The webpage area freezes but the title bar is still working.
Just installed windows 8.1 64 bit on my acer laptop 5750G. I have the portable version of firefox (don't know if this "good" or not) downloaded from portableapps.com. It was working fine on windows 7 (it was 32 bit). Is it all because this 64/32 bit thing?
I even tried to search for a non-portable (the common one we all use) firefox 64 bit but it seems there isn't any version like that and somehow I understood it works with both 32 & 64 thingies. So, Now, What Should I do?
Here's what happens with me:
Randomly, The webpage "area" stops responding (it hangs) ; then when I click on another tab the title bar changes to the name of the tab but the webpage area doesn't change.
It happened twice so far. On the third time that happened; I clicked on each other tab and dragged them out to form a new window of firefox. and it worked. they all got separated but the one that froze was actually "draggable" but still not responsive. So I just closed it and went on my session. Of course this is not a solution.
Did it happen to any of you guys? What could be the solution for this problem?
All Replies (3)
hello husseinmoussa, maybe that's an issue with hardware acceleration - please try updating your graphics driver, or in case this doesn't solve the issue or there is no new version available at the moment, disable hardware acceleration in the firefox menu ≡ > options > advanced > general (that setting will take a restart of the browser to take effect).
philipp said
hello husseinmoussa, maybe that's an issue with hardware acceleration - please try updating your graphics driver, or in case this doesn't solve the issue or there is no new version available at the moment, disable hardware acceleration in the firefox menu ≡ > options > advanced > general (that setting will take a restart of the browser to take effect).
Thanks a lot! :) I have a feeling this could be it yeah. But let me use this opportunity and ask you about this option; I see it a lot in many places; this "hardware acceleration" thingy. May I ask what does it do?! :O I've a similar problem on my android device when I used a certain video player app and i had to enable it..or disable it! frankly I don't remember..hehe :D But seriously, Let me use the opportunity that I finally found someone who knows something about it. Could you please tell me about this feature? Or maybe just direct me to links or articles or something if you don't have time. Thanks a lot! :D :)
Update:
Sorry I didn't click the link :$ I guess I understood some of the issue here. fair enough.
Thanks. :$ :D
Modified by husseinmoussa
your pc and your mobile devices will have a processor for general computation (cpu) and a dedicated graphics chip (gpu). traditionally the cpu is used to render the interface of the browser and content of websites - however for certain types of content the gpu is far more effective in rendering and compositing, because it is optimized for such scenarios. this will mean a increase in performance and energy efficiency. on the other hand this might introduce glitches dependent on the graphics hardware and driver versions, which are rather hard to debug in general (that's why i have also recommend to try a driver update, since they often contain fixes for bugs). so in short: if it's working correctly hardware acceleration will greatly increase performance but it can also bring graphical glitches and instability in some cases.
if you are interested in the topic, here would be a (rather technical) talk about hardware acceleration and firefox: https://archive.fosdem.org/2014/schedule/event/graphics_in_gecko/
some other resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_acceleration https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/09/hardware-acceleration https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/hardware-acceleration-and-compositing/