392477 - Address bar loses focus while typing address

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Seb Belcher]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; InfoPath.1)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6

This is almost a feature request, but not quite because it is so annoying.
When Firefox first loads, if you start typing an address into the address bar, a lot of the time the bar will lose focus mid-typing because the home-page has loaded and a form element on that page has gained focus, this happens a lot for me with the Firefox Google start page.

The number of times I have looked up from the keyboard (I find it difficult to touch-type non-dictionary words) and discovered I have "www.mywe" in the address bar and "bsite.com" in the search box on the home page, I cannot count, but it has happened numerous enough times to cause great annoyance and for me to write this bug.

It should be noted that this happens whenever you start typing an address whilst another page is already loading that will evetually gain focus.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use Firefox on a average internet connection, 512k DSL for example, where pages will not load instantly, neither will they take ages.
2. Set the home-page to a site that has a form element in it that gains focus on loading. http://www.google.co.uk/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official is ideal.
3. Close Firefox.
4. Open Firefox and in the address bar start entering the address of another webite that you want to view.

Actual Results:  
Notice that at some point during typing, focus switched to the form element, ruining your attempt at address entry.

Expected Results:  
I would expect there to be some kind of logic that would recognize typing into the address bar and not give focus away whilst this is happening.  Perhaps a minimum delay after a keypress before the address bar is allowed to lose focus.

Comment 1

[James Darpinian]

I think the severity of this bug is higher than minor; it means that the effective startup time of Firefox can be doubled or more if you measure startup time by how long it takes for the address bar or search box to become usable.  It is pointless to start typing in the address bar when you know that a couple of seconds later you will be interrupted, forcing you to click to focus the address bar again, resulting in the text you already typed being selected, so if you start typing again you will erase it and have to start over (and you can't just double-click either, you have to wait for the double-click timeout to expire).  This happens to me so often I set my homepage to about:blank even though I would much rather have it as Google Reader.

Comment 2

[daarklord]

I would like to see this bug fixed too. It's not only about faster startup; if you open a new window and start typing in the location bar the same thing happens. Also take a look at this description of a related problem:
http://wiki.mozilla.org/User_talk:Jokeyrhyme

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported on Firefox 2.x or older, which is no longer supported and will not be receiving any more updates. I strongly suggest that you update to Firefox 3.6.3 or later, update your plugins (flash, adobe, etc.), and retest in a new profile. If you still see the issue with the updated Firefox, please post here. Otherwise, please close as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME
http://www.mozilla.com
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+mode

Comment 4

[Rick]

Firefox 3.6.3 also has this symptom. I would also strongly recommend implementing a feature in the browser itself to prevent this.

If the addressbar or search bar have focus and the last keypress in those bars was less than one second ago, ignore focus()-calls from the website's javascript.

Comment 5

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.x or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.

Comment 6

[Kevin Lyles]

This bug still exists in firefox 3.6.4 and annoys me on a daily basis.