319867 - partial disappearing text in webpages

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Jens Luedicke]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051201 Firefox/1.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051201 Firefox/1.5

On some webpages text parts are disappearing for no reason. Selecting the text makes the missing parts visible, but scrolling or re-focusing the browser window makes the text disappear again.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Comment 1

[Jens Luedicke]

Attachment: example: FALL MASRI

Comment 2

[Jens Luedicke]

Attachment: example: FALL EL-MASRI

example how it should be (no invisible text)

Comment 3

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Both screenshots look exactly the same :)
Can you reproduce the problem in Firefox's safe-mode?
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode_(Firefox)

Comment 4

[Jens Luedicke]

the screenshots do not look like the same. there is a small difference :)

yes, I can reproduce that problem. 

Comment 5

[Jens Luedicke]

a few more screenshots illustrating the problem:

http://wiki.perldude.de//doku.php?id=mozilla_firefox_text_disappearing_bug

seems to happen only with some truetype fonts.

Comment 6

[Ilja Sekler]

(In reply to comment #5)

> seems to happen only with some truetype fonts.

Yes, I confirm this problem for the current trunk only. It doesn't appear on the 1.8. branch. An *utterly* ugly bug, because it affects equally the GUI, if the user has chosen a truetype font (not necessarily from Microsoft as described in <http://blog.perldude.de/archives/2006/07/18/mozilla-text-disappearing-bug/#comment-6727>, the same with Bitstream Vera on Knoppix 5.0.1) for his desktop environment and disabled antialiasing. It's strange though, that Sunbird nightlies, based on the trunk, are not affected.

An enabled bytecode interpreter is just a precondition for clean tt-fonts and is enabled by default f.e. on Ubuntu and Knoppix.

Comment 7

[Ilja Sekler]

Attachment: Example: Create Profile Wizard

Comment 8

[Ilja Sekler]

Attachment: Example: the Minefields home page & the "About" window

Comment 9

[Ilja Sekler]

I apologize deeply for the spam. The issue I see might be very closely connected with this bug, but it is not quite the same. This bug should bei IMHO marked as a duplicate of Bug 242698. There is an even better description of Firefox' behavior under this bug's dupe <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=286912>. This bug affects also the 1.8.x branches, not only the trunk.

spiegel.de uses the css-property "letter-spacing" for similar titles as "FALL EL-MASRI" on its homepage, deleting this property with DOM Inspector makes the complete text to appear. Another impressive testcase: http://xinehq.de

The mitigating factors for both issues are:

1. libfreetype built with bytecode interpreter enabled

2. antialiasing or subpixelhinting disabled

3. usage of (any) truetype fonts.

My screenshots originate from an official Firefox (Minefield) trunk build running on a Fedora Core 5 installation with rebuilt freetype and the basic Microsoft TT fonts (Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New) installed.

Should I open a new bug about the major problem with trunk builds?

Comment 10

[Jens Luedicke]

The bug is still in the most recent stable versions of Firefox 1.5.0.6 and 1.5.0.7

Comment 11

[Ilja Sekler]

(In reply to comment #10)
> The bug is still in the most recent stable versions of Firefox 1.5.0.6 and
> 1.5.0.7

You may want to apply the patch in Bug 252033 for a private build.

Comment 12

[Jens Luedicke]

Indeed. The patch seems to fix it. 

Comment 13

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported on Firefox 2.x or older, which is no longer supported and will not be receiving any more updates. I strongly suggest that you update to Firefox 3.6.3 or later, update your plugins (flash, adobe, etc.), and retest in a new profile. If you still see the issue with the updated Firefox, please post here. Otherwise, please close as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME
http://www.mozilla.com
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+mode

Comment 14

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.x or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.