595676 - Distorted Text in Message Pane

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, defect)

Description

[Min]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100824 Firefox/3.6.9
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100825 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.3

The text becomes distorted or broken when scrolling down in an incoming or a sent message.  Scrolling up or down changes the distortion, but rarely cleans it up.

The only way to clearly see all of the text is to 'SENT AS NEW', 'FORWARD', or 'REPLY', takes more time and too easy to send a message in error.

Short messages that fit within the message pane don't do this.  It only happens with long messages that go beyond the bottom of the message pane.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Click on a massage, both incoming and sent.
2.Double click on a massage to open in it's own tab, both incoming and sent.
3.
Actual Results:  
The text in long messages that go beyond the bottom of the message pane is distorted.

Expected Results:  
Kept the text beyond the bottom of the message pane clear and undistorted.

Comment 1

[Min]

Attachment: Distorted Text

Comment 2

[Michael A. Pasek]

According to others that have/had this problem, Apple has a video driver update for MacBook that fixes this problem on Snow Leopard 10.6.4:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1083

Comment 3

[Michael A. Pasek]

For others, the problem is caused by an extension (i.e., it does not occur in Safe Mode).

Comment 4

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Min can you try mike's suggestion and report on the results ?

Comment 5

[Min]

I'll report back as soon as I upgrade to OS 10.6.x  I'm still running OS 10.5.8. Thanks.

Comment 6

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Then it's something different :D Can you try to start thunderbird in safemode (http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode) ?

Comment 7

[Min]

Thunderbird Safe Mode definitely eliminated the distorted text and restored the cmd keystoke issues (i.e. Zoom: cmd+). 

However, the loss of extensions (i.e. Lightening) in safe mode is greater than the distorted text issue. So, until I upgrade to OS 10.6.x I'll work around some of the clunky issues that are occurring in OS 10.5.8.

Thank you.

Comment 8

[Michael A. Pasek]

I can confirm that this occurred for me on 10.5.8, but only in one case: If I clicked on the "More" link (to see more of the addressees).  Scrolling through the text BEFORE doing that caused no problems, afterward, the text "smeared".  The only extension installed is the Compatibility Reporter, and disabling that eliminated the smeared text problem.

Comment 9

[Min]

Aw yes, that did eliminate the "smearing" text.  Thank you!

Now, if only the cmd keystrokes would function without having to use the pulldown menu to initiate the cmd keystokes (i.e. Zoom: cmd+). After that the cmd functions all work with the keystroke (except for the one I programmed). It's likely to be due to running this on OS 10.5.x. If it still occurs after I upgrade to OS 10.6.x, I may start a new ticket for this issue, or not worry about it.

Thank you.

Comment 10

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

the zoom issue is tracked at bug 526288. resolving Invalid because of the two issues.

Comment 11

[Bill Shannon]

I have this same problem on 10.6.4.  I installed the graphics driver update,
which made no difference.  I'm using Thunderbird 3.1.3.

After some experimentation, it appears that it's the CompactHeaders extension
that triggers this problem.

I don't understand why this bug was closed as invalid.  How can an extension
change the painting behavior of the message pane?

Comment 12

[Min]

Are you using the Lightning add-on?  I had it installed, then the distorted text went away when I uninstalled it.  

Now, I've installed the Google Calendar add-on with no issues to date, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/70768/ .

I'm currently running on OS 10.5.8.

Comment 13

[Bill Shannon]

Yes, further experimentation shows that it's not the CompactHeaders extension
after all, and that it does appear that Lightning is the source of the problem.

How is it that Lightning changes the way text is scrolled?

I still don't understand why this bug is invalid.

Comment 14

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #13)
> Yes, further experimentation shows that it's not the CompactHeaders extension
> after all, and that it does appear that Lightning is the source of the problem.

> I still don't understand why this bug is invalid.

because it's a lightning issue. I could probably dup it to one of lightning's bug - but I would need to search for it.

Comment 15

[Bill Shannon]

So there's some way that an extension like Lightning can change the way text
is scrolled in the message pane?  Amazing.  I would've thought that text
painting and scrolling would be handled by Thunderbird itself, and that maybe
Lightning was changing the window layout or something that triggered an
off-by-one bug in the underlying scrolling code.

Anyway, it looks like this has been reported against Lightning at
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=590918