Firefox - adding tabs and repainting problem

[kbunt]

I have no idea what this means. It might be inherent in Firefox but just noticed it now. You add a new tab and there is still a line through the other tabs near the bottom. It's very sloppy looking and seems like a bug. A bug for who? I dunno...

You decide...

When you move the mouse over the tabs, it re-paints it properly except for the tab you're using. Could this be the screen resolution being an issue? I am not sure.

[kbunt]

Re: Firefox - adding tabs and repainting problem

Well, if no one cares about that, maybe they'll be curious about this defect...

What does it mean when flash player has no video playing, only sound?

It's just a grey screen with sound playing.

Any idea?

[dibl]

Re: Firefox - adding tabs and repainting problem

Possibly those are related issues. They're both video problems, and if I recall you've had some driver installation challenges. I'm not sure that KDM is working totally right there, yet. What graphics chip or card are you using?

[kbunt]

Re: Firefox - adding tabs and repainting problem

Well, the drivers seem to be installled - the resolution is showing 1680 x 1050 and there's an Nvidia settings panel. It's a EVGA 7950 GT card.

I started to think it might be a Flash 10 issue. Some videos would play but others would only play audio but the video screen would remain grey (i.e. grey box). I googled and noticed other people having the same issue but I'm not sure yet what it means.

I'm running Kubuntu 8.10 64-bit version so I was wondering if the combo of that and Flash 10 had some issue I was not familiar with.

[dibl]

Re: Firefox - adding tabs and repainting problem

Hmmmmmm. Or maybe not flash, maybe the mplayer or vlc plugin. Make sure you have installed the package named mozilla-mplayer.

I have a pretty complete Firefox 3.0.4 setup on both my Kubuntu and my sidux installations, all updated and with flash and the plugins installed. But, on sidux, there's at least one site that won't launch the mplayer plugin correctly. It plays videos correctly in Kubuntu, with what appears to be an identical browser setup. Here's the site:

http://www.elsevier.nl/web/Video.htm

I don't speak Dutch -- it's just a test site I use to check whether all the browser plugins are working, because it seems to be particularly tough to play. If it doesn't launch for you, then that's not flash, it's the media player. Even when it's working, you sometimes have to let it load and then stop, then press the "pause" button, then press "play" to play it. It takes a few seconds to load enough data into cache to play correctly.

Other sites I use to test the browser plugins:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

http://www.foxnews.com/

http://abcnews.go.com/

And of course youtube.

[kbunt]

Re: Firefox - adding tabs and repainting problem

Hmmmmmm. Or maybe not flash, maybe the mplayer or vlc plugin. Make sure you have installed the package named mozilla-mplayer.

I have a pretty complete Firefox 3.0.4 setup on both my Kubuntu and my sidux installations, all updated and with flash and the plugins installed. But, on sidux, there's at least one site that won't launch the mplayer plugin correctly. It plays videos correctly in Kubuntu, with what appears to be an identical browser setup. Here's the site:

http://www.elsevier.nl/web/Video.htm

And of course youtube.

Well, I've only noticed it on youtube but that's the extent of the tests so far. The strange thing is, though, is that some of the youtube videos start okay while others only have sound as I've said with the grey box where the video (for a second, it starts out as a black box?) should be. I don't know what that is indicating but I was only guessing it's a flash 10 issue and maybe there's a connection to using a 64-bit distro. I haven't tried youtube in any other 64-bit distros (with Flash 10) since I don't have any other ones installed at the moment. But, I'm planning on installing 64-bit Debian Lenny soon.

I don't understand why some would play while others don't. I googled and some people were complaining about a similar issue. The solution/answer given had to do with hardware acceleration but I am wondering if it depends on the quality/format of the video chosen. Just a guess, though. Most likely, that is wrong.

I am surprised, though, that not more people are talking about it. I am sure it's not isolated to my computer.

Btw, I'm posting this via another computer that doesn't have flash 10 and/or a 64-bit distro. It's Mepis 7. I'll try your tests on my amd64 Kubuntu 8.10 partition as soon as I'm on it.

[kbunt]

Re: Firefox - adding tabs and repainting problem

For anyone who cares, I think I fixed the flash problem. Problem was, I foolishly installed nsplugin and the 32-bit Flash from the repository. DUH! So, I digged around and eventually found the instructions on installing the 64-bit Flash 10 for Linux.

I don't know if I did it exactly right but it seems to be working so far.

The Firefox 'tabs' are still painting improperly. I am not sure if it's a resolution problem but it's like they don't fit and they're compressed into the browser window so the top part is 'repeated' near the lower part of the tab (but it's light grey while the rest of the tab is dark grey). That probably makes no sense but someone who might have a similar setup (64-bit Kubuntu with 1680 x 1050 resolution and Nvidia drivers and maybe 7900 series card) will know what I'm talking about.

When you put the mouse pointer over the tab, the 'tab' is gone and you only see the text. That is, it all blends together in the colour grey with text and a small icon/logo on the left.

The main tab remains but sorry, it is kinda sloppy looking.