Firefox 33 and 33.0.1 not displaying site correctly

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Hi,

This issue started last week. I think it could be either a Firefox issue or an issue on my computer.

Our web site (http://www.mygoforthegreen.com) won’t display properly (see attached screen shot). Restarting Firefox does not correct it, but restarting the computer often does. This does not occur on the laptop, in Chrome or in IE.

I’m running Windows 7, SP1 and haven’t made any changes on the computer or the site recently.

Not sure how to troubleshoot it to find out (and fix) the cause and hoped a Lounger might see an obvious cause that I can’t.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Linda
38262-Web-Site-Display

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Irene,

Your site displayed just fine for me in FF 33.0 then I updated to FF 33.0.1 and it is still displaying correctly. I have the following add-ons installed:
FlashBlock
AdBlocker Plus
NoScript
GreaseMonkey
Disconnect
WOT
Privacy Badger
Xmarks

You should try starting FF in safe mode. If that works it’s one of your add-ons causing the problem. HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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You got it, RG! Thanks to your link, I started FF in Safe Mode, opened the site and…voila – it displayed properly.

Next steps, I believe, are:
1. restart FF in normal mode
2. go to add-ons page, disable one at a time and check what site looks like after each.

Have I got it?

Thanks so much for your simple but perfect solution!!

Linda

P.S. UPDATE – closed FF Safe Mode session and re-opened new session. Does this mean it’s now NOT in Safe Mode? If so, what’s odd is that the site displayed just fine – with all its add-ons!!

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Linda,

It may have cleaned out the internet cache, which could have been causing the problem.

Actually, the normal way to test when an add-on is causing a problem is to disable them all! Then add them back in one at a time.

Yes, Restarting FF will get you back to normal!

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Excellent information and thanks. Could have been the cache: I’m behind on my Secunia PSI clean out which means my Internet cache could be clogged.

You’ve answered all my questions, taught me how to do a Firefox Safe Mode and the correct way to check out add-ons. All this in one short afternoon…no wonder I love this Lounge!

Happily yours,

Linda

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Well, more information…

Looking into it further today, discovered issue is not exactly what I had thought it was…

In Firefox, display is incorrect in both “normal” and WordPress Admin mode.

In Chrome, display is perfect in normal but not in WordPress Admin mode.

As for IE…normal is fine; first two times I tried to open it in Admin mode, browser crashed!! Finally got it to open admin log in, but when I tried to view the page, it reverted to non-admin mode (i.e., no Edit capability), and displayed fine. Weird. I did manage to “open” a page from the menu in admin mode… and it was not displaying correctly.

So, does this mean I have a WordPress issue instead of a browser one?

If so, any ideas…or on what to try next?

Thanks,

Linda

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Well, more information…

Looking into it further today, discovered issue is not exactly what I had thought it was…

In Firefox, display is incorrect in both “normal” and WordPress Admin mode.

In Chrome, display is perfect in normal but not in WordPress Admin mode.

As for IE…normal is fine; first two times I tried to open it in Admin mode, browser crashed!! Finally got it to open admin log in, but when I tried to view the page, it reverted to non-admin mode (i.e., no Edit capability), and displayed fine. Weird. I did manage to “open” a page from the menu in admin mode… and it was not displaying correctly.

So, does this mean I have a WordPress issue instead of a browser one?

If so, any ideas…or on what to try next?

Thanks,

Linda

Hi Linda,

It does seem like it’s a WordPress issue. From the sample screenshot you posted, it looked like it was a stylesheet problem because the content was there but the formatting was all off. The website looked fine for me on Firefox 33 so as a second test I saved a local copy of the homepage via File -> Save Page As. I then deleted the .css files and opened the .html file and the result matched your screenshot.

I took a closer look at the HTML and CSS. In the header block, there are a few lines that link to the stylesheets:

Note the random looking stylesheet filenames. According to the URLs, your installation of WordPress has the Minify plugin installed. Minify compresses and caches the JavaScript and cascading stylesheets to speed up page generation, ultimately improving response times and saving some network bandwidth for both the server and clients. The cache files can be shared by multiple users but whether or not a particular web browser gets a unique set is dependent on a number of conditions.

