629378 - <TEXTAREA COLS=value> (columns value not set properly, distorts many web pages.)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Layout, defect)

Description

[Jeff Gold]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_5; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/10.0.642.2 Safari/534.16
Build Identifier: 4.0b10

The COLS value in a TEXTAREA definition in HTML defines how many columns to go across. Firefox 4.0b10 is creating exactly 50% more columns across than what are defined by the COLS value.  Did not have this issue with 3.x or earlier versions of Firefox.  This must be fixed ASAP or many web site submission forms, etc., will cause pages to appear improperly as they distort.  I am unable to use this beta version on many order entering websites and such because the forms reach off the page and distort so much they won't work.  You might not "notice" this with a large browser or large screen, but anyone with smaller dimension browser windows will be in serious trouble.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a TEXTAREA box on a web page.
2. Set the COLS value.  You will see 50% more columns when viewing that page.
3. Go to the sample page I gave above for the demo URL for the problem.
Actual Results:  
50% more columns appeared than there are supposed to be.

Expected Results:  
the # of columns should have been what was specified by COLS value.  Instead getting 50% more columns.

Comment 1

[Jeff Gold]

I submitted the original form from a different web browser than the one experiencing the error.

This is the Firefox USER AGENT information:

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0b10) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b10

Comment 2

[Florian J. [:FeuerFliege]]

I get 12 and 77 columns.

Comment 3

[Jeff Gold]

Are you using the same version of Firefox (4.0b10) I tested on?

Are you using it on a Macintosh?

I've tried this on several different computers.  Many people are know who have tried using the new Firefox beta have stopped using it because of this bug.  If you use Mac 4.0b10 to try to visit the web page I built as a demo, and you count the width of the textarea, you will see it is exactly 50% larger in width than what is specified by the TEXTAREA in the HTML.

Comment 4

[Florian J. [:FeuerFliege]]

Sorry, you specified above x86 Windows 7 as platform. My Build-ID: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b11pre) Gecko/20110128 Firefox/4.0b11pre

But never the less Fx4 shows the wrong number of columns.

Comment 5

[Jeff Gold]

It is standard to show only a *couple* extra items across a text input area, the actual number varies because of the varying width of letters and numbers.  If you just repeat 12345 across to help count them, for example, it will usually show 12 and 77 columns, as you mentioned, probably because the number "1" is less wide than most characters.  That is normal.

That said, the TEXTAREA box in MACINTOSH is a whole 50% larger than it should be.  This is different than all previous versions of firefox and different than all other Mac and Windows browsers.

This means web pages with TEXTAREAS in forms which are properly fitten in tables and such, become distorted because the TEXTAREA in Windows now extends way out from the expected area in the form.

Hopefully someone can confirm this bug in the Mac version so it can get repaired.  :-)

Comment 6

[Jeff Gold]

Clarification above, when I said TEXTAREA in Windows (I meant the browser Window) not the Windows version of Firefox.  It is the Mac version which has this issue.

Comment 7

[Teodosia Pop]

On both Mac 10.6.6 and 10.5.8, using Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0b10) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b10 and Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0b12pre) Gecko/20110208 Firefox/4.0b12pre I got 11 and 77 columns which seems to fit into the normal values, as you mentioned in comment 5. Also, I got similar values using Safari.

Marking this as WFM.

Comment 8

[Jeff Gold]

I am still having text areas show up the wrong size in all versions of Firefox 4.0.

I've tested on multiple computers, and I've found this doesn't happen on all computers, but it happens on many of them.

Is there some sort of preference in Firefox 4.0 that can cause TextAreas to be 50% larger than specified in the HTML?

I don't know why it happens on some computers but not others, trying to figure this out...????

Comment 9

[Jeff Gold]

I am still having this problem on my MacBook Pro running 10.6.5.  This problem does not happen on other Macs I've tried it on, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to stop the problem from happening on my main computer.

