Closed Bug 288605 Opened 19 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Firefox stops responding to any keyboard input.

Categories

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Keyboard Navigation
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

People

(Reporter: ageertsma, Unassigned)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317 Firefox/1.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317 Firefox/1.0.2

Firefox stops responding to keyboard input. This had been a problem since my
first firefox (the 0.9 and 1PR). The problem occurs sometimes when I open a lot
of tabs and always if I open large pages. Sometimes the keyboard input comes
back. The mouse works just fine but all the keyboard commands fail: textboxes,
addressbarr, pageup/down, end, home, ctrl+B, ctrl+J, and so on. At first I
thought it was caused by plug-ins but even a clean install showed the same result.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
Open a couple of larger pages in tabs. Like pages with 50 or so big jpg photo's
(800x600)
Actual Results:  
The keyboard stops responding in firefox only.

Expected Results:  
The keyboard should keep working.
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050227
Firefox/1.0+

Just Ctrl-combinations, or keyboard in general? Can you type into a textbox?

See Bug 274631 "Keyboard stops working periodically - have to restart app"
Firefox stops responding to all keyboard input. So, no textboxes, no fields. I
DO however am able to click buttons and scroll up and down using the mouse. I've
read Bug 274631 "Keyboard stops working periodically - have to restart app" but
it's another OS on another CPU and it doesn't state the problem with the bigger
sites.
(In reply to comment #2)
> Firefox stops responding to all keyboard input. So, no textboxes, no fields. I
> DO however am able to click buttons and scroll up and down using the mouse. I've
> read Bug 274631 "Keyboard stops working periodically - have to restart app" but
> it's another OS on another CPU and it doesn't state the problem with the bigger
> sites.

I think these are the same bug, as I've seen the behavior both on XP and on OS
X.  It seems to have gotten worse since 1.0.4, to the point where it's happening
a few times a day on my iBook -- I tend to browse with lots of tabs open -- and
it's driving me up the wall.

Symptoms:  Input stops working in textareas, input fields, address bar and
search bar.  Cursor will not appear when you click in various input areas, and
may or may not remain blinking in the one it was in when the freeze occurred. 
Mouse input still works, and interestingly, if you click on different tabs the
cursor may continue to blink in the same position on the page that it was on
when the freeze occurred, leaving it blinking irrelevantly in the middle of a
page in another tab!  I've only seen this last behavior with the cursor once,
though.  Usually it simply disappears and will not reappear.
In this situation what happens if you alt tab away and alt tab back?
I have been having this problem aswell on OSX. After opening many tabs/windows or after opening a heavy website Firefox stops responding to keyboard input. It happened sometimes but rearly pre 1.5 but now it keeps on happening. The only way to fix it is just to close the browser and opening it again. It is becoming really annoying.
I found a website where the keyboard will almost always stop functioning when entered. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/journeyplanner
(In reply to comment #1)
 
> Just Ctrl-combinations, or keyboard in general? Can you type into a textbox?
> 
> See Bug 274631 "Keyboard stops working periodically - have to restart app"

I have also seen this occurring since (I believe around) 1.0.3.  I usually first notice that the copy (ctrl-c) stops working, and then realize all keyboard response has failed (arrows to scroll, page up/down to scroll).  The only way I've found out of this state is to launch a new firefox window, then switch back to the original window, where the keyboard will be responsive again.  Believe me, it gets really irritating when you can't copy something off a page.  And oddly enough, when it gets in this state, Edit->Copy seems to be ineffective as well, the highlighted text doesn't make it to the keyboard.
Assignee: aaronleventhal → mats.palmgren
Keywords: access
(In reply to comment #7)
> keyboard response has failed (arrows to scroll, page up/down to scroll).  The
> only way I've found out of this state is to launch a new firefox window, then
> switch back to the original window, where the keyboard will be responsive
> again.  Believe me, it gets really irritating when you can't copy something off
> a page.  And oddly enough, when it gets in this state, Edit->Copy seems to be
> ineffective as well, the highlighted text doesn't make it to the keyboard.
> 
I too have noticed this, I wonder if its related to having several pages loaded with different encoding schemes (havent been able to test this conclusively yet)
Not sure if it is related, but this just happened to me on Seamonkey; I opened the Javascript console and saw:

Error: Error in parsing value for property 'cursor'.  Declaration dropped.
Source File: http://www.google.com/search?q=pirate+manual&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=mozilla&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial
Line: 21

When I went back to the browser window, keyboard input had started working again.
This can always be reproduced on a Mac if you go to a site with a flash element on the page and you bring it to focus by clicking on it.