Chances are that some of the cached files are corrupted. If you have Administrator privileges, try clearing Minify’s cache, or better yet, temporarily disable Minify. Then in Firefox, go to your website and press the keyboard combination [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [R] (that tells Firefox to force a complete reload of the webpage, ignoring the local cache).

As for how/why it happened, my best guess is that Minify hasn’t been updated in more than 2 years so it might not be 100% compatible with WordPress 4.0.

Chung

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Chung, thank you so much for your super helpful post. I think you may have it figured out – and thanks for taking the time to do so thorough a look at our site.

I had recently installed 3 new WP plugins, one was W3 Total Cache to speed up our site. And now I believe all this weirdness started after those installations.

After reading your post, I disabled W3 Total Cache…and the site displays perfectly in all 3 browsers viewed as wp-admin or as a user.

I couldn’t find a Minify plugin listed, but a WP forum post https://wordpress.org/support/topic/can-use-wp-minify-plugin-with-w3-total-cache leads me to believe that it is a part of W3 TC??

Question: would you suggest I totally uninstall the plugin or just leave it disabled?

Our site was originally designed in HTML and later re-created in WordPress with the designer’s own theme. It has often created issues for us since it is not a “pure” WP theme. Guess this is another one.

Thanks so much again! I’m off to check the code now to see if the css looks any better.

CSS UPDATE – sorry, couldn’t figure this out at all…a bit above my “tech knowledge level”!!

Linda:)

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Chung, thank you so much for your super helpful post. I think you may have it figured out – and thanks for taking the time to do so thorough a look at our site.

Hi Linda,

You’re welcome.

I had recently installed 3 new WP plugins, one was W3 Total Cache to speed up our site. And now I believe all this weirdness started after those installations.

After reading your post, I disabled W3 Total Cache…and the site displays perfectly in all 3 browsers viewed as wp-admin or as a user.

I couldn’t find a Minify plugin listed, but a WP forum post https://wordpress.org/support/topic/can-use-wp-minify-plugin-with-w3-total-cache leads me to believe that it is a part of W3 TC??

I compared the source code for W3 Total Cache against Minify and although they share the same name for the compression library, they aren’t from the same authors. It turns out that the Minify included in W3 Total Cache is a library (http://code.google.com/p/minify/) with a similar purpose to the original Minify plugin for WordPress. There’s also a second WordPress plugin called “WP Minify” that uses the same library.

Question: would you suggest I totally uninstall the plugin or just leave it disabled?

If you won’t be using it, I recommend uninstalling it. It’s one less plugin to maintain updates for and one less chance of getting bitten by a software bug. Since it’s so easy to install plugins in WordPress, it’s better to install it again when you do need it.

Our site was originally designed in HTML and later re-created in WordPress with the designer’s own theme. It has often created issues for us since it is not a “pure” WP theme. Guess this is another one.

Ah… if there are coding/syntax errors in the original theme, it might be tripping up the parser that’s trying to compact the code. The various rendering engines (e.g. Gecko, WebKit, Blink) handle CSS errors differently so that can cause mixed results between web browsers.

You could try a few of the other Minify-type plugins (some with and without caching) to see if another one might work better for your website.

Another worthwhile tweak (depends on the web hosting service) is to enable compression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_compression). HTTP compression will reduce the size of all the HTML, JavaScript, CSS and other readily compressible content. For websites that are more text than images, it can easily shave 50% or more off of the data transferred, making the website snappier on the client side.

Thanks so much again! I’m off to check the code now to see if the css looks any better.

CSS UPDATE – sorry, couldn’t figure this out at all…a bit above my “tech knowledge level”!!

Linda:)

I can definitely relate. :^_^:

HTML and CSS has gone through so many changes the past few years that it’s difficult to keep up. If it weren’t for WordPress, Drupal and many of the other content management systems, we’d most likely have a lot fewer websites — or at the very least a lot more plain looking ones.

Chung

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FF v33.0.3 was released yesterday, perhaps updating to the latest version may do it.

I don’t know if this has any effect on things although I haven’t noticed any on the odd occasion I use FF, but after updating I still have the old version listed in Programs and Features, but uninstalling it takes out all of FF.

