Browser produces white line in upper left corner [SOLVED]

[KK_r]

Both firefox and opera draws a vertical line in the upper left corner that is visable on all desktops. The line has the dimensions of 1x17 pixels and doesn't show up until i have opened up some webpages. I have failed to determine exactly which webpages that triggers the line, seems to be random.

I have the same problem on two different computers both running openbox. The only way to get rid of the line is to close the browser.

I tend to suspect openbox since two different browsers trigger the same bug. Any ideas?
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[tuexk]

I also get this with fvwm2 + firefox (didn't notice until now that it was associated with firefox).

Unfortunately, I don't know what it is or how to get rid of it.

[MasterDragon]

I too have this same problem with firefox and fvwm... I don't know if it does it on other window managers for me.
The thing is I had firefox on this computer for a while and this problem has just recently developed. For the time being I'll try remerging firefox while searching for a solution...

Also, I seem to recall having this same problem with vlc some while ago. That may or may not be relevant.

[KK_r]

Have still not found a cause or a fix but I found out that I'm getting the same problem with vlc too.
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[ThomasAdam]

[KK_r]

Ttoday I started up KDE and can confirm that this seems to be WM independent as tuexk also reported that fvwm2 was affected.

One thing that differ vlc from the browsers is that the line appear imideately everytime I start vlc but when I run opera or firefox it doesn't appear until I open up some webpages.

I also tested to disable the vlc-plugin in the browsers but that didn't change anything. Both firefox 2 & 3 shows this behaivior.
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[MasterDragon]

Well... what we have so far is that this happens immediately in vlc, in firefox after certain webpages are opened, and this is independent of the wm. So, my guess is that firefox and vlc themselves are not causing the problem, but they both make use of something that does. At this point I'm pretty much out of ideas but I'll take a look at firefox and vlc's use flags, dependencies, etc. and see if they have anyting in common which may be relevant.

EDIT: it appears that they both depend on gnome-base/gnome-vfs if the gnome flag is enabled. I'm at work right now so I can't test to see if this is causing the problem. Somehow I doubt that gnome is the issue, but it is all I've got so far.

[ThomasAdam]

[MasterDragon]

It is not the screen, I have had this happen on different computers with different screens. And upon closer examination of the thread you will notice that other users have had the same problem with the same applications. I suppose that there is a finite probability that all of our monitors have some strange problem which so far has only chosen to reveal itself when certain applications are run. But personally, I find it far more probable that some piece of software is responsible.

[ThomasAdam]

[KK_r]

Don't forget it happends with opera too, which is QT-based.
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[KK_r]

I can also report that the problem exists on two of my computers running debian unstable. It is not hardware because my computers has completely different hardware since one is a laptop.
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[MasterDragon]

yeah this is strange, I find it unlikely that it is a hardware problem but if it is a software problem why have so few people seen it? Really I have no idea, but maybe it's a specific setting in xorg or something thats causing the problem.

[KK_r]

I agree it is strange. As I have the same problem on different machines it might be some setting I'm fond of, but I have no idea which one. My xorg.confs has not much common more then the standard stuff.

What does it mean that the line doesn't appear until some webpages has been opened (haven't figured out any pattern in when the line appear)? I don't know much about browsers but if someone knew more about what's happening when a new webpage is loaded maybe we could get some clue.
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[KK_r]

I purged adobes flash plugin from my system and it seems I can't get the line back. But even though I also purged the flashlibs vlc still creates the line.

Can someone else confirm that it won't appear without flash-plugin?
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[MasterDragon]

flash.... that makes sense. That would explain why it only happens with some pages. As for vlc I still have no idea. Once I get home from work I'll see if removing flash works for me as well.

[MasterDragon]

Well this is interesting, according to portage I don't have flash installed, but according to http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/about/ I do. Furthermore, I cannot seem to find anything in firefox where I can disable it...

[freedomeagle1967]

[MasterDragon]

make.conf and package.use are as follows, but I think we have established that flash is what casues the problem. At least for me, any page that displays flash tirggers it, and kk_r said that removing flash fixed it for him. My problem now is that I cannot figure out how to get rid of flash as portage doesn't seem to recognize that it is installed.

[freedomeagle1967]

the flash player can be in two spots. for you though it is in your home directory ".macromedia" note the dot before = hidden file. and the other location is in your browser/plugin directory.

your package.use

[MasterDragon]

hmm... well an rm -rf .macromedia didn't seem to get rid of it. I guess I'll look for the browser/plugin directory

[MasterDragon]

So, removing flash alledgedly "fixes" the problem for the browser (I still can't seem to get flash off my system), but then not having flash is not a very desirable solution. Furthermore, we are still left with the problem that this happens with vlc too. So, what do flash and vlc have in common that could cause this? Perhaps the solution is some obscure kernel option that needs to be enabled/disabled. What would be potentially really helpful at this point is some sort of monitoring/logging program that could tell exactly what the computer is doing when the line is drawn.

[KK_r]

rather some common library then a kernel feature. Perhaps something i GTK?
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[MasterDragon]

Well, the thing with that is that I think this would be a more common problem if the problem was with a common library.

[KK_r]

It could still be triggered by specific hardware or configurations. An obscure kernel option feels a little far-fetched. My bet is on GTK or X however we don't know the answer yet. Any ideas how to track the bug down wherever it is?
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