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Firefox culprit for "reduced leading" in PREFS.JS: FLASH PLUGIN!!!
As I continued to try and chase down my "reduced leading" problem whenever I visited certain forum web sites and then closed/re-opened Firefox, I carefully compared my PREFS.JS from a "perfect, working" copy vs. what PREFS.JS looked like right after closing the very first Firefox session after restoring that perfect PREFS.JS.
And very suspiciously, the only thing that had changed in PREFS.JS were two lines that had been added (obviously as a result of that just closed Firefox session, and obviously as a result of something I'd one or site I'd visited in that session). Since I only had visited SevenForums, it obviously had something to do with that site.
Anyway, the two lines which had gotten added to PREFS.JS were:user_pref("gfx.blacklist.direct2d", 3);So, I did a little Google searching on these, and guess what I found: a thread in a Mozilla forum which made reference to essentially these same two lines as having been discovered as responsible for an odd "lag" behavior. When that person would delete the two lines, the "lag" behavior would disappear and Firefox performance would return to normal. But when that Firefox session in which behavior was normal would be closed and re-opened, the "lag" behavior would return.
user_pref("gfx.blacklist.layers.direct3d9", 3);
And the only thing that seemed to be different was the appearance of those specific two lines in PREFS.JS. Curious about them, he deleted them before re-launching Firefox, and sure enough the newly launched Firefox session would now behave completely normally!
So he determined that it was THESE two lines which were responsible for his "lag" symptom.
Well, my own research into my own "reduced leading" problem seems to point to the identical two lines somehow re-generating themselves in my PREFS.JS. Even though they are not there initially, after visiting SevenForums and closing Firefox, the two lines are now present in PREFS.JS.
And, if I manually delete those two lines before re-launching Firefox, sure enough the newly launched Firefox session has "normal leading"!!!
So, just as for the other user with the "lag" symptom that keeps re-appearing, so does my "reduced leading" symptom keep re-appearing. And both of our symptoms are 100% related to those two specific lines in PREFS.JS.
Ok... so what did that other user find about the source of those two lines in PREFS.JS and what has to be done in the Firefox session in order for those two lines to re-generate themselves, even if they're not present upon launch?VISITING A SITE THAT INVOKES THE FLASH PLUGIN PRODUCES THOSE TWO LINESYes, apparently that's true!
If I disable the Flash Plugin (v11.4.402.265 on my system) and visit SevenForums, these two lines in PREFS.JS WILL NEVER GET GENERATED, and my "reduced leading" problem totally disappears and "normal leading" remains in effect. I can close and re-open Firefox any number of times, and visit any number of sites, and those two lines WILL NEVER GET GENERATED... and "normal leading" remains in effect.
But all I have to do is re-enable the Flash plugin, and re-launch Firefox (where CNN is my home page, and which I believe makes use of the Flash plugin) and now if I close Firefox sure enough those two lines are re-generated in PREFS.JS and the next launch of Firefox will exhibit the "reduced leading" symptom.
I don't know why this is happening on just this particular machine of mine. I am up-to-date with the Flash plug-in on my other machine as well, and those two lines are NOT PRESENT in PREFS.JS on that other machine. And of course I do NOT have the "reduced leading" problem on that machine.
And yet somehow, on this machine, the enabled Flash plugin for some reason does cause those two critical lines to get re-generated and my "reduced leading" symptom returns:
user_pref("gfx.blacklist.direct2d", 3);Does any Flash programmer know what these are actually being caused by?
user_pref("gfx.blacklist.layers.direct3d9", 3);
I have an ATI video card on both machines, although one machine has an HD4850 with Catalyst v12.6 drivers and one monitor, and does not produce these two lines. The other "problem" machine has an HD5770 with Catalyst v12.8 and two monitors.
Does anybody know what these two lines mean, what they're for, and why they're generated... apparently not on every Firefox installation?
Last edited by dsperber; 30 Sep 2012 at 12:26.