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FF v33.0.3 was released yesterday, perhaps updating to the latest version may do it.

I don’t know if this has any effect on things although I haven’t noticed any on the odd occasion I use FF, but after updating I still have the old version listed in Programs and Features, but uninstalling it takes out all of FF.

Actually, I was having similar problems as IreneLinda, which I was discussing (and you, Sudo, among others, were giving helpful suggestions about) in another thread. My problem involved blank screen on videos in some websites after I updated FF to v. 33.0. Tried switching to IE 11 — no problem on same videos. (I could use IE routinely, but prefer FF, at least when it’s working correctly.) I was about to try and revert to FF v. 32.x, then FF offered update to FF v. 33.0.1 and then 33.0.2 — the latter seemed to solved the problem. Now I updated to v. 33.0.3 when it was offered a couple of days ago, and the problem is back again! Drat!

I initially thought the blank-screen problem might’ve been due to unbidden and unexpected (and unwanted) add-on in v. 33.0 of “OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco Systems,” which I then disabled but couldn’t seem to uninstall, and don’t know if I need it or not. But that may not be causing the blank-screen problem anyway.

When I was updating to v. 33.0.3, I looked at FF bug fixes for v. 33.0 thru 33.0.3 — Mozilla seems to recognize a bug w/ black screen and/or blank screen, but seems to think it’s fixed. If it was fixed, it ain’t now! I tried restarting FF (in normal mode), and also tried restarting the computer and Win 7 itself — nothing changed, apparently. I thought I’d try going back to v. 33.0.2, but now I can’t find how to do that — FF just keeps giving me the message that I’m using the latest version. Anyone have further thoughts?

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FF v33.0.3 was released yesterday, perhaps updating to the latest version may do it.

Thanks, Sudo15. Gave it a try: updated to 33.0.3, cleared cache and… same result. Can’t get my site to display properly.

Checked Programs and Features and only latest FF was listed. Only other Mozilla program listed was a Mozilla Maintenance Service, 10.8.2014 date. Is it okay?

KatMuse is having different issues, but the same challenge figuring out how to correct them!

What has me puzzled now is this and other site “weirdnesses” happening on all 3 browsers, IE, Chrome and FF (my later post in this thread).

Will keep checking sites, browsers, this thread…hopefully, an answer will turn up (and for KatMuse, too!!).

Linda

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The Mozilla Maintenance Service is okay.

It seems strange that it should have spread to all browsers – tends to suggest some sort of infection/adware.

See what a scan with the free version of MBAM makes of it.

You could also try the Anvi Browser Repair Tool.

Click on each icon in the left pane to uncheck anything you don’t want it to change before hitting the Scan button.

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You could always downgrade – see https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/33.0.2/win32/en-US/

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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You could always downgrade – see https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/33.0.2/win32/en-US/

Thanks — will try this. Couldn’t find it before. Going to the link, I see these 3 items:
[DIR] Parent Directory –
[ ] Firefox Setup 33.0.2.exe 28-Oct-2014 02:13 35M
[ ] Firefox Setup Stub 33.0.2.exe 28-Oct-2014 02:14 238K

— Do I want to download all? And does that replace 33.0.3, or do I have to uninstall that one manually? If I don’t uninstall 33.0.3, will that cause a conflict w/ …0.2?

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Try the v33.02 download from http://mozilla_firefox.en.downloadastro.com/old_versions/ but it would be best to uninstall the newer version first.

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My understanding is that you download the larger file (not the one with stub in the name), and it should replace the later version. However, I’ve never actually done this myself so hopefully someone who has can confirm this or state how it’s done.

Some possible helpful pages
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-of-firefox

These two seem to give more positive info
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Go_back_to_an_old_version_of_Firefox
http://www.ghacks.net/2013/08/27/go-back-old-version-firefox/

Backup or image seem to be mandatory

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Wow, thanks so much for the suggestions. I agree with you re. its happening across all browsers.

Run MBAM fairly regularly but will do so again to see if it finds anything; then, if it doesn’t, try the repair tool, new to me as well so I appreciate your instructions on using it.

Will post back and let you know how I do…and thanks again!

