dark/colorfull theme with dark new tab background color. Example:
   https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/autumn-twining/
3. Close browser.
4. Start browser.

Actual result

white flash appears before the initial page is loaded

Expected result

Starting Firefox without white flash.

Extra info

• There is no white flash with default Firefox dark theme, instead there is a dark placeholder before browser is fully loaded.
• Safe mode - unfortunately, not helping since it disables themes.
• Mozregression - not much useful info: 1) what I learned is that option "Website appearance: Dark" was introduced since 2021-08-13 (same problem with white flash); 2) for example, pre-Proton build with white flash (case 2; I did not check every nearby version, sorry):

app_name: firefox
build_date: 2019-09-01
build_file: C:\Users\1.mozilla\mozregression\persist\2019-09-01--mozilla-central--firefox-70.0a1.en-US.win64.zip
build_type: nightly
build_url: https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/2019/09/2019-09-01-21-48-07-mozilla-central/firefox-70.0a1.en-US.win64.zip
changeset: b338d55d5007ce5a7d4cdce3aaa8e9f63c5555f7
repo_name: mozilla-central
repo_url: https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central

Comment 9

[Alexandru Trif, Desktop QA [:atrif]]

Thank you very much for all the information. I think I can reproduce it now, but it's more intermittent for me. However looking into Bugzilla I found another similar issue (bug 1721348) which I believe is the same as this one, but with different steps.
Using the themes that you provided and in cases 1 and 2 and steps from case 1 with default dark mode and default apps set to light in OS settings and by restarting firefox from about:profiles I have made the following regression range:
Last good revision: 78764895b2a6363b4404300438f3660de51b3378 (2021-04-18)
First bad revision: e2fb29057e4cb7cec500f1047e110dfa1ec0f901 (2021-04-19)
Pushlog:
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=78764895b2a6363b4404300438f3660de51b3378&tochange=e2fb29057e4cb7cec500f1047e110dfa1ec0f901
Please note that that regression range may be inaccurate due to intermittency.
However I can still sometimes see a white flash on the top part of the browser with the good builds as well, but I think that this started to be more visible with the build 2021-04-19. Also changing OS settings to dark mode with default apps to dark and restarting firefox from 2021-04-18 (good build) I can also see sometimes a white flash so maybe this is a longstanding issue.
Setting this to new and changing flags.