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.

Firefox needs to be restarted when changing the system DPI settings for it to display the content correctly

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by dvillegas

dvillegas
dvillegas
more options

I am using the XFCE window manager in Linux. When I modify the system's DPI settings, I need to restart Firefox for the content to be displayed correctly.

Other programs such as Chrome automatically adapt content to use the new DPI settings. Is there any way to make this happen automatically?

Reproduction steps:

- Open Firefox, load a page

- In XFCE, go to Applications -> Settings -> Appearance -> Fonts, then change the "Custom DPI setting" field and hit Enter

- The page displayed in Firefox stays the same. The browser needs to be restarted to display the content correctly

I am using the XFCE window manager in Linux. When I modify the system's DPI settings, I need to restart Firefox for the content to be displayed correctly. Other programs such as Chrome automatically adapt content to use the new DPI settings. Is there any way to make this happen automatically? Reproduction steps: - Open Firefox, load a page - In XFCE, go to Applications -> Settings -> Appearance -> Fonts, then change the "Custom DPI setting" field and hit Enter - The page displayed in Firefox stays the same. The browser needs to be restarted to display the content correctly

Modified by dvillegas

All Replies (2)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

I think the base DPI might be set on a per-window basis when the window is created. So if you launch a new Firefox window after changing the system level DPI, it may reflect the change without your having to restart Firefox. Do you see that on yours?

If so, I realize that may leave a lot of tabs in the wrong-size window. You could experiment with multi-selecting a bunch of tabs in that window and sending them to a new window to see whether they then inherit the new DPI setting. (right-click one of the selected tabs, Move Tabs > Move to new window)

dvillegas
dvillegas Question owner
more options

Hi Jefferson,

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to solve the issue. Neither opening a new window with Ctrl+N or moving a tab to a new window by choosing the menu option seem to apply the new DPI settings. So far the only way I've found for Firefox to use the right DPI is restarting it.