823966 - Graphics driver block request: Direct2D on Windows with NVIDIA driver version 9.18.13.1070 and 9.18.13.1090

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Blocklist Policy Requests, defect)

Description

[Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] (mostly away)]

Operating system: Windows Vista, 7, and 8. That is, WINNT 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2. (OK to do "all windows versions" if you can do that, doesn't matter whether it applies to older Windows or not)

Vendor: NVIDIA
Devices: all
Feature: DIRECT2D
Driver version: 9.18.13.1070

Reasons: bug 823077: high-volume startup crash

Comment 1

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

I set the following:

OS: WINNT
Feature status: BLOCKED_DRIVER_VERSION
Driver version comparator: EQUAL

The block is now staged, with id 241.

Comment 2

[u279076]

Testing this will have to wait until Thursday, the next time I'm in the office. Sorry.

Comment 3

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

(In reply to Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] (On vacation, back on Jan. 7th) from comment #0)
> Vendor: NVIDIA

Is this okay, by the way? Vendors are generally identified with numbers like 0x1002.

Comment 4

[u279076]

Block does not appear to work correctly, possibly because of comment 3.

After pinging the staged blocklist my blocklist.xml file is correctly updated.
> <gfxBlacklistEntry blockID="g241">
>   <os>WINNT</os>
>   <vendor>NVIDIA</vendor>
>   <feature>DIRECT2D</feature>
>   <featureStatus>BLOCKED_DRIVER_VERSION</featureStatus>
>   <driverVersion>9.18.13.1070</driverVersion>
>   <driverVersionComparator>EQUAL</driverVersionComparator>
> </gfxBlacklistEntry>

However, my about:support page remains unchanged.
> Adapter Description: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 
> Adapter Drivers: nvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
> Adapter RAM: 1024
> Device ID: 0x0402
> Direct2D Enabled: true
> DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.1.7600.16385)
> Driver Date: 12-3-2012
> Driver Version: 9.18.13.1070
> GPU #2 Active: false
> GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 10
> Vendor ID: 0x10de
> WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT )
> AzureCanvasBackend: direct2d
> AzureContentBackend: direct2d
> AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo

Comment 5

[Scoobidiver (away)]

(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #3)
> (In reply to Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] (On vacation, back on Jan. 7th) from
> comment #0)
> > Vendor: NVIDIA
> Is this okay, by the way? Vendors are generally identified with numbers like
> 0x1002.
You're right. Replace NVIDIA by 0x10de.

Comment 6

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

(In reply to Scoobidiver from comment #5)
> > Is this okay, by the way? Vendors are generally identified with numbers like
> > 0x1002.
> You're right. Replace NVIDIA by 0x10de.

The staged block has been updated.

Comment 7

[u279076]

Tested with Firefox 18 on Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 8 64-bit:
* 310.90 (9.18.13.1090): Direct2D Enabled = true
* 310.70 (9.18.13.1070): Direct2D Enabled = true

The block does not appear to be working for me, despite the correct information in my blocklist file. That said, do we want to expand the block given the new NVidia driver release?

%appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\%profile%\blocklist.xml:
<gfxBlacklistEntry blockID="g241">
  <os>WINNT</os>
  <vendor>0x10de</vendor>
  <feature>DIRECT2D</feature>
  <featureStatus>BLOCKED_DRIVER_VERSION</featureStatus>  
  <driverVersion>9.18.13.1070</driverVersion> 
  <driverVersionComparator>EQUAL</driverVersionComparator>
</gfxBlacklistEntry>

Comment 8

[Scoobidiver (away)]

(In reply to Anthony Hughes, Mozilla QA (:ashughes) from comment #7)
> That said, do we want to expand the block given the new NVidia driver release?
Yes because of bug 828911.

Comment 9

[Danial Horton]

For the official record, this block is going ahead without any concrete proof that the driver is the real problem, There are numerous users on both drivers without any sign of the crash.

Comment 10

[Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] (mostly away)]

Danial, I don't see the basis in comment 9. Found your comments in bug 823077; replying there.

Comment 11

[Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] (mostly away)]

This blocklisting is justified by bug 828911 which is a topcrasher with a specific driver version, 9.18.13.1090; given that we're going to blacklist it, the bar for blacklisting 9.18.13.1070 as well is lowered, so I think that bug 823077 is enough reason to blacklist as well.

What's the cost of blacklisting? A minority of Windows users running recent NVIDIA drivers will not have D2D accel anymore; they will get it back when they update drivers again.

What's the cost of NOT blacklisting? Topcrasher; more energy going to be spent investigating these crashes, looking for work-arounds, at a time when we really have no such time to spare.

There is precedent for blacklisting specific driver versions in response to topcrashers. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Blocklisting/Blocked_Graphics_Drivers . For example, see how we blacklsited AMD driver version 8.982 : bug 792480, bug 793869.

Comment 12

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Please note from comment #7 that the staged block appears not to be working, so we're blocked on figuring out what's wrong. Benoit, any ideas?

Comment 13

[Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] (mostly away)]

This doesn't seem like it can work:

<os>WINNT</os>

Looking at http://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/widget/xpwidgets/GfxInfoBase.cpp.html#l201

the accepted values are:

  WINNT 5.1
  WINNT 5.2
  WINNT 6.0
  WINNT 6.1
  WINNT 6.2

It's unfortunate that we dont seem to have any documentation on this besides looking at the c++ code.

Comment 14

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Okay, I edited the original block and added staged blocks 257 and 259 for the other 2 Windows versions.

Please test again after giving the cache some time.

Comment 15

[u279076]

(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #14)
> Okay, I edited the original block and added staged blocks 257 and 259 for
> the other 2 Windows versions.

Blocks for NVidia 310.70 are now working as expected on staging. I tested using Firefox 18.0 on Windows 8 and Windows 7 with an NVidia GeForce 8600GT.

Comment 16

[u279076]

Note that the blocks have not been updated to include 310.90.

Comment 17

[Scoobidiver (away)]

(In reply to Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] from comment #13)
> It's unfortunate that we dont seem to have any documentation on this besides
> looking at the c++ code.
There is one. Click Graphics Driver Block Request in https://wiki.mozilla.org/Blocklisting/Blocked_Graphics_Drivers#Downloaded_blacklist

I am wondering whether this block is still required as bug 823077 is now a low volume crash and bug 828911 decreases drastically (currently #55 top crasher in 18.0).

Comment 18

[Alex Keybl [:akeybl]]

(In reply to Scoobidiver from comment #17)
> I am wondering whether this block is still required as bug 823077 is now a
> low volume crash and bug 828911 decreases drastically (currently #55 top
> crasher in 18.0).

Agreed, we can re-evaluate if the situation changes.

Comment 19

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Closing this bug since it doesn't seem to be needed anymore. Please reopen if necessary.