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.

Can't read a lot of the text on my Mac after FF update

  • 6 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by eliandrade

beanthere22
beanthere22
more options

Firefox upgraded today, and now a LOT of the text renders as little boxes with "?" inside them. No problem prior to update. I have attached screenshots of a search in firefox and also a gmail page. I have tried to find a place where a font may have changed, but the default FF font looks OK. I cant read ANY of the settings in Gmail because almost all the text now renders as the "?" graphic.

Got to find a fix or I have to switch browsers.

Or, can I go back to a previous version of FF?

Firefox upgraded today, and now a LOT of the text renders as little boxes with "?" inside them. No problem prior to update. I have attached screenshots of a search in firefox and also a gmail page. I have tried to find a place where a font may have changed, but the default FF font looks OK. I cant read ANY of the settings in Gmail because almost all the text now renders as the "?" graphic. Got to find a fix or I have to switch browsers. Or, can I go back to a previous version of FF?
Attached screenshots

All Replies (6)

Enigma
Enigma
more options

Would you try this :

Type in the address bar about:config (press Enter) Promise to be careful, if asked) Type and look for the preference : security.sandbox.content.level and set its value to 1 (one) (default value is 3 )

Everything back to normal now, or still no joy  ?

beanthere22
beanthere22 Question owner
more options

Well, I tried the old standard method first... reboot the computer.

That seems to have fixed the issue. Something in the update needed to have a complete system restart to make it work right.

beanthere22
beanthere22 Question owner
more options

Of course, that was just a band aid. Upon startup today, the problem was back.

In the latest version of Firefox for the Mac, all text in Google related screens and apps is trashed. Checked it in Chrome, works just fine. Even in Safari.

Don't make me give up Firefox, please fix the issue, or give me a way to go back to a previous version of Firefox.

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

Did you modify the above posted pref?

This is likely a problem on Mac with sandbox permissions where Firefox can't access a specific font and falls back to a Last Resort font that displays all glyphs as a '?'.

When you set this pref to 1 then Firefox will be able to use the specified font.

You can set this pref to 1 on the about:config page.

  • security.sandbox.content.level = 1
  • close and restart Firefox to make the change effective.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

beanthere22
beanthere22 Question owner
more options

resetting to "1" seems to have done the trick

eliandrade
eliandrade
more options

Enigma said

Would you try this : Type in the address bar about:config (press Enter) Promise to be careful, if asked) Type and look for the preference : security.sandbox.content.level and set its value to 1 (one) (default value is 3 ) Everything back to normal now, or still no joy  ?

The default value "3" has no option for editing.???