1808104 - Firefox display broken, shows boxes and hieroglyphics (GeForce 8800 GTS with mesa/nouveau has become qualified for HW WR)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[E. Jarvi]

Attachment: firefox_108_broken.jpg

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/108.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Running Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS, Lubuntu, with LXQt version 0.14.1.
Had been using Firefox 107 with no problems. Then the system auto-updated to 108.0.1.
This required me to restart Firefox. It didn't work, as described below. Then I removed the profile and tried again. Same thing.
Apparently installing version 108 on this system is enough to reproduce this problem.

Actual results:

Window consists of large black or white boxes. What text there is appears as hieroglyphics. The display changes erratically, so I was unable to capture the corrupted fonts.

Expected results:

Should have been startup window for version 108.0.1.

I don't know how to obtain the browser's user agent string when it is this broken.

Comment 1

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

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Graphics' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Darkspirit]

Thanks for the report!
Please try to find a regression range, if there is one:
$ pip3 install mozregression
$ ~/.local/bin/mozregression --good 106 --bad 108 -a https://mozilla.org

Please open about:support in an unaffected build, click on "Copy text to clipboard" and paste it here.

Comment 3

[E. Jarvi]

Attachment: abou:support from version 107.0, which does not exhibit the bug

Not sure if the above captured the output of mozregression (a very impressive tool!)
At the end of the run, mozregression reported:
8:01.14 INFO: Last good revision: d912bdff0f6ef7ebe29020b962a818d0d7d4aaad
8:01.14 INFO: First bad revision: adbac17a6db3ee8ff5bbed67dfe7897f5e04c192

Comment 4

[E. Jarvi]

I appreciate your efforts, and Mozilla's software style! Very refreshing!

Comment 5

[Darkspirit]

Thanks!

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?fromchange=d912bdff0f6ef7ebe29020b962a818d0d7d4aaad&tochange=adbac17a6db3ee8ff5bbed67dfe7897f5e04c192

adbac17a6db3ee8ff5bbed67dfe7897f5e04c192 Andrew Osmond — Bug 1794722 - Part 3. Remove all uses of GfxInfo::GetWebRenderEnabled. r=jrmuizel,webcompat-reviewers,twisniewski
f518d5630dee70e46477bd8a61407a6438adf154 Andrew Osmond — Bug 1794722 - Part 2. Remove all uses of gfxVars::UseWebRender(). r=jrmuizel,media-playback-reviewers,alwu
f0dd55319351336090da268b2ff2c2b4be7cc065 Andrew Osmond — Bug 1794722 - Part 1. Remove WebRender from the GfxInfo allowlist. r=jrmuizel

DeviceFamily::NvidiaRolloutWebRender has been removed, DeviceFamily::All is now qualified by default.

WebGL 1 Driver Version: 3.3 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.2.6

WebGL 2 Driver Renderer: WebGL creation failed: * WebGL 2 requires support for the following features: transform_feedback2 (FEATURE_FAILURE_WEBGL2_OCCL)

Description: NV50
Vendor ID: 0x10de
Device ID: 0x0193
Driver Vendor: mesa/nouveau
Driver Version: 21.2.6.0

https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/read/PC/10de/0193

G80 [GeForce 8800 GTS]

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-8800-gts-512.c758

Release Date Dec 11th, 2007
OpenGL 3.3

Comment 6

[Darkspirit]

You can fix your Firefox by adding

user_pref("gfx.webrender.software", true);

to ~/.mozilla/firefox/<your_profile>/prefs.js.

Comment 7

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

:aosmond, since you are the author of the regressor, bug 1794722, could you take a look? Also, could you set the severity field?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 8

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

The bug has a release status flag that shows some version of Firefox is affected, thus it will be considered confirmed.

Comment 9

[Andrew Osmond [:aosmond] (he/him)]

Before I block HW-WR support on nouveau for this hardware, are you able to verify whether or not this works with a newer Mesa? 21.2.6 came on out in Nov 2021, whereas the most recent release is 22.3.2 came out a few days ago. It would be good if we could establish a minimum driver.

Comment 10

[Andrew Osmond [:aosmond] (he/him)]

Re-NI myself so this doesn't get lost.

Comment 11

[Andrew Osmond [:aosmond] (he/him)]

Wait, I am just now realizing this is a really old card. I'm happy to block it. I was thinking it was a new card we hadn't allowlisted yet.

Comment 12

[E. Jarvi]

Darkspirit's advice to add:
user_pref("gfx.webrender.software", true);
to ~/.mozilla/firefox/<your_profile>/prefs.js.
allowed Firefox 108.0.1 to work in my system. Actually the file that needed edit was
~/.mozilla/firefox/3suwn3h2.default-release-1/prefs.js
Thank you very much for this!

Andrew Osmond suggested updating mesa from 21.2.6 to 22.3.2.
I am hesitant to try this for several reasons:

1. 21.2.6 is the latest driver supplied with Ubuntu/lubuntu 20.04. The system is fully updated.
2. I'm not sure how to update a video driver outside the normal update process.
3. I've had bad experiences with broken nouveau/nvidia drivers on my previous system.. I worry that updating this driver will break my system.
4. Don't know how to back out a broken display driver without first making a copy of my hard drive or doing a complete reinstall.

Comment 13

[Andrew Osmond [:aosmond] (he/him)]

Attachment: Bug 1808104 - Block NVIDIA early Tesla, C67 and C68 on Linux.

We already block these devices on Windows. They are quite old and appear
to be broken on Linux.

Comment 14

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/3c0e39c86c8e
Block NVIDIA early Tesla, C67 and C68 on Linux. r=gfx-reviewers,jrmuizel

Comment 15

[Iulian Moraru]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/3c0e39c86c8e

Comment 16

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

The patch landed in nightly and beta is affected.
:aosmond, is this bug important enough to require an uplift?

• If yes, please nominate the patch for beta approval.
• If no, please set status-firefox109 to wontfix.

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 17

[Andrew Osmond [:aosmond] (he/him)]

Comment on attachment 9310528 [details]
Bug 1808104 - Block NVIDIA early Tesla, C67 and C68 on Linux.

Beta/Release Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: Linux users with specific older gen NVIDIA graphic cards will see rendering glitches
• Is this code covered by automated tests?: Yes
• Has the fix been verified in Nightly?: Yes
• Needs manual test from QE?: No
• If yes, steps to reproduce:
• List of other uplifts needed: None
• Risk to taking this patch: Low
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky):
• String changes made/needed:
• Is Android affected?: No

Comment 18

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Comment on attachment 9310528 [details]
Bug 1808104 - Block NVIDIA early Tesla, C67 and C68 on Linux.

Approved for 109.0rc1.

Comment 19

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/c4dab520e803