Try disabling Hardware Acceleration in Options > Advanced -> General

UPDATE: I turned off the hardware acceleration and now I can see emoticons but I still have those strange heaps of emoticons on my desktop. I suspect/hope when I'll restart the PC they won't appear anymore.... I'll update the post.

Missing icons are usually supplied by a font that is downloaded from the server (@font-face) as you might see by little boxes that show the hex code of the characters instead. If you have a font installed that covers this Unicode range then you may see a real (CJK) character and not the little box with the CSS code.

Make sure that you allow pages to choose their own fonts.

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

You can check the gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled pref on the about:config page and make sure that it is set to true (if necessary double-click the line to toggle its value).

cor-el said

Missing icons are usually supplied by a font that is downloaded from the server (@font-face) as you might see by little boxes that show the hex code of the characters instead. If you have a font installed that covers this Unicode range then you may see a real (CJK) character and not the little box with the CSS code. Make sure that you allow pages to choose their own fonts.

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

You can check the gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled pref on the about:config page and make sure that it is set to true (if necessary double-click the line to toggle its value).

Thanks for your reply, however both options you mentioned where turned on so I ruled them out. They're not causing these problems.

Concerning the HW accelleration, I solved the problem disabling it or rather I should say I avoided it since I don't have the problem anymore but the webpages don't look cool as they used to.

Is there a way to really solve the problem? I mean activating the HW accelleration and fixing this bug. I don't get why that happens because I did not change anything in my browser in the last 5 days. I even updated firefox to the latest version when I've noticed the bug but nothing changed! I hope someone knows how to sort this out :/

Update your video drivers and then see if hardware acceleration can be enabled without causing graphics problems.

Overall HA is greatly improved from when it was first added to Firefox, but there are a few video chip brands (mostly GPU's and some onboard IGP's [integrated processing units]) that are still causing problems. Mozilla is working on getting those in order with almost every new version of Firefox.

Basically Firefox automatically disables HA when it "senses" the video driver or chip isn't "up-to-snuff"; some of the onboard IGP's can't be enabled at all (usually older or low end, basic chips), while with others Mozilla leaves it up to the user by letting them enable HA to see if it will work with glitches. With video card type GPU's (~10% of the market [as of 2011]) both the real low-end cards and the high-end "gaming" cards seem to be problematic from my studies last month when I was spec'ing out a new PC build for myself. So in your situation updated drivers just may work, being that you can enable HA now but with minor glitches.

Please provide a screenshot of your problem with " heaps of emoticons on my desktop." {as mentioned by cor-el) That issue is different from the website image and Firefox UI "tearing" that you circled in red in the screenshot that you initially posted. BTW, "emoticons" are something different that what would be displayed on the Windows desktop; iirc, Windows uses .bmp files for desktop images - which are usually used in websites..

Hello I Used to have that issue also on website like photobucket. When those icon are showing as numbers, one can not click them to use em.

Thus why this works >

• Bulleted list item Tools > Options > Content : Fonts & Colors > Advanced: [X] "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above"

Since I disabled the HA those heaps of emoticons don't appear anymore so I cannot take a screenshot of them on the desktop.

I already tried to upgrade my video drivers before registering on this forum, but there was a problem. I can't install the most recent drivers for my videocard (Ati mobility radeon HD 5730) released on 2014. I tried using ATI setup trough "ATI catalyst center" and it stuck up. After I tried using windows' guided installation but it crashed and windows restarted but I couldn't see anything so I had to use a restore point.

I'm using drivers from 2010 and I don't know if there are others released among 2010 and 2014. It was strange that PC reacted like that because I downloaded them from ATI website.

I don't want to start doing hardware support here, but did you see an update for the Catalyst Center software? I wonder if that might help you with getting those 2014 drivers installed, assuming that you have the original Catalyst software from when that computer was first built. Did you use the autodetect utility offered on this page? http://support.amd.com/en-us/download Or did you manually select the drivers?

the-edmeister said

assuming that you have the original Catalyst software from when that computer was first built.

can someone, please, tell me what started this whole issue ? and by disabling the hardware acceleration, what will I miss ? how will it affect my browsing ?

the-edmeister said

I don't want to start doing hardware support here, but did you see an update for the Catalyst Center software? I wonder if that might help you with getting those 2014 drivers installed, assuming that you have the original Catalyst software from when that computer was first built. Did you use the autodetect utility offered on this page? http://support.amd.com/en-us/download Or did you manually select the drivers?

I thought that updating catalyst drivers would have been useful so I went on the website you posted and I downloaded the 2014 drivers from there. I found the drivers using the drop-down lists. I'm pretty sure I downloaded the right drivers but I'll check again to be sure.

Chaand said

the-edmeister said

assuming that you have the original Catalyst software from when that computer was first built.

can someone, please, tell me what started this whole issue ? and by disabling the hardware acceleration, what will I miss ? how will it affect my browsing ?

I really don't know, I didn't do any change in my pc setting, it just started to happen.

Shotokhan said

I really don't know, I didn't do any change in my pc setting, it just started to happen.

the same here, without any changes it just started. I don't get it ... :/ I'm assuming it has something to do with windows updates, few days before I installed some security updates, nothing to do with graphics or drivers.

Answer for Shotokhan

Firefox isn't "static". Hardware acceleration is being tweaked with almost every new version to fix it where it doesn't work properly and where the video chip maker's make improvements to their video driver's or bring new video chips to the market. Mozilla has to keep up with the changes made on the web, like the gradual transition to HTML5 on websites, which in many cases eliminates the need for (problematic and too easily hacked) "buggy" plugins like Flash, Reader, and Silverlight. Sometimes "change" is painful and some users may have to update or replace their hardware, or deal with "lost" features.

If newer drivers are available for what you have, you should update your drivers. Otherwise you may get "glitches" and have to turn off hardware acceleration to get rid of the "glitches", and live with the lack of "acceleration". Or, if you're on a desktop PC you can install a newer GPU / video card that works better with the programs which you use - like Firefox. IMO, AMD / ATI chips work better than the GeForce and Nvidia branded chips, based upon my research last month for a new PC I was building for myself. I installed an AMDcard made by Asus and had a minor issue with the drivers that came with the card which were dated 2012; located and installed drivers from Nov 2014 (6 months ago) and I dont seem to be having any problems. On laptops the solution isn't as easy as installing a new video card.

Chaand said

the-edmeister said

assuming that you have the original Catalyst software from when that computer was first built.

can someone, please, tell me what started this whole issue ? and by disabling the hardware acceleration, what will I miss ? how will it affect my browsing ?

Please start your own thread here - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new - and please provide all the requested information in your initial posting, like your Trouble Shooting information - so we know what you have. No charge for starting your own support thread for us yo help you solve your issues.

Your problem may sound the same or be the same, but chances are your hardware is different than what we're dealing with in this thread.

To give you a quick answer - Firefox probably changed something and you may need to update your video drivers, too. Or just disable hardware acceleration. As I mentioned to the Owner of this thread, Firefox doesn't stay "static", there may be changes related to the "video" in every new version. The "price" of progress.

Since I've broken my foot and I live far from my home in this period I need my pc so I won't try anything that could make it stop working. Without my pc I wouldn't know how to spend the enormous amount of spare time I have right now.

If this post will still be open in a month (more or less) I'll write to update and help you helping me. Meanwhile thank you all for your help.