Blurred text in browsers

[Giraffe]

Presently running Firefox ESR v45.4 and Pale Moon v26.5; both are OK.
Out of curiosity I've just tried Pale Moon v27, the portable version as I don't want to risk the present one. All of the GUI text, including Bookmarks etc., was blurry, too small and slightly malformed.
Tried portable Cyberfox - same result.
Installed Cyberfox, still the same.
I have no idea what's causing this. No tweaking in the browser is any good, except that Classic Theme Restorer (bundled with Cyberfox) did correct the tabs - until a restart.

Any ideas please?

[virtuo]

Presuming you are running Win 8/10 and a 1440p/4k screen?

Try this:

Right click the browser shortcut or quick launch icon => Properties

Go to the "Compatibility" tab and tick the "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.

[Dashers]

Didn't your mother tell you how to avoid blurry vision?

[satrow]

Only in the GUI suggests an extension or maybe the Windows GDI, (possibly a Windows Update patch), what's in the Graphics subsection in Pale Moon's about:support page? List of extensions/plugins? OS and age of the install?

[Giraffe]

Disabling the display scaling didn't work :-(
The OS is W7 Pro SP1; screen is 1960x1200 and is OK in all other apps. The display drivers (Intels Iris Pro) are up-to date and other browsers, as I've said, work well.
I've a lot of extensions in the PM and FF that I currently use; the new PM and Cyberfox are 'out of the box'.

Just tried Cyberfox by pressing Shift as I start it. With 'all' of the extensions disabled, as it starts in Safe Mode, the text is OK. Now, the only extension is Classic Theme Restorer and that's part of Cyberfox and isn't shown in the Extensions at all.

Can't find anything in PM's pages, but it's a rather undefined subject (>1000 hits on the most likely words!). There was a mention of a problem 2 versions ago - cured 3 years ago.

[realnikb]

Have you tried any browser that isn't Mozilla based?

There was an old bug with protected mode for Shockwave Flash on Firefox a while back.

Go to addons, plugins and find Shockwave Flash. Then click "more" and disable "Enable Adobe Flash protected mode".

[satrow]

Was the mention of the cured problem made by Moonchild referring to the IE 10/11 Platform Update? That's why I asked about the age of the install, I hit that from ~r1/2 of that KB (I first installed it as a Beta ~3 months previous) on 2 machines. Somewhere down the line (I reckon there must have been 14+ versions of that update/KB page) MS 'fixed' most of the bugs created/triggered by it but for many, a fresh install was needed to clean it up!

KB 2670838 - The EVIL UPDATE and Platform update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Still, I don't think yours quite fits any reports I can recall from that period and is certainly different to the display problems I had. Try Safe Mode with both affected browsers (hold down Shift when you click the icon(s) to start the browser and see if it still exists in either.

[Giraffe]

Have you tried any browser that isn't Mozilla based?

There was an old bug with protected mode for Shockwave Flash on Firefox a while back.

Go to addons, plugins and find Shockwave Flash. Then click "more" and disable "Enable Adobe Flash protected mode".

That made no difference, but thanks for the suggestion.

I have Ungoogled Chromium and that's OK.

[Giraffe]

Was the mention of the cured problem made by Moonchild referring to the IE 10/11 Platform Update? That's why I asked about the age of the install, I hit that from ~r1/2 of that KB (I first installed it as a Beta ~3 months previous) on 2 machines. Somewhere down the line (I reckon there must have been 14+ versions of that update/KB page) MS 'fixed' most of the bugs created/triggered by it but for many, a fresh install was needed to clean it up!

KB 2670838 - The EVIL UPDATE and Platform update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Still, I don't think yours quite fits any reports I can recall from that period and is certainly different to the display problems I had. Try Safe Mode with both affected browsers (hold down Shift when you click the icon(s) to start the browser and see if it still exists in either.

The Pale Moon is the latest Beta, 'installed' Portable) 3 days ago; Cyberfox at the same time.

That 'evil' kb was around PM 24 and my regular PM is 26 and not affected.

Starting Cyberfox in Safe Mode corrects the text but, as I've said, the only add-on is Classic Theme Restorer and that's not visible as it's part of Cyberfox. I can get at the CTR options, of course, but not remove it. Trying various defaults in CTR doesn't help.

Pale Moon is the same - Flash mode makes no difference, neither does Safe Mode. There are no add-ons at all.

[satrow]

Okay, I think your best bet is to create a Topic in the Community Support section of the Pale Moon forum and see if one of the techier folks can shed some light on it for you.

(I also had some random graphical oddities occas. in other, non-browser, software after the Evil KB, you've not seen anything like that?)

[Giraffe]

Not had trouble with any other apps.

Yes, been thinking of registering with PM.
Just glad that I didn't upgrade, especially as adding any extension freezes the browser.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

[satrow]

Just approved your topic over there, hope you get to the bottom of it quick

[Giraffe]

Moonchild is very helpful and, I hope, sorting out this will address the issue with PM, Cyberfox and Iris Pro.
Basically, changing one setting in PM (layers.acceleration.disabled) to True solves it. More generally on the system, setting Iris' anti-aliasing to Off (both choices) works even with the setting in PM at default.
Seems to be better to let the apps' settings manage anti-aliasing, rather than have a clash with the video driver.

[satrow]

Nice work, Peter, hope I can remember the steps when someone else has a similar issue

[Giraffe]

satrow, it's just clicked - are you, um, Pale Moon?

[satrow]

(Moonchild you mean?) Nope.

I'm just a long-time user and beta tester, more recently a moderator there.