Steps:

Open a fresh firefox browser (window 1).
Open a new firefox browser window (window 2).
Go to youtube.com.
Click any button on any flash element.
Go back to window 1 and keyboard focus is still stuck in window 2.


A critical example are sites that pop up flash movie players like http://fora.tv
On the mac if you play any video on this site, firefox will stop responding to keyboard commands on any tab or window that was opened before the video started playing.

If a new tab is opened using Command+T, they keyboard focus is regained and everything is fine.

I only notice this problem on Mac OS X with Firefox 2.0. The latest Firefox 1a3.0 doesn't have this problem. Firefox 2.0 on Windows and Linux doesn't show this problem either.
QA Contact: jruderman → keyboard.navigation
This happens on both PPC and Intel machines, every single damn one of them.  So hello safari.
Might as well start using netscape again, or download IE for mac this is so infuriating.

There are several different bugs in this report. Do we have a 
good recipe for reproduction of any of them?

FWIW, on a self-build Fox, I get this warning:

WARNING: NS_ENSURE_TRUE(NS_SUCCEEDED(rv)) failed: file ../../../../src/docshell/base/nsDocShellEditorData.cpp, line 155

which signifies that, the call:

   do_CreateInstance("@mozilla.org/editor/editingsession;1", &rv);

at http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/docshell/base/nsDocShellEditorData.cpp#218 failed. 

but this may a different problem entirely
(In reply to comment #9)
> Not sure if it is related, but this just happened to me on Seamonkey; I 
> opened the Javascript console and saw:
> 
> Error: Error in parsing value for property 'cursor'.  Declaration dropped.
> Source File:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=pirate+manual&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=mozilla&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial
> Line: 21
> 
> When I went back to the browser window, keyboard input had started working
> again.

The Javascript 'error' is harmless - I assume that it is a work around for a 
bug in I.E..

Most of the time, switching focus between windows will relieve the problem
at least temporarily. I have found it best to minimise the window to the dock
(Cmd-M) and pick it off the WIndow menu.

I am not putting full weight behind this as a work-around (apart from its 
being a pretty lousy one), because I suspect that there are several problems
here.
In firefox 2.0.0.2 this bug appears to be fixed. In every situation I tried, the keyboard focus works as expected. Good work guys.


(In reply to comment #10)
> This can always be reproduced on a Mac if you go to a site with a flash element
> on the page and you bring it to focus by clicking on it.
> 
> Steps:
> 
> Open a fresh firefox browser (window 1).
> Open a new firefox browser window (window 2).
> Go to youtube.com.
> Click any button on any flash element.
> Go back to window 1 and keyboard focus is still stuck in window 2.
> 
> 
> A critical example are sites that pop up flash movie players like
> http://fora.tv
> On the mac if you play any video on this site, firefox will stop responding to
> keyboard commands on any tab or window that was opened before the video started
> playing.
> 
> If a new tab is opened using Command+T, they keyboard focus is regained and
> everything is fine.
> 
> I only notice this problem on Mac OS X with Firefox 2.0. The latest Firefox
> 1a3.0 doesn't have this problem. Firefox 2.0 on Windows and Linux doesn't show
> this problem either.
> 


This seems to be the bug closest to the problem I've been having.  My keyboard has shut down in Firefox several times in the last week.  I do often have several tabs open (say 6-8), but there doesn't seem to be any consistency between this and the keyboard shutting down.
Interestingly, if I go to another program on my computer and type there, then when I come back to Firefox it is working again, and continues to work.  
I'm not sure it is connected with the tabs though.  This morning I just had four open and the keyboard froze.  (By the way, the mouse can place the cursor anywhere, but the keyboard has no effect.)

I am using 2.0.0.7

I am Using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12 on Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2 latest fix/release. Firefox stops responding when several windows are open about once every other day. I use Windows Task Manager to detect the problem and End Task to resolve the problem and then restart Firefox. The problem seems to occur when the Firefox windows have been inactive for a long period of time.
do you see this problem with FF3 beta ?
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/3.0b5-candidates/rc2/
Assignee: mats.palmgren → nobody
do you see this problem with FF3, or FF 3.1 beta ?
Keywords: access
Whiteboard: closeme 2009-02-15
resolving due to lack of responses of several commenters.
reporter(s), feels free to reopen this bug report if you can answer comment 18 (i.e. is anyone able to reproduce the described problems using Fx 3.0.7/3.1 beta3?).
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → INCOMPLETE
Whiteboard: closeme 2009-02-15
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