Blank page shown on some web sites

mib2berlin

@Himeji
Hi, Vivaldi really need some work from the user sometimes, for a non techsavy user I would choose Edge or you will get a phone call every here and there.
I still cant reproduce, I will check on my other system if I find some time and report back here.

Cheers, mib

3WaD

@mib2berlin What do you mean it needs some work from the techsavy users? For x years it's been a stable browser for regular users, not some guy's hobby project. And until this problem appeared a while ago, it just worked out of the box and I recommended it to everyone. Even to the "least techsavy people".

I appreciate that you want to contribute to this thread and you had some good insights for testing but this last one is quite off sorry. Good for you that you can't reproduce it but as you see many users can, and telling them to switch to Edge is something that official Vivaldi support would probably not recommend

mib2berlin

@3WaD
I help users here since the first beta of Vivaldi and wrote the same things hundreds of times.
Adding Vivaldi as default browser to some of my customers and friends result in a lot of work over the last years for me.
If this work fine for you all good but I don´t recommend Vivaldi to user not even know what a browser or the Windows Explorer is, anymore.

Cheers, mib

3WaD

@mib2berlin I greatly appreciate your long service of discouraging people from this browser But as a "techsavy enough" user I really like its functions, so I'll wait to see if the support notice this problem more or if those of us who have this problem somehow manage to solve it. Thanks.

3WaD

Problem Update

Hello all. Unfortunately, even after a lot of hours of debugging, I wasn't able to find a definitive fix or bug's reason in the current release. Although I was able to narrow it down a little and reproduce much more consistently. I found out It has something to do with using Google search, Vivaldi local user saved data, and perhaps google services of any kind opened in other tabs. I am attaching a list of observations at the end of this post.

For those who mainly want a working browser again here are some current possible solutions. If you want to use the latest release you can either:

Turn off Vivaldi hardware acceleration (this will use CPU instead of GPU for things like video decode, drawing, some animations and WebGL 3D)
Don't use Google search engine

If you don't necessarily need the latest version you can download older release.

Before installing disconnect your internet, then open the installed browser and disable automatic updates in the General settings tab otherwise it will download the latest release instantly and will apply it next launch

I am currently testing version 5.3 and so far this problem or window border/shadow bug is not present. This also means that recent Vivaldi releases should not be considered "stable" and that this is not caused by external influences.

Thank you all for contributing and let's hope Vivaldi will return to the right tracks next year.

List of debug observations:

Accessing specific domains via Google search makes the page not render, going back to the search in history and then back to the page usually repairs it.
Restarting Vivaldi makes the page work at the first load but the problem comes back with the next visit via google search
When you visit a google search link and the page is broken, accessing the same page directly via the http address afterwards makes it broken too.
Visiting the same link in a different search engine works fine and repairs the http access BUT:
- Keeping the broken page opened and using a different search engine for the same link in a new tab or window makes it broken on that engine too
Visiting the same search link in incognito mode, guest mode or with a fresh Vivaldi user works fine even through Google and even with broken pages in the original window
Accessing the link from Google search via the "translate this page" button works fine
Turning off the hardware acceleration in Vivaldi makes it work fine
Closing all other tabs makes it work fine (mainly the Google services themselves or sites with embedded Google content like youtube iframes) Although I wasn't able to specifically find which combination of tabs can always reproduce this

Another older thread about this bug: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/78995/pages-are-blank

List of domains this bug can appear on:
https://hub.docker.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
https://stackoverflow.com/
https://serverfault.com
https://github.com
Once I was even able to break localhost with Nginx's basic 404 page lol. Makes no sence as you don't access that via Google

awasen

Vivaldi: 5.6.2867.46 (Stable channel) (64-bit)
Revision: 3a406e4326cd62dfa6a66df62d801abd795643df
OS: Windows 11 Version 21H2 (Build 22000.1335)
JavaScript: V8 10.8.168.22

Lately (since the last two updates) I've had a lot of issues with "blank" pages. Most often it comes from searching something in Google and then clicking a link from the search result.

It seems some websites are mor affected by others, for example medium.com and Stackoverflow.com, e.g. this was blank when I just opened it: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71989063/upgrading-from-aws-aurora-serverless-v1-to-v2-fails/71989216#71989216

It's like it's trying to load but never gets there... If I open another tab and go to any other page it loads fine.

Opening the pages in Private window always works directly.

I've tried to clear cookies and even restored from scratch but it persists...

I normally run with two open Vivaldi windows and 100-150 tabs in total open but that has never been an issue before, it started quite recently (maybe 5-6 weeks back)

DoctorG

@awasen Please check Troubleshooting issues.

My browser does not show such issues.
In your case i guess it could be a Vivaldi blocker list or adblock extension, blocked cookies, broken cache.

awasen

Should've mentioned I tried all that, and as stated it works fine if I open a Private Window (with the same extensions as I have in the "normal" window).

