Closed Bug 600381 Opened 14 years ago Closed 3 years ago

[Windows] Context and dropdown menus displayed on a secondary monitor flicker rapidly

Categories

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Product:
Core
Component:
Graphics
Platform:
x86_64
Windows Vista
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: olandgren, Assigned: bas.schouten)

References

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:2.0b6) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:2.0b6) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b6

This seems to be a similar issue to bug 245418, but has different symptoms so I felt it necessary to report. Dropdown menus opened when the browser is on a secondary monitor cause the menus to refresh, creating nasty flickering and unusable menus (because the contents of the menu and the selected item within are invisible). 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open an instance of FF 4.0b6 on your primary monitor. Test the dropdown and context menus - they will function correctly. 
2. Move the window to your secondary monitor.
3. Open a context menu with right click.
--> 4. The menu refreshes constantly (creating a bizarre flickering). You can still "use" the menu by moving the mouse around, but none of what you are selecting is visible. 
5. Open a browser menu (e.g. File, Edit, etc).
--> 6. The same problem occurs - the menu refreshes constantly. 
Actual Results:  
Constant refreshing of menus. 

Expected Results:  
Menus do not refresh and behave as they do when the browser window is placed on the primary monitor.

Using Default theme. 
Up-to-date NVIDIA drivers.
Monitors are identical (NEC Multisync 2070VX @ 60hz).
This is happening for me too on 4.0b8 on Windows Vista.  It doesn't seem to matter whether you're using the Vista theme or the Classic theme.

A couple observations:

This seems to be tied to performance.  When you only have the homepage open, the flickering eventually stabilizes, but when you have lots of tabs open and media playing in the background, the flickering is quite severe.  Note: activity in separate windows doesn't seem to contribute.

I've also had some trouble tracking down the cause of this.  If I run Firefox in safe mode, the problem goes away, but if I instead disable all the plugins, all the add-ons, and reset all my settings except for bookmarks (which should effectively make everything quite similar to the way it is in safe mode) the problem persists.
I have additional info to share about this bug.

On my laptop, when displaying the browser on a secondary screen, the problem only occurs if the Windows 7 Basic theme is selected, while on Aero-themes the problem doesn't occur.

User Agent String: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b6) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b6
Keywords: pp
Summary: Context and dropdown menus displayed on a secondary monitor flicker rapidly. → [Windows] Context and dropdown menus displayed on a secondary monitor flicker rapidly
Happening for me on a laptop's secondary screen. Windows 7. FF 4.0b9
I have the same issue under win7 x64 sp1, the latest NVIDIA driver installed.
On the secondary monitor FF menus is flickering, and submenu content dont shows, just an empty border in Main menu subemnus or within Bookmarks menu folders.
My theme also Win7 classic, FF4.0 RC2.
Please check the graphics section of the troubleshooting page, which you can find in the help menu. Please post the output here. Have you tried to disable hardware acceleration? Does that solve the issue? Also is a new version of the graphics driver available for your machine?
Version: unspecified → Trunk
There is no newer driver for my video card.
With disabled hardware acceleration the issue is disappeared.

The Trubleshooting Graphics info:

Adapter DescriptionNVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTVendor ID10deDevice ID0611Adapter RAM512Adapter Driversnvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2umDriver Version8.17.12.6658Driver Date1-7-2011Direct2D EnabledtrueDirectWrite Enabledtrue (6.1.7601.17514, font cache 28,23 MB)WebGL RendererGoogle Inc. -- ANGLE -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 0.0.0.541)GPU Accelerated Windows1/1 Direct3D 10
olandgren or anyone else cc'ed on that bug, does disabling h/w acceleration also fixes the problem for you?
Keywords: pp
A very strange thing, after I re-enabled the acceleration now the menus are working correctly. Also after FF is restarted. :)
Confirmed on vista sp2, 32bit
hw acceleration on, on a lenovo y650 laptop

details from about:support page:

Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce G 105M
Vendor ID 10de
Device ID 06ec
Adapter RAM 256
Adapter Drivers nvd3dum nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver Version 8.17.12.6658
Driver Date 1-7-2011
Direct2D Enabled true
DirectWrite Enabled true (7.0.6002.18392, font cache n/a)
WebGL Renderer Google Inc. -- ANGLE -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 0.0.0.541)
GPU Accelerated Windows 1/1 Direct3D 10

not yet tried with hw acceleration off
(In reply to comment #9)
> Confirmed on vista sp2, 32bit
> hw acceleration on, on a lenovo y650 laptop
> ...

ps: ff 4.0rc2
When I turn off hardware acceleration, the problem is fixed. (And, as a side effect, the font rendering becomes slightly fuzzy.)

If I turn it back on and restart, the problem reappears.  Hardware acceleration does not appear to be properly re-enabled until restart.

Adapter Description: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Vendor ID: 10de
Device ID: 0605
Adapter RAM: 512
Adapter Drivers: nvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver Version: 8.17.12.6658
Driver Date: 1-7-2011
Direct2D Enabled: true
DirectWrite Enabled: true (7.0.6002.18392, font cache n/a)
WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 0.0.0.541)
GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 10
Ok, lets move this over to Graphics.
Component: Menus → Graphics
Product: Firefox → Core
QA Contact: menus → thebes
As a side note: the machine I originally was using has had the issue resolved as of 4.0 RC2, but it sounds like other people (e.g. Mr. Yorgason) are still having problems.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Keywords: qawanted
I don't know if this is coincidental, but Minefield just updated to 4.2a1pre (2011-03-28) and this doesn't seem to be affecting me anymore.
I am seeing this bug on Firefox 6.0 Beta.  I am using an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M, with driver version 275.33, which is the latest at the time of this writing.

I am using a Dell Precision M6400 laptop running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.  Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help.  This behavior started fairly recently--I'm 90% sure I didn't see this behavior in Firefox 4 Beta, but I had an older graphics driver at that time as well.

Let me know if there is any other information I can give you.
I'm seeing a similar issue; I'm not sure whether it is related to this bug, or is an issue in Firebug.  When I have Firebug active, all menus in FireFox flicker on my secondary monitor.  When Firebug is inactive, there is no problem.  I'm using Firefox 5.0 and Firebug 1.8.0b6.
Similar issue here.  I am on Windows 7 x64, Firefox 7.0.1.  Menus and dropdowns flicker and are unusable on secondary monitor.

Turning hardware acceleration off and on again seems to fix it in my case.
Bas, can you take a look at this?
Assignee: nobody → bas.schouten
I am on Windows 7 x86, Firefox 12.0 and got the same issue.
Should bug 645973 be set as a duplicate to this one?
Firefox 12.0 on Win7 Pro x64 on Dell Precision M4400 laptop with NVIDIA Quadro FX 770M. Occurs on second display only.
This was a while ago, but I managed to resolve the issue.  I'm not 100% sure how I did it, but I believe a graphics driver update did it.

For those people using Dell's, download the latest graphics driver from www.nvidia.com and see if that resolves it.  Dell often provides very outdated graphics drivers.
Well, in my case I'm using the latest drivers from NVidia but it still occurs unfortunately. So though it might help with certain graphic adapters it's not a general solution which works for everyone (got a 560 GTX in my case on Win Vista Business 64-bit).
(In reply to salagadoola from comment #23)
> I am on Windows 7 x86, Firefox 12.0 and got the same issue.
> Should bug 645973 be set as a duplicate to this one?
After upgrade to Firefox 13.0.1, dropdown menus on secondary display no longer flickers for me. Not sure if others also got the issue fixed.
Same here on Win7 x64, no more flickering (and I did not exchange the video driver).
This issue is new to me as of a recent re-imaging of my PC.  I've never seen it before from 3.6 - 12.x.  Currently, I'm on 13.0.1 on Win7 x64 and have the flickering on my second monitor only.
Updating my NVIDIA graphics driver also solved the problem.
(In reply to don.fair from comment #30)
> Updating my NVIDIA graphics driver also solved the problem.

