pop up window leaves blank area when closed

[Gerrit38]

UBUNTU Hardy Heron 8.04, all security updates loaded until 13. March 2009, including FireFox updates

When closing an undesired flash popup window masking useful display fields, the useful display data should be shown again

Advertisement windows with flash properties pop up and mask useful information; when closing that undesired window, a blank area of the pop up window size remains, after showing very briefly the normal useful window content.

Happens reliably with Firefox, but not with MS IE in the t-online Forum, with an advertisement for Opel cars. The blank area obstructs further use of the Forum.

[Jacob Peddicord (jpeddicord)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:
1. Is this reproducible?
2. If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug? Be as detailed as possible and include the specific page you are having an issue.
This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[Gerrit38 (gerrit-pluemecke)]

Dear Colleagues,

thank you so much for your kind attention and your eagerness to improve
our preferred software package!

1. Yes, the failure was reproducible anytime for three consecutive days.
2. It happened in the German t-online page

http://foren.t-online.de/foren/index.php?3

together with an advertisement for Opel cars. The advertisement was
filling the background of that page, and hence was visible around the
borders of the t-online Forum page, which does not cover the upper and
the right side of the display. The forum page contained a listing of
user contributions, and control areas for forum login.

When opening the forum page, the advertisement shifted a popup window
over the leftmost part of the forum area, thus covering the forum login
control area. Unfortunately that popup window could not be filtered out
with adblockplus filters

http://www.mozilla-europe.org/de/firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/1865
https://adblockplus.org/de/subscription

When using the right mouse button, the only display window was

Einstellungen ("preferences"?)
Adobe flash player

with no further effect. Or, oh yes, an small window opened, offering
fast transfer for Adobe flash player display... with no effect indeed,
and that window did not react on any of its control knobs.

After selection of the t-online forum page, the Opel advertisement popup
window was retracted automatically. It left a blank space of identical
size; however, the control area of t-online for additional services such
as e-mail or weather forecasts came up again, but the remaining space
was still blank, with no access to the forum login knob: Complete
obstruction of access.

When clicking on the Opel advertisement background window, the masking
popup window was opened an removed, but then left a white area with its
previous window size, masking even the t-online additional services'
window.

Today, by Sunday, 15. March 2009, no Opel advertisement ist shown in the
t-online forum page, and hence the described annoying effect can not be
reproduced today. Therefore I tried to be as descriptive as possible to
me.

In parallel I tried the Microsoft Internet Explorer with another
computer, but there this annoying effect was not at hand... whereby I
exclude an error by the t-online page build up.

I am using the UBUNTU Hardy Heron 8.04 LINUX version together with
FireFox of that UBUNTU package. I had updated anytime, whenever being
offered by the UBUNTU community. I remember that some FireFox updates
were distributed, too, in the last two months, but unfortunately I did
not archive these updates.

I am very happy with the performances of both UBUNTU 8.04 and FireFox. I
will archive now the bug report number, and as soon as I observe the
described error again, I will refer to this report number, and let you
know precisely how to reproduce the problem then.

Kind regards and lots of appreciations!
Gerrit Plümecke

<email address hidden>

Gerrit Plümecke
Franklinstraße 133
28357 Bremen
Germany

Am Sonntag, den 15.03.2009, 02:45 +0000 schrieb Jacob Peddicord:

> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer the...

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Can you please provide a screenshot of the problem?
I get the full page only on left side though. some sites are just that way, more than likley the code behind the site.
It doesnt tell me to install flash (i already have it) and i dont get pop-ups

Please disable adblock plus, I know our package of adblock-plus has fixed some of the authors bugs but i dont remember what ones.
Can you please list all extensions you have installed.
Does running firefox in safe mode help?
firefox --safe-mode

[Gerrit38 (gerrit-pluemecke)]

Dear Collegues, dear Mr. Vivirito,

unfortunately I did not produce any screenshot during the consecutive
three days when the firefox problem came up with that Opel
advertisement. Now everything works perfectly again, without any
corrective approch from my side.

As soon as the problem will come up again, I will apply your measures to
give a more professional error report to you.