Hardware acceleration is turned off since before (as it messes with X-window on WSL2).

afshin.pir

@Ayespy I have this irritating problem too.

First of all, it is not related to extensions, because I have no extension installed.
Next, it is not related to any specific site.I have seen it several times on stackoverflow too. It is not site related at all.
Finally, the problem started on 2 computer both after updating Vivaldi to the latest version. I'm almost sure something has changed in Vivaldi that causes this problem.

When we encounter this problem, refreshing page does not solve the problem. But if close all of white and buggy tabs first and then try opening page, it will open correctly.

I don't know if it is related to the number of open tabs, because I have a lot of open tabs all the time.

vykintasv

@3WaD, found this thread thanks to your great work on debugging and describing the issue.

I've also seen this rendering glitch occasionally during the last couple of months or so. I can confirm all your debug observations. Indeed, returning back to Google Search results and clicking again fixes the issue, unlike reloading or opening a new tab. Disabling HW acceleration does fix the issue, restarting the browser does only fix the first page load.

Strangely my environment is quite different, so this should not be due to specific GPU driver:
Vivaldi 5.6.2867.50
Windows 11 22H2
AMD Ryzen 9 4900H
AMD Radeon Integrated (used by HW acceleration)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (not used AFAICT)

I have quite a few addons, but disabling any or all of the does not fix the page rendering.

I am noticing this on wikipedia.org and amazon.de.

3WaD

@vykintasv Thank you. I am sorry to hear you got this bug too.

After 15 days since the last post I can confirm that it's not enviroment but simply Vivaldi versions related bugs. I installed version 5.3 as I mentioned and I've got flawless experience ever since.
I highly recommend using older versions untill they come back to releasing truly stable ones.

DoctorG

@3WaD said in Blank page shown on some web sites:

I highly recommend using older versions

@vykintasv @3WaD
️Be warned!
All on your own risk!
Downgrade is not recommended by Vivaldi Team in such cases.
Older versions do only work if Chromium core major version is the same as of broken version.
With downgrade a loss of browser data could be expected.

https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/full-reset-of-vivaldi/

3WaD

@DoctorG Given the unstable condition and number of problems discussed here recently I would more consider using new versions as a risk ️
Could you please use your position and raise this issue to Vivaldi team? That would be useful.

DoctorG

@3WaD said in Blank page shown on some web sites:

Could you please use your position

My influence as a internal and volunteer tester is not as high as you might expect.
What do you want to have reported to the Vivaldi team?

3WaD

@DoctorG sorry the 'Ambassador' badge sounded serious, I got confused
I would like to raise this bug discussed here for several months already. That the new versions fail at rendering many websites to many users. That sounds like a huge problem for a browser
I already reported it via bug tracker. I just though you have some other ways.

Silvie

I have this problem as well.
It happens on random pages, seems the more complex a page is the more often it happens. Amazon for example does it fairly often. Closing and opening the same Url in a new tab sometimes fixes it.
The preview shows the full page properly. Also I get a cursor on the white page and when randomly clicking stuff it does lead me to other pages. So the page is there, just not displayed. Happens most of the time when loading a new and fairly complex page out of a google search or from a link. But also sometimes when opening a link from an external source. Both when copypasting the Url or when clicking on a link in for example an email.

It was happening before I had any extensions installed.
Also I have to use Vivaldi with --disable-direct-composition option because otherwise youtube videos hang.

luetage

@3WaD Unless someone is able to come up with a definite way to reproduce the issue reliably from a fresh profile, the devs won’t be able to fix it. That’s what it boils down to. I have never experienced this problem and got hardware acceleration working, but I haven’t used Google search in ten years. Strange that Google search should have any influence though, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

So a successful bug report needs:

Least amount of steps to reproduce it from a fresh profile (including possible settings changes different from default values)
Full mention of hardware specs and operating system/browser versions

Anything less than that and it’s unlikely you’ll see a fix. I would also check whether you get the same issues on standard stable Chrome for sanity.

ayub

Can confirm this happens to me as well. Happens when clicking off Google. To resolve, I have to copy the URL, close the tab, then paste url and load the page. Refreshing / force refreshing the tab doesn't work.

Windows 10
Intel i7-11700k
Nvidia 3600ti

Only lastpass and "SimpleExtManager" extensions are enabled.

3WaD

@luetage Sure I understand that. That's why I tried to collect as much data as possible in this post. All of it was actually done on a fresh profile and the behaviour changes with some settings and google services opened in other tabs I guess. But I wasn't able to narrow it down to the definite trigger even after hours of testing. I would like to finish it but unfortunately someone else will have to join as currently I have my own projects and work to do

3WaD

For anyone finding this thread - here is newer active one where we discuss debugging and solutions.