This may be your problem,

Firefox v52+ disables all plugins except for Flash Why do Java, Silverlight, Adobe Acrobat and other plugins no longer work? {web link}

Install Older Version Of Firefox {web link} Be sure to read everything here.

If you still want to downgrade, look under; I still want to downgrade. Click the Directory of other versions and languages link. Look for the directory of the version that you want. But, remember that old versions may have security issues.

You should also check out Firefox; Extended Support Release {web link} ESR Notes System Requirements

Hi FredMcd,

I am however not using any of those plugins you've listed above.

Only JS, HTML, CSS. Pure code.

vridaw said in a private message

Hey FredMcD,

As you've just answered my post, I thought I'd share the website so you can see the problem first hand.

You can load the above link in Chrome or Firefox 51 to see it functioning properly, and then please open it in the latest FF to see the problem.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Please make all replies here. This could help others, and lets others give their own responses.

I opened the link. That I saw was a 'clear' area bouncing around while dots connected by lines moved around. Nothing was seen outside the 'clear' area.

Please refresh, I apologize.

Any insight on what changed from V 51 to V52 might help me diagnose this problem.

Again, the site works 100% perfectly in FF 51.

hi, unfortunately there are thousands of code changes between firefox versions so it's not feasible to guess what's at the root here. is it a site that's publicly available and that you can share the link for?

Hi Phil,

Yes you can view the website here.

Please note if it doesn't load on the first try, refresh the page and it should put you through.

Appreciate the help.

It was slow on my initial test, but after I restarted Firefox, it ran normally vs. Chrome. Possibly a memory use issue on 32-bit Firefox?

cor-el has mentioned a change in the graphics rendering engine in Firefox 52 that could be relevant. I'll copy/paste since I haven't researched this myself:

Firefox 52+ has changed from Cairo to Skia for canvas/content rendering.

• https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/52.0/releasenotes/
• When not using Direct2D on Windows, Skia is used for content rendering

To try switching back:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste skia and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the gfx.canvas.azure.backends preference and reverse the order of the last two words, in other words:

FROM: direct2d1.1,skia,cairo

TO: direct2d1.1,cairo,skia

(4) Repeat with gfx.content.azure.backends

(5) Exit Firefox and start it up again to effectuate the change

Does that make any difference on yours?

My current version of FF is 53 and the value of "gfx.canvas.azure" is "direct2d1.1,cairo" It does not have skia by default.

I did go ahead and test the switching the order for "gfx.content" and came up with negative results. Still the same result (Animations sluggish, not running on time)

Thanks for your reply jscher2000.

vridaw said

My current version of FF is 53 and the value of "gfx.canvas.azure" is "direct2d1.1,cairo" It does not have skia by default.

That's strange, I don't know why that would be.

Anyway, perhaps it's a new Firefox-Nvidia incompatibility. I can't test that myself.

I don't know if this means anything;

I was watching the 'show' when I decided to restart Firefox. I use Restart https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/re-start/

The computer locked up. I had to do a hard reboot. No error messages or crash report.

i also had a look at the site (nice work btw) but didn't notice any obvious slowdowns after firefox 52 - maybe i'm missing something obvious because i don't have the eyes of a designer or the problem is dependant on some sort of config/system environment.

can you test if the same slowdown is reproducible in a new profile as well?: Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles

if yes, then using the mozregression tool from http://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/install.html is one way that could help you narrowing down the range of the regression. it will download and open various nightly development builds and ask you to judge if it was good or bad - until it finds the exact "pushlog" containing the code change(s) triggering the regression. equipped with that information you could then file a bug for this problem at bugzilla.mozilla.org.

please don't hesitate to ask if anything is unclear during the procedure