Firefox extension flickers with second display on Dell E Series laptops

Marcel van den Brink

Since this morning I installed FF11 on my Win7 (64bit) machine.



I now see the icon in FF and clicking it opens the popup, but it is flickering so much, that it has become useless. I cannot click my logins... and even during the entering of my master password it is flickering and sometimes I need to start over again or the contents of the popup turns white and the popup closes.



I have 1Password version 1.0.9.288

Plugin version 3.9.0



I have already removed the plugin a couple of times and reinstalling it (from file), but there is no change in the behaviour.

khad

Welcome to the forums, Marcel. I'm sorry that you are having this problem.



This is not something we have previously encountered, so perhaps you can provide some more details.



The first thing I would suggest is simply [url="http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Managing-profiles"]creating a new Firefox profile[/url], installing only the 1Password extension, and seeing if the issue persists.



If that resolves the issue, add back your other extensions one by one until the problem occurs once more. That will give us a clue if it is a possible conflict with another extension.



Please let me know how it goes in the new profile.

Marcel van den Brink

I have created a new profile and installed only the 1Password extension, but it gave me the same result.



More system information:



Firefox 11.0

Win7 Professional - SP1



Don't know if it is interesting to know which antivirus program I'm running, but in case it is:



ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.2.71.2



... and no, I am not able to disable it. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' />

Stefan von Dutch

[quote name='Marcel van den Brink' timestamp='1332336703' post='59003']

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.2.71.2

[/quote]



Please follow the steps in this document: http://help.agilebits.com/1Password_Windows/antivirus-configuration.html#eset_nod32_antivirus

Marcel van den Brink

One thing that I did not do yesterday... and what suddenly solved my issue, is a total reboot of the system!



The flickering has ended and I am happy again. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skype_bigsmile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-D' />

khad

Good news! Thanks for updating the thread to let us know. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />



If you have any further trouble, please do alert us.



Cheers,

Marcel van den Brink

Got the problem again! And I now know what is causing it... Yesterday I was at home with my laptop and everyting worked okay. Today back at work and the flickering was there (same as the day before yesterday). The difference between the two situations is the display. Yesterday single screen on my laptop. Today dual screen with the laptop screen disabled.



I enabled the laptop screen and moved my browser to that screen and there was no flickering. Moving it back to the external screens brought the flickering back.

khad

Could it be an issue with your display driver? We are not able to reproduce the issue using an external monitor in any of our testing. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skype_worried.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':S' />

Marcel van den Brink

Drivers are up to date. (Unfortunately I would say)



System: Dell Latitude E6520

Graphics: nVidia NVS4200M

khad

Very strange. Do you notice anything similar with any other apps or extensions? I'm kind of hoping it is a bug in the driver which will be fixed in an update, but since we are not able to reproduce it it will be very hard for us to track down on our end if the problem is in the extension itself.



One little thing to try, though I would be surprised if it helped:



[b]Disable autosave in the extension's settings[/b]



[img]https://img.skitch.com/20120323-b23p4rgd8xu3dxm4851je7hay1.png[/img]

(Pardon the Mac screenshot, I just happened to have it handy.)



This has been shown to create some performance improvements in Firefox for various reasons that we are investigating, and I'm curious if it would make a difference in the extension itself.



Let me know how it goes.

Marcel van den Brink

Just as you expected... this did not help.

dstreufe

I am running the latest version (as of 3/28/12). When I click on the add-on icon in the Firefox 11 toolbar, and move the mouse over the list, the entire list (along with all buttons flickers and/or disappears/reappears). I have re-installed the Firefox add-on, and tried disabling all other firefox add-ons to no avail. Any ideas?



It works fine on my home PC, but not at work. AV is McAfee, but I see no alerts or blocked actions. Other than the flickering, it does work (if you manage to click on the right spot in the box that is sometimes there, sometimes not).



Thanks,

Dan

khad

Welcome to the forums, Dan. Can you try the beta version of the extension and let me know if that helps?



Are you seeing this on a secondary display? Or is it happening on your primary display?

dstreufe

Updated to the latest beta version just now. Same thing occurs. The contents of the window (which appears when you click on the icon) comes and goes as the mouse is moved. If the mouse is stationary, the contents of the window remain either present (or not there, replaced with white space) depending on what was displayed at the exact moment the mouse stops moving. At times the entire pop-up window disappears as well.



This is on a Dell laptop w/ trackpad and logitech mouse (if it matters). I uninstalled the logitech drivers and it didn't seem to make a difference. There is some software that comes with the trackpad, but I don't have any of the "wierd" settings active. I don't even use the trackpad much as this thing is almost permanently docked.



I do have 2 monitors, however the behaviour occurs on both. Win 7x64, latest firefox, etc.... Video is nVidia.



--Dan

khad

Do you have the problem if you disconnect the second monitor?

dstreufe

Not sure, will try it. However, everything works fine if I am connected to the PC via RDP.



--Dan

dstreufe

FYI, I am having similar problems.. Also a Dell E-series laptop with external monitor....



--Dan

khad

Dan I was waiting for a bit more confirmation that it was the same issue before merging the threads, but I think it is likely the same problem. You never got back to me after your March 30 post. [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Do you have the problem if you disconnect the second monitor?[/font][/color]

legacytom

I am experiencing exactly the same issues described in this tread on a Dell Latitude E series. The behavior does stop is I disconnect the 2nd monitor and run on the laptop only.

Chris White

Hey Tom, out of curiosity what graphics card are you running in that Dell? I've seen this before with a Firefox GPU that went south and stopped having trouble with things when I replaced it. However, it wasn't exclusive to 1Password & Firefox.

khad

Those of you with this problem, could you please try disabling hardware acceleration in Firefox and let me know if that resolves the problem for you?



In Firefox, [b]Options > Advanced > UNCHECK "Use hardware acceleration when available"[/b] on the General tab.



I have one report from a user who says this solves the problem for him, and a bit of Googling seems to indicate that Firefox's hardware "acceleration" may be anything but. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' />

wolfdancer

Hi,



Just want to let you know that this fix works for me! Thank you so much!



Another thing that I have discovered is that this happens when I have my laptop docked with laptop screen turned off. If I have laptop screen on in addition to the monitors, it works. Hopefully others find this tip useful.

khad

Welcome to the forums, wolfdancer! Thanks for confirming the fix and providing that additional information. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />



Cheers,