firefox 3 displays incorrectly

[Stephen Cradock]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-ati

Some websites (e.g. msnbc news page) with transparent picture elements still display incorrectly in Firefox 3 beta 3 in Hardy 32-bit using the open-source ATI driver xserver-xorg-video-ati, even after the cairo bug that gave this behavior with the fglrx proprietary driver has been apparently fixed. (see bug #186186).

The effect is to overlay unrelated parts of video memory (including, for instance, parts of the desktop and panels) in place of transparent elements. This makes Firefox 3 beta 3 unusable on my machine using Hardy 32-bit and the open-source driver.

On the same machine, Firefox 3 beta 3 displays correctly in Hardy 64-bit with the fglrx driver, and Firefox 3 b3pre displays correctly in Gutsy 32-bit with the fglrx driver. The graphics card is an ATI Radeon Xpress 200M (5955).

[Pavel Rojtberg (rojtberg)]

as far as i can see this was just fixed in git: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati/commit/?id=c40a7aa3989576a8144213e2f31b892d21df8686

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to apply to the version of -ati we have in hardy. I tried redoing the patch to apply, but it failed to build. Errors:

In file included from ../../src/radeon_exa.c:358:
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c: In function 'R300TextureSetupMMIO':
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:825: error: 'need_src_tile_y' undeclared (first use in this function)
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:825: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:825: error: for each function it appears in.)
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:826: warning: implicit declaration of function 'R300_TX_CLAMP_T'
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:826: error: 'R300_TX_CLAMP_WRAP' undeclared (first use in this function)
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:828: error: 'R300_TX_CLAMP_CLAMP_GL' undeclared (first use in this function)
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:830: error: 'R300_TX_ID_SHIFT' undeclared (first use in this function)
In file included from ../../src/radeon_exa.c:381:
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c: In function 'R300TextureSetupCP':
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:825: error: 'need_src_tile_y' undeclared (first use in this function)
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:826: error: 'R300_TX_CLAMP_WRAP' undeclared (first use in this function)
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:828: error: 'R300_TX_CLAMP_CLAMP_GL' undeclared (first use in this function)
../../src/radeon_exa_render.c:830: error: 'R300_TX_ID_SHIFT' undeclared (first use in this function)
make[3]: *** [radeon_exa.lo] Error 1

I think given that only one person is reporting this issue so far, the safest solution would be to wait until this gets pulled into Intrepid and test it there. If we find it does solve the problem, and if additional people confirm having this problem, it might become worthwhile to backport the fix. But given the amount of porting, upstream consultation, and testing needed, I don't think we can get this in for 8.04.1.

[Jens Maucher (jensmaucher)]

I have this problem too, with Firefox3 64bit. When i search in google, and click on the searcg result, the webpage seems to be behind the google page, after moving the mouse across the page some parts of the other website are comming visible.
I use the Nvidia driver from ubuntu-repo

Sorry for my bad English, and you understand what i mean.

[logari81 (logari81)]

I suppose that I have the same problem. I have attached a screenshot showing the different appearance between ff3 and konqueror. In firefox the frame around the text is being rendered not there where it should be but somewhere over the text making many pages difficult to read. I use the ati(radeon) driver with EXA on a Mobility Radeon X700 graphic card. I need to use EXA because with my card XAA randomly locks up the xserver if compiz is enabled.

I think it is an important bug.

[Toshio Ito (debug-ito)]

Video card: M22 [Mobility Radeon X300]
Version of the kernel: 2.6.24-19-generic
Version of xserver-xorg-video-ati: 1:6.8.0-1
Version of firefox-3.0: 3.0+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
Version of linux-restricted-modules-2,6.24-19-generic: 2.6.24.13-19.44

I have the same problem as the one kostas reports.

I tried to browse the same web page using both radeon driver and fglrx driver.
The attached image shows the result.
The upper one was captured when radeon driver was used,
while the lower one was when fglrx driver was activated.

The attached image was created by the following procedure.

1) Configure /etc/xorg.conf to use radeon driver, with "Device" section like
Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
 Driver "radeon"
 Option "DRI" "on"
 Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
 Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
EndSection

2) Reboot the system, access the web page by firefox3.
3) After scrolling down and up, capture the window.
   (Scrolling corrupted the background of the page)
4) Configure /etc/xorg.conf to use fglrx driver, with "Device" section like
Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
 Driver "fglrx"
EndSection

5) Repeat 2 and 3.
6) Merge the two screen shots by GIMP.

Usually I use radeon driver because I want to use XRandR to
dynamically configure the video outputs.
I hope the bug will be fixed soon.
Thanks.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We have the newer version of the driver in Intrepid. Can someone please test it and verify that it is fixed in Intrepid? If so, then we can evaluate SRUing the patch to Hardy, if appropriate.

[logari81 (logari81)]

Firefox 3.0 in Intrepid Alpha2 renders the pages correctly. I have used exactly the same configuration in xorg.conf (EXA,..etc.) as in Hardy. I have attached a screenshot of the same test page.

I would like to see the actual radeon driver as Stable Release Update in Hardy. For cards like mine the radeon driver is clearly the best choice and this bug here is for me the last important bug of the radeon driver.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

No, when I asked them, the SRU team emphasized they'd only accept patches to the driver in Hardy, not the entire newer version of the driver. Marking as fixed for intrepid with task for hardy if the patch can be isolated and ported.

[logari81 (logari81)]

In order to get rid of the garbled rendering of some pages in firefox I 've finally upgraded my driver in Hardy by just installing the following two packages manually:

xserver-xorg-video-radeon_6.9.0+???.deb
xserver-xorg-video-ati_6.9.0+???.deb

from

http://ppa.launchpad.net/tormodvolden/

I suppose one could just install them from the official intrepid repos also.

Just a tip for people coming across this bug report and search for a solution until the official release of Intrepid.

[cl (flipper98-deactivatedaccount)]

thanks for the tip kostas, that solved the problem for me.