Technology in terms you understand. Sign up for the Confident Computing newsletter for weekly solutions to make your life easier. Click here and get The Ask Leo! Guide to Staying Safe on the Internet — FREE Edition as my thank you for subscribing!

I have to minimize and restore my browser to see the page display. How do I fix this?

Question:

My web pages from links freeze and I have to minimize the page and then
bring it back before it will be active. I cannot scroll even.

In this excerpt from
Answercast #73
, I look at a case where a browser window is not displaying
correctly and needs to be refreshed to draw the screen.

Become a Patron of Ask Leo! and go ad-free!

Restoring a browser to see the display

So there are two things that come to mind here.

You haven’t indicated what browser you’re using… but if you’re using
Internet Explorer Version 9 or better, I’m going to point you at an article
called, “How
do I get Internet Explorer version 9 to work at all?

The problem is that there may be hardware acceleration enabled in the
browser that is causing exactly this kind of behavior. It’s very simple to turn
off. That article will show you how.

Video drivers

If that’s not the case, if you’re not using IE 9, then I start thinking
about video drivers – because this is the kind of a thing that could be a
result of video drivers that have certain types of problems.

I’d recommend that you look into seeing if you can get updated drivers for
your specific video hardware.

Try a different browser

And then finally, as another alternative to that, you could try using a
different browser.

Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, which ever one of those three you
might be using… try one of the others. It may not solve a video driver
related problem; but it might avoid it.

Different browsers put things on the screen in slightly different ways. That
means that the way one browser might expose a problem with the video driver
might be completely avoided by using a different browser.

So those are the suggestions I have. Check out the article if you’re using
IE 9; consider updating your video drivers; and consider using a different
browser.

(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)

End of Answercast 73 Back to –
Audio Segment

Do this

Subscribe to Confident Computing! Less frustration and more confidence, solutions, answers, and tips in your inbox every week.

I'll see you there!

2 comments on “I have to minimize and restore my browser to see the page display. How do I fix this?”

  1. Hold down the crtl (control) key and tap the – (minus) key a few times. This makes everything smaller incrementally .
    Conversely, to enlarge hold down the ctrl key and tap +(plus) a few times. This incrementally enlarges.
    The mouse wheel also does the same thing when holding down the ctrl key.
    Jp

    Reply

Leave a reply:

Before commenting please:

  • Read the article.
  • Comment on the article.
  • No personal information.
  • No spam.

Comments violating those rules will be removed. Comments that don't add value will be removed, including off-topic or content-free comments, or comments that look even a little bit like spam. All comments containing links and certain keywords will be moderated before publication.

I want comments to be valuable for everyone, including those who come later and take the time to read.