Check that.  It worked fine immediately after my driver update, but after a reboot, the problem is back.
I believe I'm seeing the same problem with menus and second monitors.

It makes a difference whether the coordinates for the second monitor are negative or positive.

If the second monitor is to the left or above the primary monitor, it has negative x (or y) coordinates.

If the relationship is reversed so that the second monitor has all of its coordinates positive, the problem is usually better.
I have the same problem: Ff 14.0.1, Win7 Pro 64bit, Intel HD 3000 (Driver Ver. 8.15.10.2761, secondary display at the right side. Windows 7 basic design.
Running Win6-64-bit (Aero ON) with Firefox 15 candidates build1 using nVidia GTX 560ti with drivers v304.79. Browser window displayd on my secondary monitor.

Any time I turn "Hardware Acceleration" ON under Options, I get flickering menus that show and instantly disappear, making it nigh impossible to select menu items.

This issue has persisted throughout all versions of Firefox since the feature came available, through all nVidia available drivers.

It is fair to guess that fixing this issue is either not very high on the bug list or it is next to impossible to fix.
i have ff 15.0.1 on win7-x64 and nvidia GTS450 (latest drivers v306.23), DX11. 

I also have to disable HW acceleration in FF so that my menus on my secondary monitor do not flicker. I've had this for a very long time.

I noticed that the problem also goes away if I disable the "zotero" addon I have installed and leave HW acceleration on. I am not sure what's the connection. Is there somewhere I can test if FF actually does take advantage of HW acceleration when it is turned on? It seems there are many reports on the web that it does not really work.

It would be great if this was fixed or at least we could understand better what is causing it (e.g. is it the addons, the nvidia drivers, certain hardware or firefox itself).
I'm running the latest nightly of Aurora (2012-10-07) and still has the problem. When I disable hardware acceleration the problem is gone. It only 'flickers' when it's not on my first or third monitor. The second monitor (my main monitor) doesn't show this problem.
"It only 'flickers' when it's not on my first or third monitor."

Has to be...

"It only 'flickers' when it's on my first or third monitor."
I have same issue with Firefox 16.0.1 on Windows 7 64 bit
I have this issue on Firefox 16.0.1 as well. I did not have this problem on the previous version. My secondary screen is on the right hand side.

If I click a menu it vanishes instantly leaving just the border of the menu. If I move the mouse down the menu a bit it returns and stays solid if I don't move the mouse once I see it.  It continues to flicker in and out as it is redrawn when moving the mouse again.

Adapter Description: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
Adapter Drivers: igdumdx32 igd10umd32 igd10umd32
Driver Version: 8.15.10.2279
Driver Date: 1-7-2011
Direct2D Enabled: true
DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.1.7601.17789)
WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) HD Graphics Family) -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 1.0.0.1041)
GPU Accelerated Windows: 4/4 Direct3D 10
AzureBackend: direct2d
The problem comes with negative X coordinate on secondary screen.
I am experiencing this issue on Firefox 16.0.1 Windows 7 x64 SP1 with all 'Critical & Important' windows updates to date.

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512 with latest drivers (306.97).


With 2 x Monitors, Firefox menu-bar menus flicker annoyingly on the non-main display (as designated by Windows resolution settings) when 'Extend these displays is used'.
Negative/positive X,Y coordinates do not fix it for me.
Cannot disable hardware accelloration (as Nvidia drivers installed).
Issue occurs on Aero and Classic themes for me.

Please fix this, it is really annoying, I currently have to use another browser on that monitor.
Oh I might add I tried in a new Firefox Profile but Issue still occurs.
This is duplicate of two bugs AFAICT: 

Bug 641228 - Menu flicker on secondary monitor under windows 7 
Bug 645973 - Browser on second screen fails to show menus correctly

And please excuse my spelling of acceleration above.
Hrm, your reports sound different from the old bug. I cannot reproduce on my NVidia or ATI systems, could you all post your full about:graphics section?
I was able to work around this bug by turning off hardware acceleration as described in comments 6,7,8,11 above.   

