Bug Firefox Clear Linux 36010

Firefox on Clear Linux 63010 does not open.
Just white screen.

See if this works:

$ firefox --safe-mode --preferences

Click Open on the popup that’ll show up.
Next, press Alt+Shift+U, untick the recommended performance settings box, and also the use hardware acceleration.
Close firefox, and open it again.

Reinstall firefox. I also had a problem

Nvmd Thank you for your help.
worked perfectly

I ran into the same issue on a NUC8 but only under Wayland. I can start Firefox in safe mode under Wayland but then video encoding will not use the gpu and performance is worse.

I also tried it on an older Ivy Bridge laptop with the same result. Installing the latest desktop iso and using Wayland breaks Firefox. It just loads to either a white or black screen depending on the Gnome theme. Firefox works fine including video decoding when using a Xorg session.

I have no issues with Firefox under Wayland on the same machines in other distro’s like Fedora and Arch. Thats including video decoding (after setting up vaapi/mesa/etc).

I really hope this can be fixed. Having a working Firefox out of the box on a Gnome/Wayland session should work fine, specially on prebuilt 100% Intel hardware such the NUC8’s I’m utilising. There’s next to nothing you can change so it should be easy to support and I had hoped Clear Linux would be the best distro for it as it’s backed by Intel and optimised for Intel platforms.

I would file a bug report but I have no clue why this even happens. When I run Firefox from a terminal there are no additional errors or clues, it just loads a blank screen. I can quit Firefox with ctrl+q just fine. It’s not crashing, just not displaying anything under Wayland. I know the “fix” is to not use Wayland but to me thats not a proper fix. Firefox should work under Wayland, specially when just using the onboard Intel igpu.

In a way it’s sad not being able to run my browser of choice is a showstopper from migrating all my NUCs to Clear Linux. I didn’t try other browsers so who knows, maybe others also have issues under Wayland.

I have tried env stuff like starting Firefox with XDG_WAYLAND_MOZ=1 or whatever the parameter was. I tried all the things from the Arch and Gentoo wiki’s that usually work under other distro’s to fix Firefox issues under Wayland. Such as adding mesa, vaapi drivers and setting Firefox to use Webrender and vaapi/ffmpeg. None of that fixed Firefox on Clear Linux, I just loads a blank screen and thats all it can do unless I start it in safe mode.

I’m aware this topic is a year old and kind of worried this might not be easy to fix but I also wonder how the Clear Linux team tests releases. I can easily reproduce this issue by cleanly installing the latest iso on one of my NUCs. I don’t know if all Intel igpu’s are affected by this but from my testing Icy Bridge, Haswell and Coffee Lake systems are all affected. I could send the Clear Linux team one of my NUC for testing if they don’t have any themselves :smiley:

Sorry for the tl;dr. I had to get this off my chest after spending way too much time trying to get Firefox to work under Wayland on my NUC8. I’ve since revered to Nobara which is also a great performer and snappy but it’s not Clear Linux. I would love to keep using Clear Linux as it’s very fast on my servers but as a desktop I’m not sure. Maybe the focus by the Clear Linux team isn’t even on the desktop.

I also saw packages like Sway being depreciated which is saddening to see. I guess the Clear Linux team has some tough choices to make. Having a badly working desktop is probably worse than not having any at all and just develop for server platforms instead. But if the Clear Linux wants to support the desktop then please do lots of testing as I’m sure this issue would’ve popped up. Please make up your minds on whether or not to support desktop installs and if you decide to support them make sure they are tested. I’m sure many including myself would like to help with that testing.

Cheers.

1 Like