You should avoid applying backdrop-filter to a parent element of the sub menu. An idea is to consider a pseudo element where you can have the filter:
nav {
position: fixed;
top: 0;
left: 0;
right: 0;
height: 50px;
background: hsla(0, 0%, 100%, 80%);
border-bottom: 1px solid hsla(0, 0%, 0%, 10%);
z-index: 1;
}
nav:before {
content:"";
position:absolute;
z-index:-1;
-webkit-backdrop-filter: blur(2px);
backdrop-filter: blur(2px);
top:0;
left:0;
right:0;
bottom:0;
}
nav ul {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
list-style: none;
}
nav li {
position: relative;
margin: 0 20px;
height: 50px;
line-height: 50px;
}
nav li ul {
position: absolute;
top: 50px;
left: 0;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: stretch;
width: 200px;
background: hsla(0, 0%, 100%, 80%);
opacity: 0;
-webkit-backdrop-filter: blur(2px);
backdrop-filter: blur(2px);
pointer-events: none;
}
nav li:hover ul {
opacity: 1;
pointer-events: all;
}
nav li li {
margin: 0;
height: 30px;
line-height: 30px;
}
<nav>
<ul>
<li>Nav 1</li>
<li>Nav 2</li>
<li>Nav 3
<ul>
<li>Nav 3-1</li>
<li>Nav 3-2</li>
<li>Nav 3-3</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</nav>
<main>
<h2>What is Lorem Ipsum?</h2>
<p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
<h2>Why do we use it?</h2>
<p>It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here,
content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various
versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).</p>
<h2>Where does it come from?</h2>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up
one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum
et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section
1.10.32.</p>
<p>The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions
from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.</p>
<h2>Where can I get some?</h2>
<p>There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum,
you need to be sure there isn't anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary
of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.</p>
</main>
The issue is related to the Backdrop Root concept that you can read about here: https://drafts.fxtf.org/filter-effects-2/#BackdropRoot. You will find that back-drop filter create a Backdrop root:
A Backdrop Root is formed, anywhere in the document, by an element in any of the following scenarios. See § 3.2 Backdrop Root Triggers for more details on each:
The root element of the document (HTML).
An element with a filter property other than "none".
An element with an opacity value less than 1.
An element with mask, mask-image, mask-border, or clip-path properties with values other than “none”.
An element with a backdrop-filter value other than "none".
An element with a mix-blend-mode value other than "normal".
An element with a will-change value specifying any property that would create a Backdrop Root on non-initial value.
If the parent had, for example, mix-blend-mode apply to it, the same issue will happen. The backdrop filter of the child element will no more work
nav {
position: fixed;
top: 0;
left: 0;
right: 0;
height: 50px;
background: hsla(0, 0%, 100%, 80%);
border-bottom: 1px solid hsla(0, 0%, 0%, 10%);
z-index: 1;
-webkit-backdrop-filter: blur(2px);
backdrop-filter: blur(2px);
mix-blend-mode:color;
}
nav ul {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
list-style: none;
}
nav li {
position: relative;
margin: 0 20px;
height: 50px;
line-height: 50px;
}
nav li ul {
position: absolute;
top: 50px;
left: 0;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: stretch;
width: 200px;
background: hsla(0, 0%, 100%, 80%);
opacity: 0;
-webkit-backdrop-filter: blur(2px);
backdrop-filter: blur(2px);
pointer-events: none;
}
nav li:hover ul {
opacity: 1;
pointer-events: all;
}
nav li li {
margin: 0;
height: 30px;
line-height: 30px;
}
<nav>
<ul>
<li>Nav 1</li>
<li>Nav 2</li>
<li>Nav 3
<ul>
<li>Nav 3-1</li>
<li>Nav 3-2</li>
<li>Nav 3-3</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</nav>
<main>
<h2>What is Lorem Ipsum?</h2>
<p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
<h2>Why do we use it?</h2>
<p>It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here,
content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various
versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).</p>
<h2>Where does it come from?</h2>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up
one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum
et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section
1.10.32.</p>
<p>The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions
from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.</p>
<h2>Where can I get some?</h2>
<p>There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum,
you need to be sure there isn't anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary
of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.</p>
</main>
backdrop-filterhas no support in Firefox. Make sure you have a fallback when using for production – Rudie