Go to Options / Advanced / General and uncheck "use hardware acceleration when available"

Apparently, this information needs to be available outside of bugzilla since more people are complaining about it....

The problem appears to be a combination of using hardware acceleration and having firefox open on a display with negative x or y screen coordinates.  I don't know if there are other prerequisites to repro the bug.
Oh great that worked, I was trying to disable Windows Hardware Acceleration not in Firefox Options silly me thanks sesquized!!

Here's full graphics info anyway:
Graphics
Adapter Description: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512
Vendor ID: 0x10de
Device ID: 0x0600
Adapter RAM: 512
Adapter Drivers: nvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver Version: 9.18.13.697
Driver Date: 10-2-2012
Direct2D Enabled: true
DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.1.7601.17789)
ClearType Parameters: ClearType parameters not found
WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512) --
OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 1.0.0.1041)
GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 10
AzureBackend: direct2d
(In reply to Bas Schouten (:bas) from comment #43)
> Hrm, your reports sound different from the old bug. I cannot reproduce on my
> NVidia or ATI systems, could you all post your full about:graphics section?

about:graphics is not working for me, it takes me to an error page of ff saying "The address isn't valid". 

where should I look? I'm running ff 16.0.1.
(In reply to stathis from comment #47)
> (In reply to Bas Schouten (:bas) from comment #43)
> > Hrm, your reports sound different from the old bug. I cannot reproduce on my
> > NVidia or ATI systems, could you all post your full about:graphics section?
> 
> about:graphics is not working for me, it takes me to an error page of ff
> saying "The address isn't valid". 
> 
> where should I look? I'm running ff 16.0.1.

about:support, graphics section, sorry, my mistake.
np, thx.

One of my machines has:

Adapter Description        NVIDIA Quadro 4000
Vendor ID        0x10de
Device ID        0x06dd
Adapter RAM        2048
Adapter Drivers        nvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver Version        9.18.13.679
Driver Date        9-22-2012
Direct2D Enabled        true
DirectWrite Enabled        true (6.1.7601.17789)
ClearType Parameters        ClearType parameters not found
WebGL Renderer        Google Inc. -- ANGLE (NVIDIA Quadro 4000) -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 1.0.0.1041)
GPU Accelerated Windows        1/1 Direct3D 10
AzureBackend        direct2d



the problem is that I cannot reproduce it now, even when I switched on HW accel .... hmm. Is there a solid way to test if ff is hardware accelerated or not (i asked before, but nobody mentioned of a way to do this). The reason is that by tweaking all sorts of parameters in about:config and such, it ends up being difficult to know what settings are in effect.
@stathis You have to reboot Windows after you re-enable hardware acceleration in Firefox for it to be effective, then you may be able to reproduce the bug.
I have Firefox in Win7 Ultimate and occasionally experience the 'coming and going' of bookmarks and other context menu type lists in the secondary monitor. My 'theme' is listed as 'unsaved', which might be because 'Active Desktop Calendar' wallpaper lets me place images with less restriction than I am used to in Windows. I wish I could find a solution here to the bug rather than just a confirmation of it.
Same issue on Firefox 17.0.1 as was on 16.0.1
Only occurs on larger secondary monitor connected to a laptop with Intel HD 

Graphics, on Win 7 64 bit SP1 with all Windows updates applied, Aero Off.
Problem disappears when FF hardware acceleration turned off.

Adapter Description: Intel(R) HD Graphics
Vendor ID: 0x8086
Device ID: 0x0046
Adapter RAM: Unknown
Adapter Driver sigdumd64 igd10umd64 igdumdx32 igd10umd32
Driver Version8.15.10.2253
Driver Date 11-28-2010
Direct2D Enabled false
DirectWrite Enabled false (6.1.7601.17789)
ClearType Parameters ClearType parameters not found
WebGL Renderer Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) HD Graphics) -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 1.0.0.1242)
GPU Accelerated Windows 0
AzureCanvasBackend cairo
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend none
AzureContentBackend none
This is a duplicate of bug 610713. See also the discussion in bug 800701.