Linda

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I run MBAM and SuperAntiSpyware daily, both almost always come up clean, as is currently the case.
Will wait and see what results IreneLinda gets w/ Anvi Browser Repair Tool before pursuing that myself. I think I found a way to get the blanked-out videos to appear (and play) in FF w/o having to switch over to IE-compatible “rendering engine” (which I previously found I could get the videos by doing, via Add-on “Fire-IE v. 0.3.9” — embeds IE browser w/in FF with a quick-switch single click on its icon in the address bar — a slight nuisance, extra step, but manageable). I now also disovered that, due to having Google Disconnect v. 2.4.2 add-on to prevent Google from tracking my visited websites, if I click *that* icon, which suddently also appeared in the address bar, it clears a blocked Google request and releases the blanked-out videos. Weird — something changed there w/o my knowing or choosing it, somehow related to FF 33.0, 33.0.1, and 33.0.3, altho didn’t seem to happen w/ 33.0.2 (or w/ FF 32.x). So I’m living w/ it for now, still in FF 33.0.3, and will see what further problems there might be …

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I run MBAM and SuperAntiSpyware daily, both almost always come up clean, as is currently the case.
Will wait and see what results IreneLinda gets w/ Anvi Browser Repair Tool before pursuing that myself. I think I found a way to get the blanked-out videos to appear (and play) in FF w/o having to switch over to IE-compatible “rendering engine” (which I previously found I could get the videos by doing, via Add-on “Fire-IE v. 0.3.9” — embeds IE browser w/in FF with a quick-switch single click on its icon in the address bar — a slight nuisance, extra step, but manageable). I now also disovered that, due to having Google Disconnect v. 2.4.2 add-on to prevent Google from tracking my visited websites, if I click *that* icon, which suddently also appeared in the address bar, it clears a blocked Google request and releases the blanked-out videos. Weird — something changed there w/o my knowing or choosing it, somehow related to FF 33.0, 33.0.1, and 33.0.3, altho didn’t seem to happen w/ 33.0.2 (or w/ FF 32.x). So I’m living w/ it for now, still in FF 33.0.3, and will see what further problems there might be …

You and Irene have two different problems with hers affecting all browsers.

To check if your problem is because of a conflict with something you have installed on your computer, check to see if it still occurs in a clean boot.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

You may find that link a bit sluggish as on the page I’ve eventually managed to load, includes an aside they are experiencing technical difficulties, so it may be just temporary.

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You and Irene have two different problems with hers affecting all browsers.

To check if your problem is because of a conflict with something you have installed on your computer, check to see if it still occurs in a clean boot.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Also disable the programs under the Startup tab which the tutorial doesn’t include for Win 7.

You may find that link a bit sluggish as on the page I’ve eventually managed to load, includes an aside they are experiencing technical difficulties, so it may be just temporary.

Thanks, Sudo15. Will check out the MS Support link.

I was thinking that even if IreneLinda’s problem manifested differently from mine, both might be due to some common cause or bug in FF 33.

I only have FF and Windows IE as my browsers, don’t have Chrome installed (by intention — I tried it a bit on my previous computer, didn’t like it, and it slowed things down).

When you say a “clean boot,” is that simply restarting the computer? Or does it mean I should start it in safe mode? I did try rebooting before.

Also, are the programs under the Startup tab the ones on the LH side of the Start menu? (As you can see, I’m only semi-knowledgeable about things a lot of PC & Windows users probably take for granted.)

And I see now that FF has just offered upgrade to 33.1 — which may alleviate these problems, altho looking at the FF Notes page w/ Fixed and Unresolved items, it may not fix these problems, or may bring others of its own, so I’m a little reluctant to upgrade immediately….

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Two things to check in these cases:

Has a Flash Player update recently occurred? This would affect all browsers, but not all at the same moment, as they update separately.

Is there a problem at all video sites, or just at some? Some sites are sensitive to cookie-blocking, such as Google Disconnect, while others are less so.

Other possible issues in recent Firefox upgrades related to this behavior:

I have had a problem with sound not playing after a Firefox upgrade, but never with the video showing only black. I have however been able to see this issue when blocking cookies or changing plugin settings.

