808473 - FireFox 14?-16.0.2 Have Disappearing Drop Down Boxes

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 800701

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Cypherdude]

Attachment: FireFox dropdown bug search entry with empty frame

Hello,
I have contacted Mozilla several times with this problem using the "Help > Submit Feedback" feature but it has not been resolved.  I have 5 monitors using 2 nVidia-based video cards.  I have upgraded FireFox to the latest version several times.  Last month I upgraded to the latest nVidia drivers v306.23 from v301.42.  Today I downgraded to nVidia drivers 296.10.  Nothing I have done has fixed this problem.

I have the following system configuration:
Windows 7-64 bit Pro
AutoHide Taskbar
Total of 5 monitors:
   3 - 1280x1024 - Standard aspect ratio monitors all positioned next to each other and above:
   2 - 1920x1080 - Left and right widescreen monitors
16 GB RAM
PS/2 Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical with last and final v7.10.344.0 drivers
eVGA nVidia GeForce GTX 460 SE configured as main video card with top center primary standard aspect ratio monitor having Win7 Taskbar
   - connected to 1 center standard aspect ratio monitor above left widescreen monitor
PNY nVidia Quadro NVS 450 configured as secondary video card
   - connected to 2 left and right standard aspect ratio monitors above right widescreen monitor


The drop down boxes in FF, despite having text on several lines, show as empty until I pass my mouse cursor over them.  All I see is the frame until I pass my mouse over it.  This happens in nearly all menus, drop down boxes and bookmarks folders on the main screen.  I use FF on the left widescreen monitor of my main nVidia GeForce GTX 460 SE video card.  This behavior is reproduceable.  This behavior does NOT occur when FF is on the main monitor of my main GTX 460 SE video card with the Win7 TaskBar.  This behavior also does NOT occur on any of the other 3 monitors.  This problem only occurs on the one monitor I actually use FF on a regular basis.


I should be able to see the contents of the menus, drop down boxes and bookmarks folders on the main screen WITHOUT using my mouse.  I also used Thunderbird 16.0.1 on the same monitor and I have no problems.  FF, as far as I know, is the only application which exhibits this behavior.  If possible, please fix this problem.

Comment 1

[Cypherdude]

Attachment: FireFox dropdown bug. URL entry space with empty frame.

This is another example of the FF 16.0.2 menu dropdown bug with an empty frame.  Passing the mouse cursor over the frame causes the frame to complete.

Comment 2

[Cypherdude]

Attachment: FireFox dropdown bug, Bookmarks menu with empty frame.

Comment 3

[Cypherdude]

Attachment: FireFox dropdown bug, recently Bookmarked menu.

Comment 4

[Loic]

Thanks for your report. I think you're meeting bug 800701 too. The bug appears with Firefox on secondary monitors, not on the primary one.

Could you CONFIRM that disabling hardware acceleration in Firefox (Options > Advanced > General, then restart FF) fixes the issue?

Comment 5

[Cypherdude]

Loic,
I can confirm that disabling hardware acceleration in Firefox fixes this issue.

As mentioned in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=800701 , I am also using the Windows 7 Basic Theme.  I disabled the Aero Theme because it was causing all video content, YouTube, Amazon Internet video, etc..., to stutter every time the Desktop Window Manager, dwm.exe, used CPU cycles in Win7 Resource Monitor.

I don't know when FF uses hardware acceleration.  I just played Adobe Flash video content and my CPU usage did not increase noticeably.  If it becomes a problem, I will re-enable it and simply pass my mouse over the empty frames to see their content.  Unlike bug 800701, my FF frames do NOT flicker.  Once I pass my mouse over the frame, they fill out with no problems.  I have added a JPEG attachment illustrating how my monitor setup is configured.

Please have the FireFox developers try to fix this problem.

Thank you for your help,
Cypherdude.

Comment 6

[Cypherdude]

Attachment: Win7-64 Control Panel system display screen resolution, annotated.

This is how my Win7-64 monitors are configured. This is an image of my Control Panel system Display Screen Resolution applet with added annotations.  I have added comments and circled each monitor to make it clear how they are configured in my system.

I usually use FireFox in the bottom left widescreen monitor, #2.  This is also the only monitor which has the empty frames problem.

Comment 7

[Cypherdude]

Comment on attachment 678608 [details]
Win7-64 Control Panel system display screen resolution, annotated.

This is how my Win7-64 monitors are configured. This is an image of my Control Panel system Display Screen Resolution applet with added annotations.  I have added comments and circled each monitor to make it clear how they are configured in my system.

I usually use FireFox in the bottom left widescreen monitor, #2.  This is also the only monitor which has the empty frames problem.

Comment 8

[Loic]

(In reply to Cypherdude from comment #5)
> Loic,
> I can confirm that disabling hardware acceleration in Firefox fixes this
> issue.

Thanks for the confirmation, so it's basically the same bug. Please, could you continue the discussion on the main bug.

Comment 9

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to Cypherdude from comment #6)
> Created attachment 678608 [details]
> Win7-64 Control Panel system display screen resolution, annotated.
> 
> This is how my Win7-64 monitors are configured. This is an image of my
> Control Panel system Display Screen Resolution applet with added
> annotations.  I have added comments and circled each monitor to make it
> clear how they are configured in my system.
> 
> I usually use FireFox in the bottom left widescreen monitor, #2.  This is
> also the only monitor which has the empty frames problem.

nice setup. :)