cause of upside-down text in web pages?

[ChrisGreaves]

I am using Firefox 62.0.2 on a Win7HP laptop. I'm posting here because I'm not sure that this is a Mozilla problem.

The attached image is part of a screen snapshot. I see the circled behaviour daily.

What is a likely cause of this (and so, how can I fix the problem)?

Buggy Browser? (in my case Firefox 62.0.2)
Web site? (in my case Google News)
Operating system (updated just one or two weeks ago 2019-03 Security Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB4474419) Installation date: ‎04/‎30/‎2019 2:01 PM Installation status: Successful)
Google knows I'm an Aussie expat and is trying to remind me to vote next week?

Just curious, really. Does anyone else see this kind of behaviour?

Thanks
Chris

[HansV]

Wouldn't it be a prank?

dn ʍoɹɹɐ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ

[ChrisGreaves]

Wouldn't it be a prank?dn ʍoɹɹɐ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ

No.
I did a PrtScr; that is how it looks when the web page loads.
I'm not fooling around.
It doesn't affect my reading of a page; I just wonder if I'm not as up-to-date as I should be.
Cheers
Chris

[HansV]

The icons at the left are missing too. It looks like the page doesn't load completely.

[stuck]

I am using Firefox 62.0.2...

Why? Perhaps in the Olden Days^TM not updating to the latest browser the instant it appeared was a good idea, lest Something Bad Happened^TM but I suspect these days Something Bad is much more likely to land in your lap via a security hole patched by the latest version but open wide in an old version. Especially as you seem to mainly surf the web via public wifi links.

Do they still say, "get with the programme"? If so, get with the programme, it's not hard:

Step One, get up to date:
1) Click on the settings / 'hamburger' icon in the top right
2) Click on Help
3) Click on About Firefox
4) Click on Check for Updates
then when the update has downloaded
5) Click on Restart to Update Firefox

Step Two, stay up to date. Again in the 'hamburger' icon:
1) Click on Options
2) Start to type 'update' into the search box
3) Which wlil find the Firefox Updates section
4) Select the first option: Automatically install updates (recommended)
Job done.

Ken

[ChrisGreaves]

The icons at the left are missing too. It looks like the page doesn't load completely.

OK, thanks Hans.
So it might be a "page loading" problem.
This happens when i am at the library and right now in the provincial elections campaign office ("I blame it all on the Liberals ...."), both of which have decent WiFi. That is, I am no longer pirating a local household supply later at night.

If I get the same "not loading properly" symptoms at a third site (say the local Cafe) then I would think that the page-loading is not related to the quality of the WiFi signal, but is somehow related to my laptop system.

I am pretty well up to date with Win7HP.
I will now (I hate doing this) upgrade to the latest version of FireFox and see if the symptoms re-appear.

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

...Perhaps in the Olden Days^TM not updating to the latest browser the instant it appeared was a good idea, lest Something Bad Happened^TM but I suspect these days Something Bad is much more likely to land in your lap via a security hole patched by the latest version but open wide in an old version. Especially as you seem to mainly surf the web via public wifi links. ...

Thanks Ken. Your post crossed with mine. As I acknowledged in my post 2 minutes ago, once my slapped-wrists stop hurting (grin!) I'll update Firefox.

(minutes later) I'm up to 66.0.5(64-bit)
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

OK. At Firefox 66.0.5 I still get upside-down text. (attached)
IRight now i am the only one in the two offices (Campaign and Constituency), so while there might be some smart-arse in the adjacent office pirating the signal, I doubt it.

I'm not in the library (and Lord knows what size movies kids stream nowadays!), so I assume the WiFi signal is pretty clean.

Next step: Update Win7HP. Again.

PLEASE don't ask me to upgrade to Win10.

I could see what happens in Chrome, I guess ...

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Next step: Update Win7HP.

FWIW the d/l speed is pretty consistent.

