Browsers broken after registry clean

[lnsspikey]

I just ran a registry clean, as I have done at least a dozen times before, but this time somehow both Firefox and IE browsers are now completely broken - no page renders correctly, menus don't show up, no text is shown, etc (for example, here's google's home page: http://i.imgur.com/KOgvzcX.png). They are both completely unusable. Naturally I didn't make a registry backup this time, since I've done these exact same steps at least a dozen times without issue. I was able to install Chrome, which has never been on this computer, and it seems to work fine, but both browsers that were installed at the time of the registry clean are broken. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, creating a new Firefox profile (difficult when you can't see any menu text), starting in safe mode, re-running ccleaner to see what happens, and nothing works.

 

Does anyone know what the devil happened? Barring that, is there a proper way of nuking Firefox completely and starting from scratch? (Since Chrome works after never having been installed, I'm working under the theory that if I can get a truly clean install, FF may live again)

[Andavari]

You could try Firefox Portable and see how that goes.

 

What I'd do is use a recent System Restore Point, which if it works can fully restore the registry to a point before you used the registry cleaner. Edit: Note that using a System Restore Point can, may, or will make a bit of a mess as in renaming of folders since you've did some uninstalling and reinstalling.

Edited October 20, 2013 by Andavari

[lnsspikey]

Hmm, Firefox Portable does the same thing as full Firefox. Could it be that there's something different about the way FF and IE render pages as compared to Chrome, that got messed up during the registry clean?

 

Unfortunately (and inexplicably), the only system restore points available are from *after* the registry clean.

 

When I get home, I'm going to try repairing Windows from my install disk, and will report back here if that fixes it.

[Nergal]

They are both completely unusable. Naturally I didn't make a registry backup this time, since I've done these exact same steps at least a dozen times without issue.

Not to be mean, but I hope you, in hindsight, now see this flawed logic and henceforth will follow advice such as the ones in my signature. Registry cleaner software of any brand should be something done with a scalpel and not a chainsaw.

[lnsspikey]

henceforth will follow advice such as the ones in my signature

 

Yeah... saw that while perusing the forum to see if anyone else had this problem before posting. My lesson is learned. It only takes one time to mess it up, even if you've been diligent all the other times.

[hazelnut]

Try as a test turning off 'use hardware acceleration' in Firefox options

[Alan_B]

My experience of Firefox Portable was that it "borrowed" the profile of the installed version (and when it closed it restored the profile as it was - if nothing went wrong)

Perhaps a corrupted Firefox profile or registry keys would doom the Portable version to the same fate as the installed version.

[lnsspikey]

Update:

 

I was able to get Firefox working again, by right-clicking the program link and selecting "Troubleshoot compatibility." It's not clear to me what exactly this did, but Windows went through some process, claimed to have found an incompatible setting of some sort, and fixed it. IE is still broken, which doesn't bother me so much since it never gets used. Unfortunately the "Troubleshoot compatibility" option doesn't exist when I right-click IE, and since I'm not sure what Windows did for FF I can't fix it for IE.

[Andavari]

As a test I wonder if you registered IE as the default browser if it would function correctly again.

[lnsspikey]

As another update, everything is now working as normal again. I decided to mess around with it a little more when I found out that Adobe Reader (yeah, I use it, so sue me) wasn't working properly in the old compatibility-mode Firefox. For future readers, I ended up also running a check disk (right click C: -> Properties -> Tools -> Error-checking) and the system file checker (a la here). I'm not sure which of those fixed my problems, but one of them did. Then you can set Firefox to run as normal again (right click FF icon -> Properties -> Compatibility -> Uncheck Run in compatibility mode).

 

Thanks to all who chimed in with suggestions, and let this be a lesson to me and/or anyone else reading this: Always, ALWAYS make a backup of the registry before ccleaning it.

[Andavari]

That's good news, and much better than restoring your computer and starting over from scratch.

 

Around these forums we always encourage people to make backups with disk imaging software.