Adressbox Entries unreadable: Grey/Black Mask overlaying text

[Thomi Schmid]

Labtop: Asus M2400, 512MB RAM, Pentium M "Banias" using "forcepae".
OS: Xubuntu 14.04, all updates up to May 1, 2014.
Application: Firefox 29, version "29.0+build1-0ubuntu0.14.04.2"

Updated Firefox to Firefox 29 by automatic software update. Restarted firefox, now all the HTTP address entries in the address box are unreadable; it looks like they are masked by a black or grey/black mask. This independent of address and website.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: firefox 29.0+build1-0ubuntu0.14.04.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.46-generic 3.13.9
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-24-generic i686
AddonCompatCheckDisabled: False
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: tschmid 1708 F.... pulseaudio
                      lightdm 5509 F.... pulseaudio
BuildID: 20140428194004
Channel: Unavailable
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Thu May 1 10:24:14 2014
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/firefox/firefox
ForcedLayersAccel: False
IfupdownConfig:
 # interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-19 (11 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release i386 (20140416.2)
IpRoute:
 default via 192.168.254.10 dev eth1 proto static
 192.168.254.0/24 dev eth1 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.254.100 metric 9
NoProfiles: True
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de_DE
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
PulseList: Error: command ['pacmd', 'list'] failed with exit code 1: No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon.
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
RunningIncompatibleAddons: False
SourcePackage: firefox
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
WifiSyslog:

dmi.bios.date: 03/08/2004
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 0208
dmi.board.name: M2N
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: ATN12345678901234567
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr0208:bd03/08/2004:svnASUSTeKComputerInc.:pnM2N:pvr1.0:rvnASUSTeKComputerInc.:rnM2N:rvr1.0:cvnASUSTeKComputerInc.:ct10:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.name: M2N
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

[Thomi Schmid (thomi-schmid)]

I have reported this bug also upstreams to Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1005608

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Thomi Schmid (thomi-schmid)]

"https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1005501#c23" shows a quick work around.

[dusktrader (dusktrader)]

I am on Lubuntu 14.04 with Firefox 29.0 on a Dell Dimension 2400 (Pentium 4) with the same issue. I can confirm that setting "gfx.xrender.enabled" to false in about:config resolves the issue. Thanks!

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

Note: The component may be Lib/Xrender but Driver/intel was chosen due to platform-specific issues.

This is the first of two bug reports I am filing, since the symptoms are distinct.

I am using Ubuntu 14.04 with an Intel 82865G.
I and a few other users encountered an issue in Firefox (also using certain Intel IGPs, various distributions) where a recent feature added to Firefox (essentially, an auto-disappearing forward button) causes text in the address bar to become obscured/replaced by rectangles: see link.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1005501

While the Firefox team is considering implementing their own workaround, the underlying problem is through Xrender, since the proposed workaround is to disable it in Firefox. I am adding this bug report to document this as an example, given the number of various corruption bugs out there, to see if this can be connected with others, feedback on additional information to collect, and possibly help to get a fix from Xrender.

Side note: documentation from Intel says that the video BIOS (aka VBIOS) is sometimes responsible for the corruption of graphics, however for most users the only way this can be updated is by a system BIOS update, which I know in my case is not available.
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-029985.htm
I am looking into a if it is possible to apply a VBIOS update e.g. using MEMDISK (from the SYSLINUX project) while in Grub2 (before booting Linux).

[Chris Wilson (ickle)]

*** Bug 79166 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Chris Wilson (ickle)]

Most important is your Xorg.0.log so that we identify driver versions and likely known bugs.

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

Sure, I will get the Xorg.0.log later today, I know however that a couple other users with this particular issue are using the 852GM/855GM with "driverVersion": "1.3 Mesa 10.1.0".

[Götz Christ (g-christ)]

Created attachment 99710
Xorg.0.log for i865G

Thanks Christopher for opening this report.

Chris, I'm one of the Firefox i865G users affected by this bug (xf86-video-intel 2.99.911).
I have noticed that when I set UXA (or none) as acceleration method, Firefox renders the text correctly. And (using SNA) when setting gfx.xrender.enabled to false in Firefox, the bug goes away.

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

Created attachment 99716
another Xorg.0.log for i865G

Comparing with Götz', I am obviously not on the latest, so I will check out the xorg ppa's and see what happens.

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

Created attachment 99719
working, new Xorg.0.log

I have updated to the ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa on launchpad and the issue is no longer present. This bug can be closed.

[Chris Wilson (ickle)]

This is either bug 77201 or bug 75818.
.