320MB might not be impressive, but given that this is probably a stop-gap service for the duration of the campaign I can't complain.
BitMeter shows a steady download at any rate, without periodic interruptions, peaks, or valleys, during the Win7 update run.
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Google Chrome Version 74.0.3729.131 (Official Build) (64-bit) seems to render Google News pages quite well (although Tourism Toronto is still taking a hit) (attached image)

I do recall reading a week or two ago Firefox complaining publicly that Google Chrome kept doing nasty things.
I'd noticed FireFox behaved sluggishly different on my Moto-X Android compared to Chrome.

OK.
So it is maybe an incompatibility between Mozilla Firefox and the way Win7HP runs Firefox on my Toshiba laptop,

Nothing stops me. I now have an excuse to swing by the cafe on my way home tonight ....

Cheers
Chris

[stuck]

OK. At Firefox 66.0.5 I still get upside-down text...

You might be looking a cached bad version of the page. Try forcing FF to reload the page, i.e. hold down the shift key and then click on the reload button, which by default is on the left hand side of the Address Bar, next to the home icon.

Ken

[ChrisGreaves]

OK. At Firefox 66.0.5 I still get upside-down text...

You might be looking a cached bad version of the page. Try forcing FF to reload the page, i.e. hold down the shift key and then click on the reload button, which by default is on the left hand side of the Address Bar, next to the home icon. Ken

Hi Ken.
I held down the Shift key and clicked the circular-arrow icon immediately to the left of the Little-House icon. The arrow is now changed to an "X".
I still get corrupted pages.

If by cache you mean Firefox's cache, I have this pointing to my RAM drive (E:), so the cache is cleared each time I reboot.

So, I have just now rebooted, (clears RAM drive and cache), gone to Google News, and still have upside-down text.


Chris

[HansV]

The "X" is interesting - it indicates that the page hasn't finished loading. Once the page has been loaded completely, the "X" changes to the reload icon:

S2654.png

[ChrisGreaves]

The "X" is interesting - it indicates that the page hasn't finished loading.

Ahhah!
Thanks Hans.
I rebooted (to clear the cache) and reloaded Google News first thing. (attached). I waited about two seconds for the "X" to revert to the "circle", and I still see corrupted text.

I can live with it.
Perhaps this is just nature's way of forcing me to update all the installed software.

Cheers
Chris

[Roderunner]

Hi Chris, have you tried:-

RR.jpg

[ChrisGreaves]

Hi Chris, have you tried:-

Hi Rudi, and Thanks.

I have tried both methods now, separately.

keyboardUpsideDown0.png

Above is after I restarted with add-ons disabled.

keyboardUpsideDown1.png

Above is in a Private Window.
Both attempts show the same problems as ever.

I note with interest that the FIRST "keyboard Arrow Up" displays correctly.
That suggests to me that some part of the code, somewhere, is working correctly, and I would suspect that the downstream portion is more likely to be buggy than the upstream portion. That is, I am thinking more and more that there is some minor corruption which affects my copy of Firefox on my machine, rather than a generic coding of the web pages at source.
There may be corruption in the web page at source, but only ***my*** configuration is troubled by it.
If the problem were upstream, it would have been seen by millions of users and would have been fixed by now.
(Unless it was Microsoft office)

Cheers
Chris

[HansV]

"keyboard arrow up" and "dn ʍoɹɹɐ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ" are both placeholders; the actual display should be like this:

S2658.png

[ChrisGreaves]

"keyboard arrow up" and "dn ʍoɹɹɐ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ" are both placeholders; the actual display should be like this:

Ahah!
When I click on the (text) placeholders, the news article expands and contracts as I think it should.
So my problem is as if my laptop system is missing the caret characters that the web page expects to find; so it can't substitute the placeholders with the caret symbol.

I don't say that that is the cause, but it would be an explanation for what is, I suspect, a very local phenomena.
Fortune vomits on my eiderdown once more

Thanks
Chris

[Rudi]

Hi Chris, have you tried:-

Hi Rudi, and Thanks.

I'll pass along the credits to George.

[HansV]

But you're also missing the icons on the left, Chris!

S2659.png

They should be loaded with the web page, they don't need to be present on your computer before you visit the site.