Does anyone know what this phenomenon is called so I can google it effectively?
If you have troubleshooting ideas, so far I've tried disabling hardware acceleration, updating my graphics driver, disabling Classic Theme Restorer (which was being used in the screenshot), and disabling transparency in the Windows interface. Each step except disabling transparency helped a little, but none completely eliminated the problem.
The problem can usually be made to go away by changing the browser window size (i.e. clicking the "restore" button on the top right), but that's never permanent. Sometimes, however, I have to close the browser completely.
There weren't any updates or changes that correlated with the arrival of the problem, at least not that I can dig out. A java update appeared in my tray shortly before the problem started, but I didn't actually install the update until after the problem started.
In any case, my real question is the name/term/standard description for this weird way various things are randomly becoming invisible, so I can google it and/or file bug reports.
Anyone know?
Update: Switching to 64-bit Firefox (to go with my 64-bit Windows 7 install) removes the problems of the blank areas, but 64-bit Firefox eats up memory like crazy. At one point I left the computer alone for 2 hours with only 1 tab open (the weather network), and when I got back it was using 5 gigs of RAM. I'm currently working on the Firefox memory problem and have some avenues, but if I can't make it work I'll do a system restore.
Second update: It turns out the memory leak on 64-bit Firefox is specific to to the combination of The Weather Network website and the Adblock Plus add-on. It doesn't happen on any sites other than The Weather Network, and it doesn't happen on The Weather Network if I disable Adblock Plus. So I've filed a bug report with ABP to see if they can fix it. They've proven responsive in the past, so hopefully there will be a solution eventually.
As for the random blank graphics, I still don't know what they're called or why they were happening. They don't correspond with specific objects or elements, and move or grow or disappear when I resize the window. When I try to take an about:memory log while they're happening Firefox crashes (so there are some relevant crash logs wherever it is crash logs get sent to). And they aren't related to The Weather Network or Adblock Plus because they occurred on other sites and even when I had all my add-ons disabled. But the 64-bit Firefox seemed to solve that problem, whatever it was.
With thanks to @hermit8888 , @bwinton, @mike_conley and @gijskruitbosch for pointing me in useful troubleshooting directions via Twitter.
14 comments:
I used to get those weird black boxes on an old computer, when it was running out of memory. If you ever find out what it's called, please let me know.
Yeah, various people suggested memory issues, but that would be really weird because I have 8 gigs of RAM, which should surely be enough for basic web browsing. (There are currently entry-level computers for sale with 4 gigs). But I couldn't successfully take memory logs while they were happening, so we'll never know.
I've been seeing this black boxes thing lately too, with 32-bit Firefox on Win7-64 on a 64-bit AMD CPU. I'd be glad to hear that 64-bit Firefox fixes it, except that there's no obvious way to make it update itself. I've been waiting since hearing they finally had released a 64-bit Firefox, and during that time it's updated to FF 43, 44, and then 45 and it stubbornly stays 32-bit according to task manager. Clicking the triple bar, ?, and About Firefox ATM says "Firefox is up to date". I don't see anywhere in the UI to trigger it to update itself to the 64-bit version.
I had to google for the 64-bit version. I found it on this Mozilla FTP site. It seems if you have the 32-bit version, it just quietly updates it withotu questionoing whether you need a different number of bits.
The link I provided was for 45.0. If you're using an older version, you can google for that or navigate through the parent folders of the FTP site.
Note that when you install the 64-bit version, the 32-bit version is still on your computer in the Program Files x86 folder. You can either uninstall it, or keep it available (but not default) for testing purposes or to run your old add-ons or as a safety net or whatever.
Bleh, what? I don't want a separate install and I certainly don't want to *un*install anything. I want to do an in-place update that keeps all of my tabs, addons, settings, saved pws, etc. as-is (except if any addons are incompatible with 64 bit I suppose).
The new install did grab my tabs, add-ons etc. when I installed it so I didn't have to start from zero (and, if you want to be extra safe, instructions for backing up your Firefox profile are readily googleable).
As far as I have been able to determine, the black boxes problem is *also* being caused by theweathernetwork.com. They must have changed something in the past couple of weeks, or else FF44 introduced a problem with this specific website, because it didn't used to be a problem. If I visit it in 32-bit Firefox the process size will bloat up fairly quickly to over 2.6GB and then the black boxes problem will occur.
Googling doesn't turn up any other pages complaining of problems with twn and the latest couple of ff versions -- I don't know why this isn't getting more attention, it's not exactly a low traffic site. As a result I can't find out when they plan to have this fixed, or even if "they" (either at twn, or at mozilla) know that things are broken and need to be fixed...and of course neither of *them* seems to provide any convenient way to give them a heads-up.
Are you using an ad blocker? For me, it only happens if the ad blocker is active. Because of that, I doubt The Weather Network would be incentivized to fix the problem.
Well, of course I'm using an ad blocker. Did you hear that ads were used to send malware to people visiting, among other sites, theweathernetwork.com recently?
The problem, which went away with Firefox 45.0.1, is back with Firefox 45.0.2. This is unacceptable. Once a bug is fixed, it is to stay fixed. How do we light a fire under Mozilla's ass to fix this and this time KEEP it fixed?
Googling for the Weather Network memory leak problem, I discovered this uBlock bug report which suggested the following filter:
||twnmm.com/js/*/adobe_audience_manager$script
Using this filter appears to stop the memory leak. However, it also prevents the page from automatically updating. (It gives the countdown to a new update, but then doesn't refresh.) I don't know enough about filters or scripts to figure out how to tweak it so it will allow the auto-update while preventing the leak.
It doesn't do either on my machine. Nor does a similar rule in NoScript, that the NoScript people claim (incorrectly) will work. Nor does both combined.
I have this problem as well.
In uBlock Origen, I whitelisted theweathernetwork.com, which solved the memory leak so far, but their ads have returned......
A *combination* of these two block rules (should work in both ABP and uBlock) seems to work.
||twnmm.com/js/*/dfpad$script
||twnmm.com/js/*/adobe_audience_manager$script
The "dfpad" rule seems to be newly necessary to avoid the leak.
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