294091 - text fields disabled frequently

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Alan Batie]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

Apologies if this is a dup, I thought I reported this once but it's not in my
list of reported bugs, and in any case, it's becoming a more serious problem: I
typically have several Firefox windows open, switching back and forth,
minimizing the ones I'm not actively using.  One is usually a wiki page I use as
a mini-blog to log what I'm doing.  Frequently, I'll switch to a window, and the
text fields are completely inactive (attempting to type in them does nothing),
including the location bar.  I only have to close the window and open a new one,
rather than restarting the entire browser, but it's happening frequently enough
to getting really annoying, to the point where I'm about to stop using Firefox.
 This is not the same as 259814, as I don't use find that much, and not in the
affected windows in any case.  It's also not the same as 268359, as while I
often use a bookmark, I don't use desktop shortcuts, and even when started from
a bookmark, the text fields work for a while.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a page
2. Minimize it
3. Come back to it later and try to enter a new url to go to, or if the page has
a form on it, try to enter data in the form fields.

Actual Results:  
Nothing: the location bar and the form fields ignore the typing

Expected Results:  
Entered the data I typed into the form field

Comment 1

[Alan Batie]

PS: it's not just the page that's there when I switch to the window; I'm using
phpwiki for the wiki/blog, and when that's the window with the problem, I have
to click on the Edit button to get to edit page with the form and that's when I
notice that window has lost the ability to accept data entry.

Comment 2

[Alan Batie]

I've moved this down to Normal as I just discovered that reloading the page
clears the problem: I'd just clicked the edit button to get to the form, tried
to click in the text area to type, it ignored the click and just on a whim, I
clicked reload, not really expecting it to work, but it did.

Comment 3

[Alan Batie]

Nope: back to Major --- I just had it happen again and reloading didn't fix the
problem.  That window was toast.

Comment 4

[bethany j hanson]

Hi!  BTW, all of the Deer Park builds I've tried (including the latest from August 16th) on Mac OS X 
10.3.8 exhibit this behavior (or fairly similar behavior) for me.  Text fields on web pages do not exist 
and I cannot type into the location bar of the browser.  I cannot type at all, basically.  Neither starting in 
"safe mode", nor creating a new profile, nor downloading a brand new copy into a new location has 
improved the situation at all.  Thanks!

Comment 5

[Alan Batie]

I just had an interesting experience with this: I brought up a Firefox window,
highlighted the url in the location field at the top, typed a sitename and
pressed enter before I realized the typing wasn't taking.  After I did so,
*another* minimized Firefox window popped up with an error because what I'd
typed had gone into a form that happened to be in that window at the time (a
mydns admin page).

Comment 6

[Kerri-Anne Sheridan]

I've had this same problem using Firefox versions 1.0.5 - 1.0.7, on Mac OS X.
Usually I have to completely exit Firefox when this happens, as it will usually
become "contagious" to other Firefox windows and tabs. When this happens, I am
unable to enter text into the location bar, the search bar, or in any form
fields on a web site.

Thanks!

Comment 7

[Alan Batie]

Some additional info: I've discovered that sometimes I can tab several times and
have one of the other windows pop up after several tabs !? then I can minimize
that window and typing will work in the one I originally brought up.  It sounds
like something's losing track of the current window...

Comment 8

[Jo Hermans]

another duplicate of bug 319747 ?

Comment 9

[Brian Tully]

Using Firefox 1.5.0.4 on OS X 10.4.6.

I've tried using Deer Park as well but have the same issue.

The bug as I see it is the following:

Open several Firefox windows, one containing a form with some text fields, and then minimize them to the Dock. Make the Finder or another application "active" so that Firefox and its windows stay open (minimized) but are running in the background.

Wait a minute or two and then go back to Firefox and un-minimize the window with the text fields. Chances are all text fields including the address bar will be unresponsive, i.e., you can try to click in them to force the cursor there and make the textfield active but nothing, not even typing, has any effect. To get the textfields working again you need to click off the window (make it inactive without minimizing) and then click on it again to make it active. This seems to bring the window and all its widgets back in focus and the textfields work again. Needless to say this is annoying as hell.

I would be very curious to hear if those having this same problem are also using any of Unsanity's haxies such as FruitMenu or WindowShadeX. On a whim I added Firefox to Unsanity's Application Enhancer Exclude List so that the haxies ignore Firefox. While I've only been testing this for a few minutes it seems as though I no longer experience the bug. Yet when running Safari and Camino with the haxies I do not experience the bug.

Is it possible that Firefox handles window focus differently than Camino/Safari that would cause it to break when used with Unsanity's haxies?

Comment 10

[Alan Batie]

I've been using various 1.5's and occasionally 2.x for sometime now without a recurrence of the problem.