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.

Common websites (UPS, Fedex, many others) distorted(just text on left hand side)

  • 6 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by xbellhead

xbellhead
xbellhead
more options

With many standard websites,all I see is a list of primitive text in different fonts w/o links or buttons or any HTML things along the left side of the screen. I tried the "styles" setup (Basic Styles turned on), Java is activated, and nothing works. IE and Chrome work fine with these sites. This is pretty horrible and I'm giving up on Firefox for now.

With many standard websites,all I see is a list of primitive text in different fonts w/o links or buttons or any HTML things along the left side of the screen. I tried the "styles" setup (Basic Styles turned on), Java is activated, and nothing works. IE and Chrome work fine with these sites. This is pretty horrible and I'm giving up on Firefox for now.

All Replies (6)

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

Clear the cache and the cookies from sites that cause problems.

"Clear the Cache":

  • Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Offline Storage (Cache): "Clear Now"

"Remove Cookies" from sites causing problems:

  • Tools > Options > Privacy > Cookies: "Show Cookies"

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

xbellhead
xbellhead Question owner
more options

I tried all the suggestions (thanks), disabled everything in safe mode, and still things are a mess, even YAHOO and MSN load as garbage. What a disaster. How could Firefox be so vulnerable as this? It's supposed to be the most robust browser (I thought). Maybe it's a MSFT plot (or Mozilla hired too many H1Bs).

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

Can you attach a screenshot?

Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot and make sure that you do not exceed the maximum file size (1 MB).

Reset the page zoom on pages that cause problems.

  • View > Zoom > Reset (Ctrl+0 (zero); Cmd+0 on Mac)

If you have increased the minimum font size then try the default setting "none" as a (too) high value can cause issues.

  • Tools > Options > Content : Fonts & Colors > Advanced > Minimum Font Size (none)

Make sure that you allow websites to choose their fonts.

  • Tools > Options > Content : Fonts & Colors > Advanced > [X] "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above"
xbellhead
xbellhead Question owner
more options

The problem is gone. All I did was stop using Firefox for about 12 hours and it disappeared. It looks like Firefox had a bug and fixed it. I assume some patch got downloaded. Thanks everyone who tried to help and to Mozilla for taking care of this.

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

Sounds like (bad) data in the cache that had expired.

Try to reload web page(s) and bypass the cache if it happens again.

  • Press and hold Shift and left-click the Reload button.
  • Press "Ctrl + F5" or press "Ctrl + Shift + R" (Windows,Linux)
  • Press "Cmd + Shift + R" (MAC)
xbellhead
xbellhead Question owner
more options

Thanks for your help with this again, I appreciate it.

I had cleared the cache several times before when I had the problem, and that did not help at the time.