577863 - Window caption and icon flicker when menu bar is not shown and Logitech's SetPoint software (ver<6.1?) is installed

Status: RESOLVED INACTIVE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Dan]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; en-US; rv:2.0b1) Gecko/20100630 Firefox/4.0b1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; en-US; rv:2.0b1) Gecko/20100630 Firefox/4.0b1

When the menu bar is not shown in Firefox 4 Beta 1, the window title/caption text and icon flicker into view above the tabbar every so often. It appears to be caused by websites that dynamically update the page title on an interval.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1) Open Firefox 4.0 b1
2) Ensure that the menu bar is hidden (and therefore the caption)
2) Open Gmail (for example) or some other site that updates the title bar
3) Watch the titlebar area
Actual Results:  
The title bar text flickers very quickly into and out of view.

Expected Results:  
No flickering text.

Clean profile, no extensions installed.

Comment 1

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

This shouldn't be possible since we've removed the title bar completely and now draw content in it's place. I can't reproduce on gmail, FWIW. Dan, any chance you could cook up a simple test case html page that shows this?

Comment 2

[Dan]

Upon further investigation the issue does appear to be tied to the caption text changing although the timing is not directly related.  It happens on an independent refresh interval of exactly 10 seconds on my machine.  It seems as though every 10 seconds (exactly 10 seconds as far as I can tell with a stopwatch), some background process notices if the (hidden) window caption text has changed and if it has, the current window caption text and window icon flash extremely quickly *behind* the top of the window (where the standard windows titlebar *would* be if it was not hidden).  The title could have changed 100 times in the 10 second interval, but it will flash only once at that interval.  

The behavior can be triggered by switching tabs.  I can reproduce it by switching between a tab with google.com loaded and a blank tab. In this case it will happen only once after I switch (whenever that magical 10 second interval hits) and then will not flash again until I do something to change the window caption such as switching to another tab.

The whole thing is very odd and hard to explain - but very distracting.  I'll post the a test case that continually updates the title and therefore causes the title to flash every 10 seconds.  I'm guessing that this could be somehow tied to the specific graphics card and other system details - for me, a MacBook Pro, late 2009, NVidia 9600 GT, running Win7 x64 in Bootcamp.

Comment 3

[Dan]

Attachment: Testcase Page - Updates Title Every Second

This testcase will update the page title every second.  On my machine it causes the window and title icon to flash every 10 seconds.

Comment 4

[Dan]

Based on the timing of when I started to notice the issue, I figured out that the issue is actually caused by Paragon HFS for Windows (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/).  Paragon HFS installs something that interacts with Windows' window manager and causes FF to flash the title.  Very odd.  Regardless, when I uninstalled Paragon HFS, the issue immediately stopped.  Not sure if there is an underlying issue with FF here that should be fixed or not since I didn't see the problem with other apps or if Paragon HFS is doing something really wacky.

Comment 5

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Based on the timing of when I started to notice the issue, I figured out that
> the issue is actually caused by Paragon HFS for Windows
> (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/).  Paragon HFS installs
> something that interacts with Windows' window manager and causes FF to flash
> the title.  Very odd.  Regardless, when I uninstalled Paragon HFS, the issue
> immediately stopped.  Not sure if there is an underlying issue with FF here
> that should be fixed or not since I didn't see the problem with other apps or
> if Paragon HFS is doing something really wacky.

We should probably file a bug with them. Or, I'm assuming, since we'll be in beta through the rest of the year, they'll notice it at some point and address.

Comment 6

[Peter Retzer (:pretzer)]

I do notice the same flickering after about 10sec, although I do not have Paragon HFS installed! At least I'm not aware of it being installed... how do I check if it's present on my machine? It's not showing up in 'Programs and Features'...
Is it included in any other software?
I'm running FF4 Beta 1 on Win7 32Bit.

Comment 7

[Dan]

Strangely enough the issue came back for me this morning (after disappearing for more than a day) so apparently I completely jumped the gun on identifying the cause.  I apologize.  So, no, it's not caused by Paragon HFS.  There's something else going on with Windows or something that interacts with Windows.  Could be something w/ the graphics driver?

Comment 8

[Peter Retzer (:pretzer)]

I've got a Radeon HD 4850 with Catalyst version 10.2 installed.

Comment 9

[Dan]

I figured it out.  I'm quite certain this time.  It's the Logitech Setpoint software.  This makes more sense because Setpoint implements it's own Expose-like application switching utility.  It must be caching snapshots of all open windows every 10 seconds or so for display when the Logitech application switcher is activated.  When I kill the Logitech software *or* unassign the "application switcher" function from all buttons, the 10 second title flicker in FF stops. And if I re-associate the function with a button, it comes back.

Peter, can you confirm that you have Setpoint or something that implements some kind of custom window switching installed?

Comment 10

[Dan]

To further confuse the situation, it seems to be dependent on exactly which model of Logitech mouse is connected (that's what caused the initial confusion for me).  I have two different Logitech mice.  For one it doesn't cause the problem with certain settings, for the other it does no matter what I do.  I can stop the flickering by killing the Logitech software no matter what mouse I have connected though.  Odd.

Comment 11

[Peter Retzer (:pretzer)]

I do have SetPoint installed and can confirm that killing SetPoint.exe stops the flickering for me. Good find!

Comment 12

[Peter Retzer (:pretzer)]

I think you should change the bug description then...
So is this something to fix on the our side, or on the Logitech side?

Comment 13

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> I think you should change the bug description then...
> So is this something to fix on the our side, or on the Logitech side?

If we can find a way around it on our end, we might fix it. My hope is the logitech engineers notice this and get it fixed on their end. They've may have made some assumptions about the layout of our application window that they shouldn't be making.

Comment 14

[Peter Retzer (:pretzer)]

I just updated my SetPoint to the newest version 6.1
I had 4.8 before, they seem to have made huge steps in version numbering recently, because the last time I checked, was just a couple of months ago.
Anyway the flickering seems to have gone with the update!
Can you confirm that Dan?

Comment 15

[Dan]

Yes.  Just updated to Setpoint version 6.1 and I don't see the issue any more.  Looks like Logitech changed whatever was causing the flickering.

Comment 16

[Ryan A. C.]

I do believe this is caused by Logitech's faux-exposé functionality. It seems to take screenshots of the windows periodically that it uses for the function. Something it's doing is causing the aero on the window to briefly turn off for the screenshot, flickering the caption.
The updated version looks to use some sort of aero-based implementation, hence the windows are now live and no longer require those periodic screenshots.