Right click/context menu appears invisible, minus the outline

[Elwood42]

Starting today and possibly yesterday, I have noticed some odd behaviour with my right click menu and the context menu.

I am running windows 7 home edition, 64 bit.

Whenever I first start up my pc and open a context menu in firefox, i.e select a sub folder in my bookmarks that open. The context box that appears is invisible, minus the outline of the box. I can scroll the mouse up and down and select links that are there, but the box never appears.

I then deselect it and reselect it, and sometimes it will appear, other times it takes multiple attempts for the context menu to appear.

See attached screenshot of the issue.

Other times I have noticed once or twice when right clicking on the desktop, only the left half of the context menu will appear, the other half is missing, but this does appear when I mouse over it.

Any ideas on how to fix this? I ran a "SFC /scannow" check in command prompt, and it came back clean and dandy, so I'm fresh out of ideas already!

 

[Elwood42]

Just happened again here, clicked the latest headlines drop down, and the box was invisible minus the outline, and the links could be selected in the invisible menu.

Like I say, it happens when I first turn on then occurs less often as the day goes on using the pc. I then recently restarted and within restarting, it has occurred twice in the first fifteen minutes.

 

[koolkat77]

Hello and welcome to Sevenforums Elwood42

Disable hardware acceleration on Firefox and see if that makes a difference:

• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/271263-firefox-gpu-hardware-acceleration-turn-off.html

 

[Elwood42]

Hello and welcome to Sevenforums Elwood42

Disable hardware acceleration on Firefox and see if that makes a difference:

• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/271263-firefox-gpu-hardware-acceleration-turn-off.html

Just tried that and immediately after turning it off, it happened again on the drop down. I do find it odd as it's worked fine before with hardware acceleration turned on, but I'll see if it works after a restart.

Do you have any other suggestions in the event this isn't going to fix it, which I am unsure of?

Edit: Nope, just happened again after restarting firefox and my pc with hardware acceleration turned off. Next suggestion?

 

[Elwood42]

Also, just used the normal windows right click function, and this occurred, which I did mention in my original post. Notice how half of the context box is missing.

 

[koolkat77]

Restart your computer

 

[Elwood42]

Restarted my pc, all seemed okay, then it happened again. I seem to be noticing a pattern in it occurs when I watch a youtube video, which uses adobe flash player. Not sure how it relates however.

 

[koolkat77]

Did you make any changes recently? Hardware/Software wise?

 

[Elwood42]

I did have an adobe flash player update this morning, but I believe this issue was occurring before that. I just uninstalled adobe flash plugin to see if it would improve, restarted my pc, only to find the issue is still happening.

Beyond that, no I've not made any changes.

 

[koolkat77]

Reinstall your browser.

 

[Britton30]

Sounds to be a Firefox(FF) issue. As Koolkat suggests, uninstall FF. After uninstalling run theCCleaner Registry cleaner in default settings and reboot. Use the free version.

Download and reinstall FF and test.

 

[Elwood42]

Okay, after a lot of hassle, firefox is reinstalled. Will test and see how it performs and will then report back soon. Thanks for the help so far!

 

[Arc]

Okay, after a lot of hassle, firefox is reinstalled. Will test and see how it performs and will then report back soon. Thanks for the help so far!

Hassle to uninstall firefox? What are the hassles you faced, care to explain please?

 

[Elwood42]

Okay, after a lot of hassle, firefox is reinstalled. Will test and see how it performs and will then report back soon. Thanks for the help so far!

Hassle to uninstall firefox? What are the hassles you faced, care to explain please?

Uninstalling was easy, but when it came to reinstalling it, I had to download the install via internet explorer, and it conveniently failed to download it four times, so I had to download google chrome to download firefox, so I could install it!

 

[Arc]

Ah OK.
DISABLE GPU acceleration in the new install now, and observe the situation.

 

[Elwood42]

Still occuring when I select one of the bookmark sub folders. one of the six won't display the context menu, while the other five do.

I am getting baffled and annoyed by this now. It seems completely random.

 

[Arc]

Do a full scan of your computer with Free MBAM.

 

[Elwood42]

Don't see how it is malware related, but will give it a shot!

 

[Elwood42]

Note the scan is still running with zero results so far, but having had a look around, I went into System > Advanced settings > performance settings > I then changed visual effects from "decide what is best for my computer" to "Best for performance"

This has made everything look like windows 95, however the context menus appear to be loading correctly thus far. It leads me to believe it is somehow performance related, but my computer has been running fine for the eight months I've had it, and it's not under any kind of heavy operations when the context menus fail.

Yet changing to a low quality, high performance appearance seems to solve it. However I don't really want to use this basic look permanently, I'm just hoping it might help someone point out what performance related issue could be the cause that I am missing.

EDIT: And the malware entire computer scan just finished with zero results found. My computer is pristine and clean from any kind of viruses or malware, which is reassuring!

Second EDIT: With a bit of trial and error, it seems to occur when I have the "Use visual styles on windows and butttons" turned on, and once it is turned off, it stops occurring, but everything looks so primitive. How could the windows style become corrupted to cause the issue?

 

[Britton30]

To better help us to help you would you please add your systems specs? Here's how:SystemInfo See Your System Specs Under System Manufacturer/Model Number add whether it is a desktop or laptop and whether self built. Very important

Log in to Seven Forums and you will be able to transfer the info directly to the specs page in your profile from within the System Info app.

After doing this your specs will be available in each of your posts.
Click on My system Specs in the lower left of this post to see how it should look.
Full instructions are in the tutorial.

Your issue may be related to your graphics card or driver. What seems to be happening is it can't fully handle all of w7 Aero appearance. What you are getting with the primitive look is the Classic, non-Aero theme.