I will leave our correspondence in my files, in order to refer to the
bug report number then. For the moment being, you and I myself will have
to wait, unfortunately.

I confirm that both firefox 3.0.7 and UBUNTU 8.04 are a wonderful piece
of software. I do not regret in any respect to have selected this
powerful package half a year ago, and I will continue to using it
exclusively and to updating the package according to UBUNTU prosals.

Kind regards, an lots of appreciation for your kind efforts!
Gerrit Plümecke

Am Montag, den 16.03.2009, 15:58 +0000 schrieb John Vivirito:
> Can you please provide a screenshot of the problem?
> I get the full page only on left side though. some sites are just that way, more than likley the code behind the site.
> It doesnt tell me to install flash (i already have it) and i dont get pop-ups
>
> Please disable adblock plus, I know our package of adblock-plus has fixed some of the authors bugs but i dont remember what ones.
> Can you please list all extensions you have installed.
> Does running firefox in safe mode help?
> firefox --safe-mode
>
> ** Changed in: firefox-3.0 (Ubuntu)
> Sourcepackagename: firefox => firefox-3.0
>

[Gerrit38 (gerrit-pluemecke)]

Dear Colleagues, dear Mr. Vivirito,

heureka, it happened again, now with a SHELL Oil Company advertisement.

You can see the effect in the attached screenshots 1, 2, 3, 4.

Screenshot 1 is available immediately after the page opened; you see the
window for t-online services on a blank area as a remainder of a popup
window.

Screenshot 2 shows, that even the advertisement to the right remains as
a blank area, but the complete t-online Forum page is shown. This effect
was new to me... I did not do anything to get it.

Screenshot 3 shows the big blank area masking half of the t-online page,
including the t-online service window.

I tried to use the screenshot function to show the popup window masking
the t-online window, but on selection of the screen shot function, the
blank area came up, repeatedly. I could not catch the popup window as
such. Thus screenshot 4 looks identical to screenshot 3.

When clicking the advertisement area with the right mouse button, a
window pops up showing

preferences... (German Einstellungen...)
about Adobe flash player... (German Über Adobe Flash player...)

When this Adobe flash player window is opened, the screenshot function
does not work at all; clicking on one of the selection lines of that
window does not deliver any result or display.

When launching firefox in the safe mode by a shell command

firefox --safe-mode

the advertisement of the SHELL Oil Company does not appear at all,
and hence no more masking occurs.

As a computing dummy I do not know how to disable adblock plus. I am
very sorry and feel ashamed for that!

Kind regards, and lots of appreciation for your kind efforts!
Gerrit Plümecke

Am Montag, den 16.03.2009, 15:58 +0000 schrieb John Vivirito:
> Can you please provide a screenshot of the problem?
> I get the full page only on left side though. some sites are just that way, more than likley the code behind the site.
> It doesnt tell me to install flash (i already have it) and i dont get pop-ups
>
> Please disable adblock plus, I know our package of adblock-plus has fixed some of the authors bugs but i dont remember what ones.
> Can you please list all extensions you have installed.
> Does running firefox in safe mode help?
> firefox --safe-mode
>
> ** Changed in: firefox-3.0 (Ubuntu) Sourcepackagename: firefox =>
> firefox-3.0
>

[Gerrit38 (gerrit-pluemecke)]

Dear Mr. Vivirito,

possibly I mislead you, but I am not 100% sure. I had stated, that in
the safe mode of firefox the SHELL Oil Company's advertisement did not
appear any longer, thus its popup window remainder does no longer mask
useful fields with blank areas. I fear, that the advertisement was
switched off just when I changed to the safe mode by

firefox --safe-mode

Thus my statement of clear remedy is not reliable, I fear.

I now face another problem: How can I return to the standard German mode
of firefox? My menu is now in the English language, and changing the
language by EDIT/PREFERENCES/CONTENT/LANGUAGES/CHOOSE two English
versions (US and UK) are shown; inserting GERMAN and moving it to the
top of the stack does not change the English menu. Removing the ENGLISH
versions and restarting does not help, too.

