Problem with left sidebar in confluence not showing properly

[KEZ Business]

All of a sudden, the left sidebar in confluence is empty. I'm talking about the side bar menu which starts off at the top with "For you", "recent", "starred", then shows the space I'm working in at the moment, and at the bottom has "invite people".

Sometimes, after refreshing, it loads and I see the whole menu structure, but only for a couple of seconds. Then it is empty apart from the "invite people" at the bottom. It worked fine up until last night.

I use mozilla firefox on windows 11, and I havent changed anything in the browser settings. I haven't added any extensions or made any changes at all to mozilla.

I have the atlassian free plan and am admin.

If I use the brave browser, I see everything.
I've searched the web for solutions but couldn't find anything to help.

I've logged out and back in, restarted firefox, restarted my laptop, installed the latest windows update and re-started again. 

Does any have any ideas about how to solve this problem?

I would be very grateful! 

[Peter_DevSamurai · Accepted solution]

Hi @KEZ Business , 

You can first grab a screenshot + video of the console log errors: Mouse right-click page -> Inspect -> Console tab -> Look for red JS errors (like AJS or sidebar-related) -> Then share it with the Atlassian Support. You can mention the browser difference & your current Firefox version (Help -> About?) and your troubleshooting. :)

On the other hand, you can try 2 options as well:

1. Clear Firefox Cache & Site Data Specifically for Confluence:

• In Firefox: Go to History > Show All History (or Ctrl+Shift+H) > Right-click a Confluence entry > "Forget About This Site".
• This nukes cookies, cache, and history for your Atlassian domain without touching the rest of your browser. Restart Firefox and test (often fixes intermittent loading like yours). There's a similar article like yours for your reference.

2. Toggle Hardware Acceleration (Windows 11 Firefox Issue)

• Firefox menu > Settings > General > Scroll to "Performance" > Uncheck "Use recommended performance settings" > Uncheck "Use hardware acceleration when available".
• Restart and reload Confluence. This resolves sidebar flickering in Firefox on Win11, as it stops GPU conflicts with web apps. (Re-enable later if this did nothing for you)

I hope this works well for you and you can find the below links for your reference:

• Firefox Site Data Clearing

Best regards, 

Peter

[KEZ Business]

Thank-you so much Peter! Suggestion number 1 worked perfectly. I really appreciate your help. All the best. 

[Peter_DevSamurai]

I'm really glad everything works out for you! Have a great week ahead!

[mourad_karib]

Thanks Peter, that also solved my case too ! How do you explain that the cookies and cache were causing this issue ? 

[Peter_DevSamurai]

Hi @mourad_karib ,

Because the browser cache stores local copies of website files like Javascript, CSS and images, clearing the cache will speed up loading on repeat visits. Firefox is forced to download fresh versions of those files from Atlassian's servers, which often fixes the problem without affecting other sites. This is especially common in Firefox for dynamic web apps like Confluence, where caching conflicts arise more frequently than in other browsers. :) 

You can refer to the below links:

- Common browser-related problems

- Firefox issues opening Confluence

I hope this addresses your question correctly! 

Have a great week ahead!

Best,

Peter