[Rüdiger Kupper (ruediger.kupper)]

Please note that setting "gfx.xrender.enabled" to false cannot be a permanent solution. It makes graphic rendering extremely sluggy over network connections, where X client and server are not on the same machine (and that's what X was designed for).

We deploy firefox in a client/server setup (Linux Terminal Server Project, LTSP), for 800 users. Their firefox display is extremely slow with xrender disabled. Scrolling down a page is a pain. Currently I need to tell mu users: "You can have gray boxes in the address field, or you can have slow scolling. What would you like?"

Setting "gfx.xrender.enabled" to false does *not fix* the issue, it just hides it by the cost of losing other features.

[Luca Piccirillo (luca-piccirillo)]

Same bug, same hardware scenario (celeron M, integrated Intel graphics, forcepae bootflag), different distro (ubuntu derived Mint17-MATE 32-bit)

[gpatino (patinogus)]

same problem with Gigabyte GMAX N203 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.70GHz with forcepae bootflag Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device with lubuntu 14.04 or linuxmint 17 after update to firefox 32.0.3 from base install fixed with setting gfx.xrender.enabled to false

[LAZA (laza74)]

This workaround works *ONLY* for USERs, not for Guests!

So my Internet Café machine which i upgraded to 14.04 (Trusty) is useless cause nobody wants to work with this.
The people who use these machine are only guests, and have no account/login.

I hope this will fixed for the next Firefox version.

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

As I reported upstream (mozilla-bugs:1005501), the bug is due to xserver-xorg-video-intel, and was fixed somewhere between 2:2.99.910 and 2:2.99.911 (c.f. freedesktop:79165).
The bug is therefore already fixed in 14.10, so it should be fixed in 14.04 once the 14.04.2 point release is published (i.e. "xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic" becomes available on trusty-updates) on 5 February 2015. I don't see a 12.04.6 point release scheduled, however, so if 12.04.5 is affected, upgrading to 14.04.2 may be necessary.
Aside from using ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa (dangerous) and xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic on ppa:canonical-x/x-staging (which doesn't look meant for general or even troubleshooting use), I otherwise don't know how to obtain a packaged fix ahead of time for 14.04 or at all for 12.04. Maybe someone at Ubuntu-X can help.

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

It may be possible to obtain the fix for 14.04 using the Intel Graphics Installer 1.0.7, which installs xf86-video-intel 2.99.911.

[LAZA (laza74)]

Installed today all updates (not proposed), rebooted - Bug is still active!
Installed package is
2:2.99.910-0ubuntu1.4

Can these please confirm somebody else (might be a problem of that machine)?

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

You need to upgrade to the version for the 14.04.2 point release (2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.2~trusty1), see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

[LAZA (laza74)]

You are *kidding* me, right???

We talk here about the chipset 865G (Springdale), which was released in 2003!
Nobody wants to upgrade or enable the HWE...

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

I apologize, I didn't mean to boss anyone around. I'm not in charge, nor am I a maintainer or triager, I am just another user. Please don't take this as representative of the ubuntu community.
I talked briefly with a maintainer of xserver-xorg-video-intel, and they suggested the procedure for incorporating the necessary fixes for this issue in the non HWE release. Based on the response to Freedesktop#79165, it didn't seem to be obvious which patch this is, however.
Cf. http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2015/02/26/%23ubuntu-x.html :
| [20:51] <mlankhorst> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates is the procedure
| [20:51] <mlankhorst> bit of paperwork + making a fixed package
Unfortunately I will not be able to assist with this issue any further.

[Jaap Woldringh (jjhwoldringh)]

I repeat this comment here, as I saw tool late that the other place (1316250) was not the correct place (sorry for this):

I had this bug and fixed it as in comment #11.
This was fine, on a Pentium M Toshiba laptop, using Lubuntu 14.04.

However, after the latest update of Firefox (40.0) Firefox stops loading before the URL-bar appears, and pages can be loaded. Just the main frame appears, with the heading with the name of the start page.

I found the setting " gfx.xrender.enabled" to False is the culprit, so I had to undo this setting.

So: now what should I do?

Jaap Woldringh

[Csipak Attila (corphicks)]

I can confirm the bug Jaap Woldringh mentioned.

Also, some small help on how to reset gfx.xrender.enabled to true to work around it: look in ~/.mozilla/firefox/<hashcode>.default/prefs.js for the same settings that can be configured via about:config. (It may not be trivial to everyone how to do this when Firefox itself is not functional due to the error.)

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

The issue is no longer present as of firefox 49 shipped by ubuntu. (Using firefox-mozilla-build, the issue was resolved as of version 46.) No graphics updates whatsoever from 14.04 (xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.910-0ubuntu1) should be necessary.