Black Screen

[deustroop]

Using FF 54 x64, Win 10 with CU.
I get the black screen, like all the time, and its very annoying, just like the white screen issue reported in another thread. It is intermittent but a regular occurrence. I have tried the steps to renew the browser, safe mode etc., with no success. A part of the screen goes black, then the entire screen. The frame remains with menu items, and the browser can change sites, the curser is active, etc., but there are no graphics. Launching another Tab or window gives a white page which then instantly disappears leaving the black screen. Closing and reopening the browser corrects the problem. The event does not happen with IE 11.

Windows 10 event viewer says that "the display driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered" listing event ID 4101.The posted solution on Windows forums is to increase a delay in the display driver timing but that does not improve the browser graphics. This is an old problem but there is no solution on the NVIDIA forum. I have of course changed drivers. Did I say IE 11 does not have the problem ?

Maybe a bright light here has the solution ?

[smsmith]

In Tools -> Options -> Advanced, General. Make sure that "Use hardware acceleration when available" is unchecked. Restart Firefox and see if the black screen issue returns.

[deustroop]

I have tried that, thx, with no effect.

[smsmith]

In some cases, it also takes a computer restart after turning off hardware acceleration to make sure it is really off. Have you restarted the computer after turning off hardware acceleration?

Is the part of the screen that goes black ONLY the part where the Firefox window is, or is it other parts outside of the Firefox window?

[deustroop]

It is only the browser screen that is affected. The frame , with menus, etc., still works but no colours . Like a failed refresh.I turned acceleration off again to be sure and will see if it helps this time. I will check memory usage too but I have 32 GB so that should not be a problem.

[dickvl]

This could be out-of-memory related that Firefox is using (too) much memory and isn't able to allocate memory.
You could check regularly this on the about:memory page to see if the memory usage is rising.

[deustroop]

Right now--no error--It creates two processes and uses ~450MB.I have 32 GB.

[deustroop]

I haven't had a blackout since I removed acceleration a few days ago. So I will re enable and see what happens.

[deustroop]

The black screen came back. So there I go--hardware acceleration. So how to fix that because I notice quite a difference when there is no acceleration on BBs I use. Why does acceleration cause this problem and is there a solution ?

[JayhawksRock]

Often that acceleration problem can be caused by a graphics driver that is out of date for your system. Check with the driver maker and/or Windows to see if there is an update for your driver.
https://encrypted.google.com/search?sit ... heLkuiwH0Y

[deustroop]

Ok,
I installed the latest gtx 970 driver for windows 10. Let's see if that helps.
I'm not optimistic because the dark screen stated with the installation of the CU.So apparently it's a Nvidia solution to a FF problem arising from a Windows Update.
Eh ?

[deustroop]

Black screen is still happening this am, i.e., with the latest driver and hardware acceleration enabled. I'm at a total loss. I have to remove HA to have a FF that works properly.Any other ideas ?

[w0wkin]

I have the same problem since 54 beta, stable 54 and on current beta 55. Black/white screen randomly, but it was gone sometime ago and came back again more often after some FF beta channel update, so I think they still playing, because when it's gone FF began to crash instead of showing black screen. Yea, pretty fun, I know. The only solution is to use ESR version of FF, but it also lacks some features.

[Brummelchen]

white screen may firefox, but

"the display driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered" listing event ID 4101

is definitely windows driver issue. you should ask a windows support forum for this. and this include a full analysis of windows, maybe windows itself is broken, or CU is buggy on your computer - or your windows is outdated with updates.

[deustroop]

The source of the issue has to deal with the fact that it does NOT happen with IE 11. That should rule out all the factors you suggest. I have all updates and posted on a windows forum, the Nvidia forum, AnandTech and here. If it is a CU bug, since that's approx. when the issue began, then I wonder why IE does not cause the black screen as well since IE 11 also uses hardware acceleration?