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Firefox is missing content and the some prompts are blank/black.

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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The other day my system crashed unexpectedly, and upon booting up, firefox no longer looks like it used to. It is completely unusable, as there is no text legible (what little there is is overlapping itself), all the prompts it gives me appear as large black boxes, and my menus have no text for me to navigate. There are no icons, favorites buttons, menus, etc. available. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cleaning my registry values, etc. but nothing has worked so far. I can still navigate the internet in Chrome, however.

The other day my system crashed unexpectedly, and upon booting up, firefox no longer looks like it used to. It is completely unusable, as there is no text legible (what little there is is overlapping itself), all the prompts it gives me appear as large black boxes, and my menus have no text for me to navigate. There are no icons, favorites buttons, menus, etc. available. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cleaning my registry values, etc. but nothing has worked so far. I can still navigate the internet in Chrome, however.

Chosen solution

Try to do a clean (re)install and delete the Firefox program folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\) to make sure that all files get refreshed.

Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.

Uninstall your current Firefox version, if possible.

  • Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall your current Firefox version, because all profile folders will be removed and you will also lose your personal data like bookmarks and passwords from profiles of other Firefox versions.

Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.

Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored elsewhere in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by a reinstall, but make sure that you do not select to remove personal data if you uninstall Firefox.



If there are still problems then try a new profile as well.

Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See:

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Chosen Solution

Try to do a clean (re)install and delete the Firefox program folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\) to make sure that all files get refreshed.

Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.

Uninstall your current Firefox version, if possible.

  • Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall your current Firefox version, because all profile folders will be removed and you will also lose your personal data like bookmarks and passwords from profiles of other Firefox versions.

Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.

Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored elsewhere in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by a reinstall, but make sure that you do not select to remove personal data if you uninstall Firefox.



If there are still problems then try a new profile as well.

Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See: