Help me stop crying...

April 13, 2005 12:28 PM

Hi all, for some unknown reason (I haven't changed anything) Firefox 1.0.2 (windows xp) suddenly stopped responding to my ctrl/shift-clicks (the keys are working fine outside of FF). This has made me *very* sad...I have tried pretty much everything and look to this great pool of knowledge to furthur my troubleshooting...maybe someone else has run into this? Is there an extension that could force the issue?
posted by gren to computers & internet (16 comments total)

Me too... it drives me nuts! but it's intermittent. usually only when I have had Firefox open for a while (a couple of hours). I am also 1.0.2 on XP.

(The extensions I have installed are:
A9 Toolbar
Gmail Notifier
del.icio.us
Plain Text Links
Tabbrowser Extensions
mozimage
googlebar
ieview
Web Developer
ImageZoom
Adblock
All-in-One gestures
)

Any overlap? If so, I will uninstall those and see if the problem persists.
posted by misterbrandt at 12:37 PM on April 13, 2005

Not seen that in particular, but little stuff like it, here and there. The first thing I always do is get the lastest nightly build. Not always a fix, but it's a good start.
posted by airguitar at 12:39 PM on April 13, 2005

heh, lastest.
posted by airguitar at 12:40 PM on April 13, 2005

I haven't had this problem, but I've heard that it can be caused by TBE, which is notoriously buggy.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:44 PM on April 13, 2005

airguitar got it...just installed the nightly build and the problem is gone...that was the worst 2 hours of my life! If I had to right-click > open link in new tab one more time....

I do agree tho, it isn't the best solution. I did indeed have TBE installed, but as I said, I had not updated it, nor had I installed anything else, it was after a browser restart this popped up.

misterbrandt it seems the only overlap we have in extensions is TBE, Adblock (which can't be it) and Image Zoom (again, I highly doubt its involvement). It would be best to go TBE free, and this article can help us get there...it basically involves using a series of plugins to come close to the functionality TBE has. I just hope there is something out there to bring back colored tab groups...that was the best feature ever.
posted by gren at 12:58 PM on April 13, 2005

i have problems with firefox occasionally* refusing to copy any text within a particular browser window (opening a new browser instance seems to fix this). Needless to say it is very fucking annoying. BAD FIREFOX>

* Occasionally here being the occasions when I need to use copy/paste most. BASTARDS
posted by fishfucker at 2:06 PM on April 13, 2005

I've had the "no copy" problem, but always thought it was a site problem. Turning Javascript off fixed...
posted by Marky at 2:19 PM on April 13, 2005

Alrighty, TBE is gone. Not to sub-thread here, but what lighter-weight+stable tab extension are others using? (What should I use in the place of TBE?)
posted by misterbrandt at 2:27 PM on April 13, 2005

I only use two tab extensions: miniT (drag+indicator), which adds drag-and-drop functionality, and undoclosetab, which does what it says. They are both available here.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:42 PM on April 13, 2005

Disable all extensions and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, enable them one at a time to see which one is giving the problem and either update, disable, delete, or replace it.
posted by Neiltupper at 3:31 PM on April 13, 2005

Alrighty, TBE is gone. Not to sub-thread here, but what lighter-weight+stable tab extension are others using? (What should I use in the place of TBE?)

I've been a loyal TBE user since July, but I just ditched it last night in favor of Tabmix, which I found, surprisingly, via the link on the TBE author's own page. So far I've been completely satisfied. It seems to contain every feature of TBE that I was using, plus browsing is noticeably faster.
posted by llamateur at 4:35 PM on April 13, 2005

I'd also suggest miniT and undoclosetab, though I prefer their enhanced counderparts: miniT+ and undoclosetab(enh), both also available on the previously linked page.
posted by BevosAngryGhost at 4:51 PM on April 13, 2005

i always get them confused...was about to say that I've never had any problems with TBE, but then I realized that I used Tabbrowser preferences, which is different.

i like that one.

also to the original poster, what about middle click for new tab? or do you have a 2-button mouse?
posted by jacobsee at 9:08 PM on April 13, 2005

jacobsee:

I have the newer M$ wireless intellimouse which isn't very kind to middle clicking...its great at scrolling, but you have to put a *lot* of pressure on it to get a middle click (and when I could, that wasn't working either).

So I did the rounds...read all 3 *huge* threads at mozillazine (including the static kb article they added), looked at every tab extension there is, tried them all out, and *none* of them come close to the features I came to love using TBE...not to mention, I honestly like having one extension (no matter how bloated some may say it is) control these functions, rather than a myriad of smaller tools doing the job (I had trouble remembering what aspect of tab control was done by which extension and where to access it...even after having just installed them).

The main joys I found were: single-window mode...no new windows ever, only new tabs...links to different sites would open a new tab. Perfect for the likes of MetaFilter...colored tab grouping went along with the 'parent' tabs, it was grand. That doesn't sound like much, but it really shaped the way I browsed the web...I could hit 15 pages from google (all the same color nestled together), then when I was done, Close Group of Tabs and *pewf* they were gone.

I can point some of y'all to the other options, but frankly, I am going to make TBE work again.,,

Tabbrowser Extensions the almighty original...now those that try to follow:

Duplicate Tab, Tab Clicking Options and Close Tab On Double Click three pretty self-explanitory extensions. TabSST gives back the control over how large your tabs are...TBE let you set not only how large they were, but how the text was shortened by the lack of space and other controls. Definitely check out the other extensions from velcrospud, really great stuff. Tab X gives the ability to have close buttons on each individual tab...I skipped this one since I never used that function...ctrl+tab, ctrl+shift+tab and ctrl+t, ctrl+w took care of all my tab opening/focusing/closing (and yes, TBE already did this). Flowing Tabs is another creation of Stephen Clavering this time controlling how tabs react when there are too many, again, done by TBE...definitely check out the other extensions he offers. Hash Coloured Tabs will replace the favicon displayed on a tab with the color of your choice...this is a great extension, but completely different from what TBE did. HCT will color code *individual* domains the same, with some really great options on when to color and what colors to use. TBE colored the entire tab, and did it to groups of tabs...so we're close, but still not there. I think you get the point now, so here are the rest of the single minded extensions: Session Saver, Tab Scroller, Focus Last Selected Tab and Clone Window.

Undo Close Tab and MiniT start the more ambitious entries offering more than a single tasks worth of functionality (but are very poorly documented and obscurely worded). Tabbrowser Preferences adds a panel to the Firefox Tools > Options page bringing back single-window mode among other things. Tab Mix is the latest (and last, I promise!) extension to enter the fray, bring a *lot* of tab slinging tools, but still far from the high water mark that is TBE.

Thats all I have to say on tabs and Firefox for now...
posted by gren at 1:02 AM on April 14, 2005

Just wanted everyone to know I am not complaining about open source software (since thats just silly), I really wanted to see how many people used/are using the TBE and how they felt about it. In the Firefox world, there are some pretty heated debates...I wanted to give you a peek of whats going on :)
posted by gren at 3:30 AM on April 14, 2005

I have the same problem, but it happens with IE too. Sometimes shift-click won't work, but if I manually right-click and open a new window, shift-click works in that window, but not in the original. Baffling.

All sorts of weird changes happened with my last reinstall. I used to be able to click in the location bar and it would place the cursor, a double-click would highlight a word (delimited by punctuation), or a triple-click would highlight the whole thing. These days, the word-at-once selection works in FF but not IE.

I think it might actually be related to mouse drivers. I seem to remember an extra icon in my systray, but I can't remember whose driver I was using.
posted by Myself at 7:58 PM on April 14, 2005