Java and Firefox on Mac OSX

September 9, 2005 4:23 AM

Why does scrolling in Firefox make Java apps disappear?

I'm running Mac OS X 10.4.2 and Firefox 1.0.6. I've used J2SE 1.4 and 5.0. When I scroll, some Java apps will flicker and disappear. This is most troublesome at the Washington Post crosswords, something I do daily. When the initial page loads, the entire crossword is not on the screen, so I scroll down, which causes the entry part of the applet to go blank. In order to see where the boxes are again, I have to tab through each blank. Even then, the "Check, Save, Reveal" buttons are gone.

posted by trey to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I've noticed something similar (10.4.2, a custom FF 1.0.x build) but as far as I recall it was for Flash, not Java applets (and btw I think you made a typo with J2SE '5.0' ;)).

What it seemed to be was my Adblock extension; I had the little transparent object tabs turned on. Turning them off fixed the problem neatly.

If you're not running Adblock, then I have no idea =/
posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:51 AM on September 9, 2005

Disabling adblock worked. Now I have to choose between my love for crosswords and my hatred of ads.
posted by trey at 7:34 AM on September 9, 2005

trey, I think cyrusdogstar meant to turn off the tabs that get attached to blockable items by adblock rather than the whole extension. Go to tools>extensions>adblock, then adblock options and untick Obj-tabs.

Hope that works, and means that you won't have to choose between ads and crosswords.
posted by drill_here_fore_seismics at 8:03 AM on September 9, 2005

Yea, drill's right, sorry I wasn't explicit. It's one of the checkboxes in the Adblock prefs, as above. Thankfully the tabs aren't an absolute necessity for using Adblock!
posted by cyrusdogstar at 8:33 AM on September 9, 2005

Thank you so much cyrusdogstar, I thought this was just a bug in Firefox that I'd have to get used to (although I never did)
posted by nomad at 2:11 PM on September 9, 2005

Oh my god. This has bugged me for so long. AskMe is teh r0x0r.
posted by John Shaft at 5:43 PM on September 11, 2005