Firefox focus and link problems

May 12, 2009 5:51 AM

Firefox Fail: Sometimes I cannot click links on the tab that is in focus. Hovering over links does not make finger images or clickable links. Hovering over (current tab's) blank spaces, which are linked areas on the tab below, makes those lower links active (yes, I can click on them). Grah! It can be fixed by alt-tabbing to a different program and back (another FF window is insufficient) or restarting Firefox.

This is Firefox 3.0.9 on Windows XP. The active extensions are adblockplus, foxyproxy, and downloadhelper. This does not seem to affect keyboard input or scrolling (e.g., I can tab to navigate).

I cannot for the life of me come up with appropriate non-generic search terms, nor can I identify the conditions under which these episodes start.

posted by whatzit to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Are you running Thunderbird as your mail client? I had a similar problem with the interaction of these two, and it involved having 'compose message' windows open when switching to firefox.
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:28 AM on May 12, 2009

Response by poster: Nope... Webmail (Squirrelmail, compose screens rarely left open while browsing). Typically, the other programs with open windows are Skype and Pidgin (IM client), sometimes an MS Office program or text editor.
posted by whatzit at 6:45 AM on May 12, 2009

Try a ctrl-alt-delete and check your performance. Sometimes my work computer displays some odd, and related, behavior which coincides with Firefox running the CPU (a modern dual-core) at 99%. I just close and save my tabs, wait a few seconds, and restart, which fixes the problem. Can't dig deeper than that because it only happens on my work computer which I don't have full access privileges to.
posted by General Malaise at 7:43 AM on May 12, 2009

...You mention your active extensions, but not whether you've tried turning them off one by one or not to see if one of them is the culprit. Turn off all extensions, see if it's fixed. If yes, try them one by one until you can pinpoint which add-on is causing trouble.
posted by carsonb at 7:46 AM on May 12, 2009

Response by poster: This issue was resolved by being a new computer.

Of course this, rather than the failing fan louder than a small car or the cyan stripes due to a failing display/video card connection or the hard drive clicking and general old age symptoms of sluggishness and flakiness was the driving factor. Of course.

RIP, Toshi, 2004-2009.
posted by whatzit at 6:28 AM on June 13, 2009