I guess that I will have to give a shell order to return to the German
mode. In my literature I do not find useful commands for this purpose.
Can you give me a hint what to do?

Kind regards
Gerrit Plümecke

[Gerrit38 (gerrit-pluemecke)]

Dear Mr. Vivirito,

browsing around I found the path back to German menus in firefox. It was
feasible by following the path to add-on packages, where I could
reactivate the German language add-on package. Funny that the menues are
that different for the English presumably "safe version" and the German
version. I can easily live with that!

At the moment being I am quite happy to have found the way back to erman
menus, although this was achieved by try and error, and with a queer but
finally German result.

The original error message Bug 342587 remains valid, with an uncertainty
on the change to the safe mode, as described previously.

Kind regards, and lots of thanks for your patience with me!
Gerrit Plümecke

[Gerrit38 (gerrit-pluemecke)]

Dear Colleagues,

subsequent e-mail was sent on 2009-03-16 to Mr Vivirito, including the
screenshots, now attached again.

I have continued to update my UBUNTU 8.04 permanently in accorance with
update proposals received via the net. I have no complaints since the
last updates any longer; presumably the bug was fixed meanwhile, or the
advertisements with the nasty feature are no longer used (?).

The UBUNTU 8.04 safe mode did not change the problem in the past, but it
switched the menus to English language. Meanwhile I returned to the
German layout.

As soon as I get again aware of that nasty effect, I will not fail to
alert you with screenshots again, and I will remove my adaware packages
for better investigation.

Thank you so much for your kind efforts!

Best regards
Gerrit Plümecke

My message from 2009-03-16:

Dear Colleagues, dear Mr. Vivirito,

heureka, it happened again, now with a SHELL Oil Company advertisement.

You can see the effect in the attached screenshots 1, 2, 3, 4.

Screenshot 1 is available immediately after the page opened; you see the
window for t-online services on a blank area as a remainder of a popup
window.

Screenshot 2 shows, that even the advertisement to the right remains as
a blank area, but the complete t-online Forum page is shown. This effect
was new to me... I did not do anything to get it.

Screenshot 3 shows the big blank area masking half of the t-online page,
including the t-online service window.

I tried to use the screenshot function to show the popup window masking
the t-online window, but on selection of the screen shot function, the
blank area came up, repeatedly. I could not catch the popup window as
such. Thus screenshot 4 looks identical to screenshot 3.

When clicking the advertisement area with the right mouse button, a
window pops up showing

preferences... (German Einstellungen...)
about Adobe flash player... (German Über Adobe Flash player...)

When this Adobe flash player window is opened, the screenshot function
does not work at all; clicking on one of the selection lines of that
window does not deliver any result or display.

When launching firefox in the safe mode by a shell command

firefox --safe-mode

the advertisement of the SHELL Oil Company does not appear at all,
and hence no more masking occurs.

As a computing dummy I do not know how to disable adblock plus. I am
very sorry and feel ashamed for that!

Kind regards, and lots of appreciation for your kind efforts!
Gerrit Plümecke

Am Montag, den 16.03.2009, 15:58 +0000 schrieb John Vivirito:
> Can you please provide a screenshot of the problem?
> I get the full page only on left side though. some sites are just that
way, more than likley the code behind the site.
> It doesnt tell me to install flash (i already have it) and i dont get
pop-ups
>
> Please disable adblock plus, I know our package of adblock-plus has
fixed some of the authors bugs but i dont remember what ones.
> Can you please list all extensions you have installed.
> Does running firefox in safe mode help?
> firefox --safe-mode
>
> ** Changed in: firefox-3.0 (Ubuntu) Sourcepackagename: firefox =>
> firefox-3.0
>

PNG-Bild-Anlage
(screenshot 1....

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Mr. Plümecke:
From what i gather from your last post that it was fixed with updates. I will mark the bug Fix Released at this time, Please let us know if it happens again.
For the Engllish => German that can be found in ubufox (add-ons menu)
For the safe-mode command changing it to English, is English what the rest of Ubuntu uses?
If not please feel free to file a bug on ubufox.

Thanks for your updates to bug report.