Problems with Firefox fonts in Windows 7?

June 13, 2013 10:08 AM

The past few days (beginning of this week?) I've been having a problem with fonts acting wonky in Firefox at work... They look like partially loaded progressive JPEGs. I'm using Windows 7 (a dell computer, nothing fancy). I feel like it's trying to render them progressively and then the cleartype isn't functioning properly, so only some of the colors load, leaving a sort of "blocky" look to it.

It's especially egregious in Facebook, and at first I thought it was only Facebook, but other sites also seem to have the problem, though not quite as bad, as far as I can tell.

Is anybody else having this problem? I've tried adjusting cleartype settings, making sure my resolution is right (i.e. native for the screen)... I don't think this is a problem happening outside of Firefox, but I could be wrong... I suppose I should try Chrome and IE to see if it's doing something similar there. When I refresh the page, sometimes it clears up, sometimes, it fixes the current problem spot, but then renders other areas faultily...

posted by symbioid to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Response by poster: Just firing up Chrome right now, and it seems fine in it after a few page refreshes/resizing windows, etc... So, maybe just a firefox thing?
posted by symbioid at 10:13 AM on June 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Upon further googling, I found this, which seems to be the culprit:

The actual problem (atleast for me and a few others) is due to a windows update kb2670838. This update applies performance patches to Direct2D, 3D, and Write related components. The reason disabling usage of Direct2D or hardware acceleration fixes it is because its simply not using those Direct___ functions anymore.

In the Update history, 2670838 is listed as: Platform update for Microsoft Windows (KB2670838) In the Installed updates, 2670838 is listed as: Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2670838)

Again, uninstalling this update solved the problem for me and a few others, hopefully it will solve your problems correctly as well.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2670838

Here's the full page with various options to try to resolve the issue... I will report back if it works so it can help others if so.
posted by symbioid at 10:37 AM on June 13, 2013

Best answer: Yes, I had this problem with Firefox. I simply turned hardware acceleration off rather than uninstalling the update (Options>Advanced>General). I have had no further font problems, and I haven't noticed any new problems without hardware acceleration.
posted by Kriesa at 10:41 AM on June 13, 2013

For what it's worth, here's the Firefox bug report tracking this issue.
posted by mbrubeck at 12:01 PM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]