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.

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

All text unreadable when I start Firefox

  • 5
  • 1 nwere nsogbu anwere nsogbu a
  • 24 views
  • Nzaghachi ikpeazụ nke lukas_panek

more options

When I restart my Windows 7 system and start Firefox for the first time of the day, all of the text is unreadable, like if all letters of words are compressed into one space. This includes tab names and website text. I think screenshot explains this better. When I quit firefox and start it up again, the problem is gone.

When I restart my Windows 7 system and start Firefox for the first time of the day, all of the text is unreadable, like if all letters of words are compressed into one space. This includes tab names and website text. I think screenshot explains this better. When I quit firefox and start it up again, the problem is gone.

Asịsa ahọpụtara

We usually associate such rendering issues with hardware acceleration.

It can also be a problem with some fonts that clear up for some reason after a restart.

You can do a font test to see if you can identify corrupted font(s).

Gụọ azịza a na nghọta 👍 0

All Replies (5)

more options

Can you attach a screenshot?

  • Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
  • Make sure that you do not exceed the maximum size of 1 MB

You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

  • Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"

You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.

You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.

more options

sorry, I thought I posted the screenshot before. I will try the acceleration, but it's strange, since when I restart firefox, the problem goes away. So it doesn't bother me too much, I'm more interested in what could have happened

more options

Asịsa Ahọpụtara

We usually associate such rendering issues with hardware acceleration.

It can also be a problem with some fonts that clear up for some reason after a restart.

You can do a font test to see if you can identify corrupted font(s).

more options

there were no corrupt fonts as a result of the font test, I set the hardware acceleration to off and will post results upon next boot Thank you for support sofar

more options

I disabled the hardware acceleration and it seems to have done the trick, thanks a lot for your support. I have been getting some other symptoms of a bad graphics driver as well, so it seems logical.