276532 - Browser windows becomes invisible but are still there, at least in Firefox mind

Status: VERIFIED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[db]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

Sometimes, maybe a few times a week, my Firfox windows becomes "invisible".

Typically this happens when Firefox has been in the background. When I then
activate FF just the menu bar appears. Intuitively I reckon I closed all my FF
windows last time FF was activated but when I try to create a new browser window
nothing happens.

I then reach for the window menu and realize that FF lists several windows, with
titles, in the window menu (as wells as one untitled widnow, the window I just
created).

There is no way I can get to these windows. Hiding all other applications just
leveas me with a blank desktop. Using Exposé they don't appear. Only workaround
is to quit FF.

This has happened with FF for several versions version, I believe 0.7, 0.8, 0.9,
and 1.0.

One factor might be that I use a dual monitor setup (most of the time)..



Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:



Expected Results:  
The windows should be visible and manageable.

Comment 1

[Philipp Ringli]

Exaclty what I experienced. I have a scree shot of it.
But I can't attach it to this bug report.

The only way to get FF working again, is to quit it.
Not very nice, if you've got 15 sites open.

Comment 2

[Michel]

I had Firefox 1.0.5 (or 6?) (FF) installed.

A month ago I downloaded and installed DeerPark Alpha 2 (DP). I was having a
problem with it. The different "tabs" in the "tabbar' were quite often not
visible. They were either all visible or all not visible. Instead I had a grey
"empty" tabbar. I could use the tabs though they were invisible. I mean that I
could clik on the visible emty grey tabbar in order to go into another tab. But
as you'll understand this was very ennoying.

As this was a pre-release version I decided to uninstall all extension, reboot
computer , uninstall my FF version that was still installed, reinstall DP, ...
but nothing helped. FInally I uninstalled DP and downloaded and installed FF
version 1.0.6.

Now I'm having a similar problem using FF. Quite often when I start FF
apparently it loads all tabs but only one is visible, the page within the tab is
not loaded and I cannot use any menu, nor enter an URL in the address-bar.

Comment 3

[Michel]

i forgot to add some information

OS: Windows XP, Home Edition, Version 2002, Service Pack 2

About Mozilla Firefow: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US;
rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

Comment 4

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

db, Philipp: Are either of you still seeing this problem in FF 1.5?

Comment 5

[db]

No, but I haven't used FF 1.5 that much yet.

Comment 6

[Bill McGonigle (not currently reading bugmail; please contact directly)]

I'm seeing this as well, now on an April 10th build of Bon Echo on Mac OS X 10.3.9.  I've been seeing this myself since FF 1.0.x but have assumed it was an extension problem previously.  Since then I upgraded to a Bon Echo release for which all the extensions were incompatible and the problem still occurred.

I believe it does have something to do with hiding Firefox.  I don't have enough confidence to change the OS to All as I don't have enough data to know it's the same bug on Windows.  

severity->critical as you lose your state data and have to quit/crash to resume.

Underlying functionality still exists.  I can "open a new window" via URL and it will get made and loaded and shows in the Window menu.  I can open the tools, like Extensions Manager and the disk will churn for a while then create a window entry 

I'll attach a screenshot.  Notice the extra blank window in the Window list.

I'll also attach screenshots of Quartz Debug running (what, no text export?).  Notice a significant number of 1x1 windows.  I thought we only had one 1x1 window, that much-maligned hiddenwindow, but I may be out of date on that.

There aren't any messages on the Console, so I'm not sure how to debug further.  Suggestions welcome.

Comment 7

[Bill McGonigle (not currently reading bugmail; please contact directly)]

Attachment: screenshot of malfunction

Comment 8

[Philipp Ringli]

(In reply to comment #4)
> db, Philipp: Are either of you still seeing this problem in FF 1.5?

Seems not to happen in FF 1.5.
Sorry for the late reply. Haven't checked this bug for a while.

Comment 9

[Bill McGonigle (not currently reading bugmail; please contact directly)]

Attachment: Quartz Debug screenshot during malfunction

some funky looking origin numbers - not sure if that's by design or not

Comment 10

[Bill McGonigle (not currently reading bugmail; please contact directly)]

An extra data point:

I thought I could be clever and recover my windows (with a dozen or more tabs open in each) by selecting the window and doing Bookmark All Tabs... on each (wait a second, put in a 1, hit enter, go on to the next window, do '2', etc.)

After re-launching I find the bookmarks groups got created but each only contains a single 'about:blank' item.  Bummer.

Comment 12

[Harry Beekman]

Firefox 2.0.0.3
I've only ever seen this (or not seen this) when I start Firefox. It caught me out a couple of times: start up Firefox, wait, and wait, assume I didn't click "properly" or something, click the icon again - two browser app windows open.
I put Firefox in the Startup folder, and today I waited and waited, then I noticed that the taskbar (on auto hide) had Firefox on it, but no Firefos Window, I right clicked & I think I closed it (don't ask), anyway it appeared and minimized instantly.

Windows 2000 (5.00.2195), SP4
AMD Athlon

Comment 13

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

Does the Quartz debug screenshot in comment 9 look useful in debugging this?

Comment 14

[Colin Barrett [:cbarrett]]

Has anyone seen this using Firefox 3 alphas or nightlies?

Comment 15

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

no response to comment#14

Comment 16

[db]

It is still an issue but now I use recent versions of FF on Win7. What happens is that the window disappears but when I hover over Firefox in the taskbar I still see the preview of them. Clicking either the preview or the Firefox application in the task bar has no effect. I can recover the windows by first clicking them which somehow makes them active and then, on the keyboard, press the Windows key and up arrow (a combo that maximizes the current window).

Comment 17

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

I have never experienced this on OS X. However, since db stated it still happens on Windows 7, I am marking as Windows only. 

Also, db, if you could provide more details on how to reproduce this, that would be great.

Comment 18

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

per comment 17, we need more details from db

Comment 19

[db]

Since you fired mr Eich I stopped using Firefox.

Comment 20

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Maybe read http://blog.gerv.net/2014/04/your-ire-is-misdirected/.