465639 - Left Click on menu items displays sub menu box that is blank but with ^v arrows at top/bottom

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Peter Fulham]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4

Left Click on menu items displays sub menu box that is blank but with ^v arrows at top/bottom. Clicking on the arrows will sometimes bring part of the sub menu options into view. See Video here http://www.screencast.com/t/u8gqZ0Qeryo  this is the tools menu. but I have seen it on other menu items and also when right clicking on a web page.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Left click on top menu item
2.In this instance only the tools menu affected and also the right click menu on this web page (just tried it)
3.Aside I have also noticed FF crashes quite frequently (I have sent crash details) though I don't think they are connected.
Actual Results:  
Please see the video here http://www.screencast.com/t/u8gqZ0Qeryo
You see the sub menu box is blank. I then click on the up/down (more items) arrows and some of the sub menu items apear. (give viid a few seconds to load.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

To rule out bugs in add-ons please try if you can reproduce the problem in safe-mode: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

Comment 2

[Nathan]

The bug appears to be related to Add-ons but NOT a particular Add-on. I have this same problem, it first appeared in the latest stable Firefox 3.0, so I upgraded to 3.5rc3 to see if it would fix it, but it still happens in 3.5rc3. I started in safe-mode and reset both the  toolbars/controls and the user preferences. Problem still existed.

I then started with all add-ons disabled, problem gone. I then enabled add-ons, and started disabling them one by one from the top until it went away. After disabling about 5, it went away. I wasn't convinced it was caused by the last add-on specifically, so I turned it back on and disabled everything else. The problem was still gone. I tried a bunch of other disabling/enabling of addons, but basically the bug only seems to happen with a certain combination of addons enabled at the same time, or a certain amount of addons enabled at the same time (not sure what the figure/combination is yet, haven't played around enough). I am using a handful of the common and (what I consider to be) fairly stable addons.

Although it is caused by addons, I am fairly positive this is not caused by any single addon and therefore Firefox's handling of several addons. It's also worth noting that I have not installed or updated any addons recently and yet it was only yesterday when my menus were in full working order.

Comment 3

[Nathan]

I managed to disable every addon other than AdBlock Plus and still see the bug, as soon as I disabled AdBlock Plus it went away (all addons disabled). I then began to enable a bunch of other addons, with AdBlock Plus disabled, and the problem came back.

I have narrowed it down to two of the addons I have installed that will reproduce this bug (there may be other addons that do it too though, I just don't have them). DownThemAll! 1.1.3 and Adblock Plus 1.0.2, as soon as you enable either of these addons, even if no other addons are enabled, the bug happens for me.

DownThemAll! affects the Tools and right click Context menu. Adblock Plus affects the Tools, View and right click Context menu. These addons normally add items to these menus. Other addons I have which add things to menus, but don't affect them are: Greasemonkey, DownloadHelper and IETab.

Not sure why this bug would just appear all of a sudden and I'm not sure if it's a bug within Firefox or a bug in each of the add-ons. I gather this bug would be quite hard to reproduce because I know a LOT of people out there are using Adblock Plus without any issues. Once the bug appears though, it's easy to reproduce. The next thing to try for me will be uninstalling both of these addons and installing them again.

Comment 4

[Nathan]

This is possibly caused by some sort of addon/profile corruption, I managed to fix it by uninstalling the addons in question, then going to "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>.default\extensions\" and if you find any remnants of the quirked addon, delete them too (make sure you don't delete other innocent addons). Then install the addons from the Mozilla addons site and reconfigure your addon, if all goes to plan, everything should be back to normal.

Comment 5

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later in a fresh profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). Also update your plugins (flash, adobe reader, java, quicktime, silverlight, etc.) Go to the developer's website and download the latest version from there. If you no longer see this issue, please close this bug as RESOLVED, WORKSFORME. If you do see the bug, please post a comment.

Comment 6

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 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.