In my experience, this black video issue is usually a Flash Player issue, or the Cisco H264 plugin taking over from Flash Player (has to be fixed through the plugin options), or I’m blocking too many cookies or scripts for the particular site.

When in Firefox, going to Add-Ons and clicking the Plugins link brings up a list of plugins. You can set the Cisco H264 plugin to Never Activate. Leave Flash Player plugin set to Always Activate. This can remove any conflict between the two plugins. Unliike most plugins, there is no option for the Cisco H264 plugin to Ask To Activate. It’s either Always Activate or Never Activate. I haven’t decided my personal preference between these two options.

In my Firefox (since FF 32.0) there is also something called Shumway, which is native to Firefox, and not a plugin. Shumway tries where possible to give the option of converting Flash Video to HTML-5 on the fly in real time. It is not compatible with some embedded Flash Videos. When Shumway is available, it shows a little box at the lower-right of the video box, and you have to either click on the box (activate Shumway) or close the box with a tiny little X (dismiss Shumway and use Flash Player instead). Until you do one of those two things, the video will be black. The Shumway box and the little X are often hard to see. Shumway can be enabled or disabled, but not by the Add-Ons list. (I personally have not done this, so I don’t know the exact changes needed.)

Here’s a Mozilla article on Shumway and how to enable it:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Shumway#how_do_I_enable_it.3F
These instructions assume you know how to get into the Firefox about:config page. To disable Shumway if you find it is enabled, just set the value to False if the value is already set to True in your Firefox installation.

In my Firefox, after the FF 33 upgrade, I found that Shumway was enabled without my intervention. This could lead to problems at some sites. Personally, I like Shumway with Firefox under Linux for those sites which permit it to work. This is just a personal preference.

Using Shumway under Windows may be more (or less) error prone. Most folks at this time would be wise to keep Shumway disabled, last I was reading about it.

-- rc primak

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That MS link is still down so use the steps in this tutorial for how to perform a clean boot which is when you boot up after disabling start up programs and non-MS services http://www.thewindowsclub.com/what-is-clean-boot-state-in-windows

If FF works fine in the clean boot then it will be a case of adding bits back until the problem reoccurs and then you can leave that item unchecked.

You could try the 33.1 upgrade to see if Mozilla have ironed out the bugs before performing the clean boot as it can be time consuming.

Have you tried the Anvi Browser Tool yet ?

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That MS link is still down so use the steps in this tutorial for how to perform a clean boot which is when you boot up after disabling start up programs and non-MS services http://www.thewindowsclub.com/what-is-clean-boot-state-in-windows

If FF works fine in the clean boot then it will be a case of adding bits back until the problem reoccurs and then you can leave that item unchecked.

You could try the 33.1 upgrade to see if Mozilla have ironed out the bugs before performing the clean boot as it can be time consuming.

Have you tried the Anvi Browser Tool yet ?

Thanks, Sudo15. Haven’t tried Anvi Browser Tool yet. Haven’t had time to go thru clean-boot process yet. Will give FF 33.1 a chance first and see what happens.

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Do you verify your web pages? Go to http://validator.w3.org/ and enter your web page to check it for errors (yours has quite a few!). You could also install Web developer on FF – it gives you a toolbar with various options to help you manage web pages and (by clicking on the tools option) will allow you to check your HTML and CSS. I don’t know if WordPress has any such tools, but ensuring that you have clean code will reduce the likelihood of problems and should mean everyone can see your site correctly.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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access-mdp: Oops, no, I haven’t verified them and I know there are many errors. We lost our web guy a while ago and have been trying to handle things on our (that is, my) own until there are resources to get help.

Thank you for the suggestions and the link. Will check it and FF Developer out. Tried to fix errors on Buy page and others myself without much luck last night (I copy page onto a new test page before playing around!).

gadget: You are unbelievable! What a treasure trove of information as well as answers to ALL my questions/concerns. I have lots to do now and will work at trying out all these ideas over the next several days.

Once I’ve made some progress, I’ll post back on how things turned out.

Meanwhile, I’m praying for a webmaster!!:rolleyes:

Many thanks,

Linda

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