409254 - Table borders disappear when there is a <tfoot> and an empty <tbody> with border-collapse

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 217769

(Core :: Layout: Tables, defect)

Description

[Travis Miller]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

If you construct a simple table containing a <thead>, a <tfoot>, and an *empty* <tbody> - that is, a <tbody> which contains no <tr>s - and apply collapsed borders with CSS, only the top border appears.

This happens in both standards and quirks mode. It happens regardless of the border width (i.e., it's not just shifting table cells by a pixel and obscuring the borders; it's not rendering the borders at all). It does *not* occur if the border-collapse rule *or* the <tfoot> is removed.

Strictly speaking, an empty <tbody> is invalid (X)HTML, but it's useful (and common) in AJAX applications where a user dynamically adds or removes rows. For that reason, I feel that Firefox should tolerate this bit of non-well-formedness.

See attached test case for a clearer explanation.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. View the test case in Firefox.

Actual Results:  
The second table has only a top border.

Expected Results:  
I expected the second table to look just like the third table (including all borders), but without the data row.

Comment 1

[Travis Miller]

Attachment: Example of the exact circumstances that produce the bug.

Comment 2

[henryfhchan]

This happens in Firefox 3 Nightlies too.

Since borders are drawn outside the object no matter strict or quirks in Firefox 3, and that the text for the second one is in the same place as the first, it seems the border has somehow been drawn white or transparent or space has been left but border not drawn.

Sorry I can't help much -- I know nothing about C so I can't make a patch...

Try adding a "border: 1px #000 solid;" to thead, tbody and tfoot.  It might work as a workaround.

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was originally 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 3.6.6 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 4

[Dmitry Petrov]

I can confirm the bug, it still exists in ff 3.6.8

Comment 5

[Dmitry Petrov]

Attachment: Example of html code, that triggers the bug

Comment 6

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.8 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.

Comment 7

[Dmitry Petrov]

Tried in Firefox 3.6.8 with new profile, bug still exists.

System: Ubuntu 10.04

Comment 8

[egor.savintsev]

Confirm the bug at Firefox/3.6.8 Intel Mac OS X 10.5

Comment 9

[Josef Liška]

Confirm the bug in Firefox 4.0.1 and I also noticed some specific behaviour. Borders are on page load disappeared and if you hover tbody rows with coursor, borders suddenly appear at least until the browser is resized or another way redrawn (minimilized and maximalized again)

Comment 10

[Richard Irwin]

I can also confirm this bug still exists, tested with a new profile, on Firefox 4.0.1, Mac OS X 10.6.7, and also on FF 3.6.17 on WinXP. The original poster noted that this markup under HTML 4.0.1 was, strictly speaking, invalid. However, under the current draft for HTML 5, it is valid to have a <tbody> with zero or more <tr> elements. (http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/tabular-data.html#the-tbody-element) so this will likely become a more common issue going forward.

Comment 11

[Sander Plas]

This bug is still present in FF 7. 

As Richard noted, empty TBODY's are allowed in HTML5. 

Could we please get this fixed?

Comment 12

[Giorgio]

workaround

tbody:empty{display:none;}

I confirm that the bug still exists (latest trunk)