Sebastian
I am experiencing this on a Secondary Monitor but not on the Primary. 

FireFox Version:17.0.1
OS: Windows 7

Adapter Description: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti  
Vendor: ID0x10de
Device: ID0x1200
Adapter: RAM1023
Adapter: Driversnvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver Version: 8.17.13.142
Driver Date: 5-15-2012
Direct2D" Enabledtrue
DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.1.7601.17514)
ClearType Parameters: ClearType parameters not found
WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti  ) -- OpenGL ES 2.0 (ANGLE 1.0.0.1242)
GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 10

AzureCanvasBackend: direct2d
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
AzureContentBackend: direct2d
I can only conclude Mozilla do not realise how wide spread this issue it. This bug has existed on every single machine I've used Firefox on (8 or so) for at least a year. My favourite fix is to use Google Chrome instead.

Anyway someone should really push Mozilla to deliberately focus a significant amount of development effort on fixing it. If they can't find a way to fix it while keeping hardware acceleration, then disable acceleration by default.

Below is a list of some references to this bug from a quick Google search:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=664671
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=633955
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/916201
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/885732
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/934169
http://superuser.com/questions/404106/firefox-11-0-right-click-dropdown-menu-and-menu-options-at-window-top-flickeri
http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/threads/21026-flickering-disappearing-right-click-menu-3DS-Max-2010
http://lifeonubuntu.com/firefox-dropdown-menus-are-flickering-on-2nd-monitor/
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2533865
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/153803
Obviously you both didn't read comment 53. As I wrote there this is a duplicate of other issues and should be fixed in Firefox 18.

Sebastian
My Firefox just updated to version 18.0 this morning (I'm on the release update channel) and now, when Firefox is on my secondary monitor and I type into the URL field the autocomplete list show up in impossibly small test on my primary monitor.

I'm on a MacBook Pro Retina, Mid 2012 running 10.8.2.

In Firefox Preferences I have UNCHECKED "Use hardware acceleration when available"
(In reply to Jason Reljac from comment #57)
> My Firefox just updated to version 18.0 this morning (I'm on the release
> update channel) and now, when Firefox is on my secondary monitor and I type
> into the URL field the autocomplete list show up in impossibly small test on
> my primary monitor.
> 
> I'm on a MacBook Pro Retina, Mid 2012 running 10.8.2.
> 
> In Firefox Preferences I have UNCHECKED "Use hardware acceleration when
> available"

This is a Windows bug. Your problem is separate; see bug 814434 (already fixed for Firefox 20; should be available on the Aurora channel any day now).
This issue is not reproducible on:
 Aurora 28
Build Identifier:Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:28.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/28.0
Build Id:20131211004000

Graphics
Adapter Description	ATI Radeon HD 5450
Adapter Drivers	aticfx64 aticfx64 aticfx64 aticfx32 aticfx32 aticfx32 atiumd64 atidxx64 atidxx64 atiumdag atidxx32 atidxx32 atiumdva atiumd6a atitmm64
Adapter RAM	1024
Device ID	0x68f9
Direct2D Enabled	true
DirectWrite Enabled	true (6.2.9200.16571)
Driver Date	3-28-2013
Driver Version	12.104.0.0
GPU #2 Active	false
GPU Accelerated Windows	1/1 Direct3D 10
Vendor ID	0x1002
WebGL Renderer	Google Inc. -- ANGLE (ATI Radeon HD 5450 Direct3D9Ex vs_3_0 ps_3_0)
windowLayerManagerRemote	false
AzureCanvasBackend	direct2d
AzureContentBackend	direct2d
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend	cairo
AzureSkiaAccelerated	0

It might be a issue that is only reproducible on some display cards so I'll let this issue open.
Keywords: qawanted
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 3 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.