I've tried deleting all the Firefox preference files I can find, reinstalling Firefox 4.0 and still the TextAreas are all way too big making Firefox 4 unusable.

Can someone let me know what preference files I might need to trash to make this problem go away?

If someone wants to screen share on my Mac to confirm this is a real issue, I'm happy to demonstrate that, just email me.

Perhaps it is a rare issue since it obviously doesn't happen on all Macs, but it is definitely happening on my main Mac, and I can't seem to resolve this issue.

Thanks.

- Jeff

Comment 10

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Try with a fresh profile since you are getting this with some computers not all, http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 11

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported using a pre-release version of Firefox 4. Now that Firefox 4.0.1 final has been released, can you please update and retest your bug? A fresh profile would be a good starting place to test, 
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles. If you continue to see the issue, can you please update this bug with your results?

Filter: firefox4prebugsunco

Comment 12

[Jeff Gold]

Hi Tyler,

Thanks for the suggestion.  I've upgraded to the latest 4.0.1 release and still have the identical issue.

Your suggestion about creating a new profile was a good one, unfortunately, it didn't help.  I twice tried deleting the existing profile and creating new ones, and still, the same problem.

Are there any other Firefox-related files or extensions that might be causing some sort of issue?  I did install some sort of Google Adsense "simulator" related addition to Firefox years ago, which is now deprecated.  I don't even remember what it was supposed to do. Perhaps it is lingering in there somewhere causing trouble?  If so, where would I remove this?  Anything else I can delete or remove to make sure Firefox 4.0.1 is starting out completely fresh?

Firefox does work ok on the other Mac computer I tried it on, but whatever I try, I can't get it to work properly on my main development machine.  I'm open to further suggestions, or if you want, I'd be glad to iChat or Skype with screen sharing so you or someone else can see exactly what is going on by viewing my screen.

Best wishes,

- Jeff

Comment 13

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Can you please type about:config into your address bar, press the "I'll be careful" button, then search for html5.parser. Disable it, restart Firefox, then try testing again.

Comment 14

[Jeff Gold]

Just tried that.  I assume you mean change it from True to False.  I did that, quit, restarted Firefox, and it is still not working properly.

I also tried disabling all add-ons.  That didn't help either.

Best wishes,

- Jeff

Comment 15

[Jeff Gold]

I just downloaded the latest release of FireFox 5.0 for Macintosh and still have the same exact problem reported above.  This problem does *NOT* happen with FireFox 3.6.13 which I have installed on the same Macintosh computer.

Is there anyone willing to dig further to help me get to the bottom of this issue?  While others have yet to reproduce it on this list, if it is happening on my machine I doubt I'm the only one with the issue out there.  It makes FireFox useless on my development machine.

I'd be glad to use iChat or Skype screen sharing so someone can view this issue on my machine and/or look at the various configuration parameters.  I've wiped EVERYTHING clean that people I've suggested and even with clean installes, Firefox 4.x and 5.x both display incorrectly sized text boxes.

Comment 16

[Florian J. [:FeuerFliege]]

Can upload a picture? I am on mac book right now and I get 11 and 77 with Fx5.

Comment 17

[Jeff Gold]

Attachment: Screenshot showing the extra columns in Firefox 5.0

This is the requested screenshot.

Comment 18

[Jeff Gold]

Just downloaded FireFox 6.0b2.  Same issue.

Can anyone help?  I've tried wiping all preferences and profiles, then reinstalling from scratch and this issue persists.

I'm willing to use Skype or iChat screen sharing so a developer can view the problem first hand and poke around on my machine to see if they can figure out the cause.

I develop web pages for a major international nonprofit organization, and I can't properly test them in Firefox because of this issue causing form fields to appear in the wrong sizes on web forms.

Best wishes,

- Jeff

Comment 19

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do you still see this problem when using a current version?

Comment 20

[Peter Magyari (Desktop QA)]

Since this is a very old issue, the user who reported it no longer has an active profile and the issue isn't reproducible I'm going to close it.