Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

All the lettlers on my desktop and in the address bar appear as symbols. Also, I can't run firefox because it keeps giving me a crash report. I'm running Vista, if that helps.

  • 1 reply
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

jma3252
jma3252
more options

This is my parent's computer. Here are the facts: After using facebook the previous evening, the next time the computer was used all of the desktop displayed symbols instead of letters/words. Upon trying to open Firefox a window labeled Firefox crash report opened. No matter what options you choose (send report, don't send, etc) when you click on an option, another Firefox crash report window opens. So I can't open Firefox. Simple solution would be to uninstall Firefox and reinstall it; however, it is very hard to navigate the computer with no words and all symbols. I am able to open up Internet Explorer, but anything in the address bar or search bar also appears as symbols. If I were to type in a specific site in the address bar, the site will load properly in words but the address bar still shows symbols. After much playing around, I was able to update Avast antivirus and run a full scan and nothing was found. I updated Malware Bytes and ran in for an hour but it never fully finished running before I had to leave. Please help.

This is my parent's computer. Here are the facts: After using facebook the previous evening, the next time the computer was used all of the desktop displayed symbols instead of letters/words. Upon trying to open Firefox a window labeled Firefox crash report opened. No matter what options you choose (send report, don't send, etc) when you click on an option, another Firefox crash report window opens. So I can't open Firefox. Simple solution would be to uninstall Firefox and reinstall it; however, it is very hard to navigate the computer with no words and all symbols. I am able to open up Internet Explorer, but anything in the address bar or search bar also appears as symbols. If I were to type in a specific site in the address bar, the site will load properly in words but the address bar still shows symbols. After much playing around, I was able to update Avast antivirus and run a full scan and nothing was found. I updated Malware Bytes and ran in for an hour but it never fully finished running before I had to leave. Please help.

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Try to disable hardware acceleration.

  • Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"

If disabling hardware acceleration works then check if there is an update available for your graphics display driver.

Try to toggle some Boolean gfx.font_rendering prefs on the about:config page to disable some features. Filter: gfx

Some to try:

  • set gfx.direct2d.disabled to true to disable Direct2D
  • set gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.use_gdi_table_loading to false.

To open the about:config page, type about:config in the location (address) bar and press the "Enter" key, just like you type the url of a website to open a website.
If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access that page.

  • Use the Filter bar at to top of the about:config page to locate a preference more easily.
  • Preferences that have been modified show as bold (user set).
  • Preferences can be reset to the default or changed via the right-click context menu.