429708 - when firefox 3 beta 3 is running and screen size increased in X, fonts get HUGE

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[Patrick Wagstrom]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008041514 Firefox/3.0b5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008041514 Firefox/3.0b5

I'm using Firefox 3 beta 5 under Ubuntu Linux 08.04.  I have also observed this problem using other beta versions of Firefox 3 under Ubuntu Linux 07.10.

New versions of Xorg with decent drivers support XRandR 1.2, which allows dynamically adding monitors to the display on the fly.  This results in the screen size increasing by dramatic amounts.  On my laptop, I frequently work with a 1400x1050 LCD on the laptop, and an additional external monitor that is 1280x1024 or 1680x1050.  When I use XRandR to resize the screen size by adding in a new monitor, visiting new pages in a running instance of firefox results in very large font size (gmail, google, amazon, newegg, etc).

This only happens if I have an instance of firefox running when I expand the desktop size and I continue to browse in that instance.  If I start a new instance of firefox after expanding my desktop size, the problem does not persist.

I'd assume it's something with Firefox basing font sizes on the screen size at startup and not realizing when something changes.  This problem does not happen in Konqueror or Opera, so I'm assuming that it's a Firefox bug.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Firefox and browse some
2. Expand desktop using XRandR 1.2 to add external monitor
3. Continue to browse using firefox
Actual Results:  
Fonts on some pages get huge

Expected Results:  
Fonts sizes should not change

I haven't been able to figure out why it is only some pages that do this, but given that it didn't happen on Firefox 2, and that they're some of the biggest pages on the net, it probably is a mozilla bug.  Killing the browser and restarting it after connecting the second monitor fixes everything.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do you still see this problem using the most recent versions of all components?
If you do not, please close the bug with resolution set to WORKSFORME. (Or INVALID if caused by an add-on)
If you do see the problem, please comment in the bug.

Comment 2

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Closing since now after whiteboard closeme date and no reply to last comment.

Please reopen/comment with further info, if you still see this issue with Firefox 3.6.13 or later in safe mode:
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode

If you wish, you can also try to reproduce in Firefox 4 Beta 8 or later:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html