Open Bug 769011 Opened 12 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Google/Gmail text becomes symbols

Categories

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
General
Version:
13 Branch
Platform:
x86
All
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Tracking Flags:
Tracking Status
firefox14 - ---
firefox15 - ---

People

(Reporter: Matt_G, Unassigned)

Details

(Whiteboard: [platform-rel-Google] [platform-rel-Gmail]) 

We saw a spike on SUMO in the last 24 hours of users reporting that the text on google sites is coming across as symbols. I see a few mentions in Input as well. 

Here are a few threads:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/930850
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/930857

One of the reports on input mentions that Twitter is affected as well accompanied by slowness. 

We've got confirmation from at least one user that the Firefox reset feature resolved the issue. Thinking this maybe be an extension that recently updated and is causing the issue. We've requested the list of add-ons to narrow it down.
This issue is usually caused by the value of the network.http.accept-encoding pref that doesn't have a default value (gzip,deflate), but is either empty and I've also seen the value of true reported.
Sometimes the change seems to be done via a user.js file and the reset doesn't last.
This change may have happened in the past when such a change was proposed to overcome an invalid or unsupported form of compression error.

"The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression."

This changed value of the pref now seems to affect Firefox and causes gibberish to get displayed, probably gzip on otherwise compressed content that isn't decompressed.
That worked for one of the users reporting the issue. I was also able to capture his about:support and about:plugins information. Reports of the issue have died down though in since this initial spike. Is this still worth investigation?
(In reply to Matt G, Mozilla SUMO (irc: Matt_G) from comment #2)
> That worked for one of the users reporting the issue. I was also able to
> capture his about:support and about:plugins information. Reports of the
> issue have died down though in since this initial spike. Is this still worth
> investigation?

It'd be good to get their about:support and about:plugins to see what could be changing the network.http.accept-encoding pref (for instance, which of them was updated in the last couple of weeks).
Sorry Alex. I've been OOO. Where do you want that info sent? I would post it here, but would need to confirm with the user first that he is ok with it being public.
(In reply to Matt G, Mozilla SUMO (irc: Matt_G) from comment #4)
> Sorry Alex. I've been OOO. Where do you want that info sent? I would post it
> here, but would need to confirm with the user first that he is ok with it
> being public.

release-mgmt@mozilla.com would be great. We'll investigate/disseminate further. Thanks!
Information sent. Thanks Alex.
Tracking for 15 (although this wouldn't block release). Found

     Ask Toolbar
       3.15.4.23821
       false
       toolbar@ask.com

was installed, which was released on 6/28 according to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/compatibility/reporter/toolbar@ask.com. Sounds like a direct correlation.
tracking-firefox14: ? → -
tracking-firefox15: --- → +
Adding Alex Vincent, from Ask. Alex, have you heard about this problem through your users?
No, Jorge, we've had no word from our users indicating there was any problem with GMail or Google searches.  In addition, we searched through our source code for the network.http.accept-encoding preference.  We don't touch that one under any circumstances.  It looks like the correlation with Ask Toolbar is a red herring.

Thanks for letting us know, though!
It's possible that this is happening with an add-on that is distributed along with the Ask toolbar... akeybl, are there any other leads?
(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #10)
> It's possible that this is happening with an add-on that is distributed
> along with the Ask toolbar... akeybl, are there any other leads?

No other leads, let's see what Matt/Cheng have to say about updates on negative user feedback. If it's low, let's just put together a SUMO article.
Untracking for now. We can re-track if this remains an issue.
tracking-firefox15: + → -
Whiteboard: [platform-rel-Google] [platform-rel-Gmail]
platform-rel: --- → ?
platform-rel: ? → ---
Severity: normal → S3
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