941369 - Text does not display correctly after scrolling in Nightly

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 812695

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[sachristan]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:28.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/28.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20131117030203

Steps to reproduce:

Text is not rendering correctly on most pages that have long stretches of text particularly after scrolling.  Problem originated after Nightly update on 2013-11-18 after 12:00 p.m. EST (this was the update with the major GUI change).'

Nightly 28.0a1 2013-11-17 works fine
Nightly 28.0a1 2013 1120   corrupts text during scrolling.

I have tried turning of Hardware Acceleration with little change in the problem. 
I have an AMD HD4870 graphics card.

I've used Nightly for over a year and a half and only remember having had this problem for a few days > 6 mos. ago and never had to make any changes to about:config as an update fixed the problem within a few days.

Any screenshot in this bug thread will show the problem which is suddenly recurring after this build: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=812695



Actual results:

I am currently running the 2013-11-17 build after a System Restore.  Allowing a new Nightly update causes the problem to begin.

Comment 1

[Jim Jeffery not reading bug-mail 1/2/11]

Open  about:config

Add a new pref and make it boolean:

Pref name: layout.paint_rects_separately
Set to true 
Restart the browser when added.

Note its a hidden hidden pref to replace azure.content = false to fix blurry text

Please see if that helps.

Comment 2

[sachristan]

This fixed it immediately.  Thank you very much.

May I ask if I had missed this solution in the other bug thread?

Comment 3

[sachristan]

This fixed it immediately.  Thank you very much.

May I ask if I had missed this solution in the other bug thread?

Also, is this a setting that I should look to change back at some point in the future or is it fine to leave as it is indefinitely?

Comment 4

[Jim Jeffery not reading bug-mail 1/2/11]

No, this solution is recent and commenting is closed/fixed bugs for updates is not a good idea as with a large number of followers on that bug, it sends bug-mail that only adds to workload of developers to read. 

The original bug 812695 was recently fixed by:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=934860 which added the pref I pointed out above. 

Previous to that fix the work-around was to toggle off pref gfx.azure.content.  That pref was removed forcing it 'on' all the time as Azure had reached a point where it would no longer be needed to turn it off.  That presented AMD users with older hardware/drivers the text rendering problem.  

The devs found a better way to get around the problem in bug 934860 which added the new work-around pref.  

As long as you have your current system/hardware the pref will be used for the life of your machine/video hardware.  If you should ever need to create a new profile you will have to remember to 'add' the pref back and set it as above.  Myself, I keep a notebook of pref adds/changes for easy reference.

Glad I could help.  Closing this bug.