Screen Glitches only in Firefox browser Slows PC so much forces me to reboot
I've posted this before, but I can't seem to find it on here plus never got a response. This weirdness happens out of left field on multiple different sites but very infrequently and only when I'm using the most-up-to-date Firefox browser. I'll be surfing the web sometimes for hours, and then all of a sudden, the screen will start glitching. It seems like Firefox is also opening either copies of that page or last night it opened some from 2 years ago which makes no sense as again, I haven't visited them in 2 years (they're dated news feeds so I know when). So I'll have at least 9 tiny screens (they're not browser pages as there's no header or close button) full of either copies of what I was just viewing or old pages. Also, this causes my computer to have slow responses so it will take 20-30 seconds to get a mouse click to register (like trying to close Firefox or opening task manager). This requires a restart which almost always fixes the problem.
I have no malware, and before last night and this morning, I hadn't had this issue for over a week. This had started about a month ago after over a decade of using Firefox with 0 issues. This has been on numerous different websites too so it isn't just a bad browser interaction with one site's code either. This is on a fully updated Windows 11 PC with an NVIDIA video card and an I7 Intel 8-core processor.
All Replies (5)
Does it still happen with hardware acceleration disabled?
I find it odd that it would be that since it is incredibly infrequent and across wildly different sites, and I've had this PC and full video card (vs on motherboard) for almost 2 years. However, I'll try it and see if that solves the problem. All my drivers are up-to-date as they auto-update or notify me when an update is out and I install it (that's how the video card works).
Honestly, about the only thing the sites have in common is they have a message/post area though like on a Yahoo story you have to click that area to have it display. But it has happened on there, Facebook, a couple of forums, GoComics, and a few others at varying lengths of both my PC being on that Firefox browsing session (I started shutting Firefox down periodically after this started which sometimes seemed to work though again, wildly infrequent occurrence to begin with).
Can you attach a screenshot of the glitches?
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem
- use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
Do you only have one profile folder if you check this on the about:profiles page and on the hard drive in case you start Firefox with another profile ?
You can read more about accidentally starting a different profile in this article.
cor-el said
Can you attach a screenshot of the glitches?I can't as it messes everything up when it starts glitching out. The best way I can describe it is I have a 27" monitor running the default resolution of 2560x1440 with an HDMI hookup so most sites like Facebook and Yahoo when reading stuff is centered in the middle 3rd of the screen with a lot of blank spaces on the side. Now, imagine you could have 6 small browser windows open stacked 3 on each side in that blank space sometimes copies of what you're viewing and sometimes random pages you've viewed before or months or years ago with what you're viewing copying on the screen in the center like you're dragging it around on top of that image (so it is all glitchy but recognizable). It always starts with the glitching then the more I just move the mouse around I'll have the extra windows appear (just without the top header part so almost like a screenshot of a browser page with that top area cropped out).
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem
- use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
zeroknight said
Does it still happen with hardware acceleration disabled?
I've had hardware acceleration turned off since you suggested it, but it hasn't solved the problem just reduced the glitching. Now, instead of having multiple images appear on the screen, I get some slight screen tearing when scrolling (so you'll get a line across the screen and/or a line of text will get stretched out) and then the slow responses start on my PC. Mouse clicks take seconds to register and everything is sluggish until I restart the computer.
The basic thing I think is wrong is Firefox is struggling with scrolling for some reason (again, same PC and mouse for well over a year so this is something that has changed on Firefox's end recently). I usually use page up/page down instead of scrolling for hand and wrist health, but sometimes it's easier to scroll which is when I run into problems. The bigger issue is why Firefox glitching out like that is affecting my entire computer forcing a restart instead of just closing Firefox. Pulling up Task Manager after I shut the browser down showed minimal CPU usage and only 40% memory usage so it clearly isn't that kind of issue. It's almost like Firefox having issues is messing up Windows 11 too. I hope someone from Mozilla will see this and work on fixing it. It's still pretty rare and is easily fixed, but it is incredibly annoying and does only happen when I'm using Firefox, never when playing a game or using Microsoft Edge.