This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Visual disturbance of lines of text in Firefox, particularly when using AOL mail

  • 5 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by beyondme

beyondme
beyondme
more options

When moving the cursor around the AOL mail list of e-mails, or around the text within a message, some lines of text become fuzzy: some letters are emboldened and others weakened. When you click on the affected area, it clears to normal, but may revert to fuzzy when the cursor is moved again. This happens sometimes on web pages too. It does not happen in Internet Explorer, however, so I can only think it is a problem with Firefox.

When moving the cursor around the AOL mail list of e-mails, or around the text within a message, some lines of text become fuzzy: some letters are emboldened and others weakened. When you click on the affected area, it clears to normal, but may revert to fuzzy when the cursor is moved again. This happens sometimes on web pages too. It does not happen in Internet Explorer, however, so I can only think it is a problem with Firefox.

Chosen solution

Try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe mode start window or otherwise make changes.
Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (5)

iamjayakumars
iamjayakumars
more options

Many site issues can be caused by corrupt cookies or cache. In order to try to fix these problems, the first step is to clear both cookies and the cache. Note: This will temporarily log you out of all sites you're logged in to. To clear cache and cookies do the following:

  1. Go to Firefox > History > Clear recent history or (if no Firefox button is shown) go to Tools > Clear recent history.
  2. Under "Time range to clear", select "Everything".
  3. Now, click the arrow next to Details to toggle the Details list active.
  4. From the details list, check Cache and Cookies and uncheck everything else.
  5. Now click the Clear now button.

Further information can be found in the Clear your cache, history and other personal information in Firefox article.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

beyondme
beyondme Question owner
more options

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately it hasn't cured the problem. Any other ideas?

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Chosen Solution

Try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe mode start window or otherwise make changes.
beyondme
beyondme Question owner
more options

Many thanks. In following your advice I came across mention of Java as a potential problem. I had installed it some weeks ago. I checked online and found that Microsoft had issued a warning about it in January. As a result, I uninstalled Java, and this seems to have cured the problem.

beyondme
beyondme Question owner
more options

Further to the above, the problem has since recurred so I've reset Firefox. We'll see what happens. I'll report back in a couple of days.