508996 - floating text window box that follows mouse cursor movement.

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[B J McCormack]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090729 Firefox/3.5.2 GTB5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090729 Firefox/3.5.2 GTB5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

This is rather hard to describe since I'm not sure what to call it.  Since the new update of 3.5.1 or 3.5.2 in late July or early August 2009 I now have a small text box window that pops up when I move the cursor on a webpage using the mouse, shows for a few seconds and then disappears.  The text it contains varies, and seems to be taken from one of the text entry boxes (such as this), or occasionally from a hotlink -- for instance at the moment it says "show", and earlier it said "comment", but earlier tonight it has said "Terminator at Elks Theater Schedules" since that was the subject line of one of my Yahoo account emails, and it has occasionally held a full sentence.  I'm not sure if this is actually a bug, or if it is something I need to turn off in the tools menu, but since it seems hang on to random info from a previous webpage, I think it is a glitch.  It didn't appear until the updated Firefox download of a few nights ago and it only appears in Firefox, not in any other browser.  I have also run a spyware scan and that ran clean.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Firefox.  Depending on what you're doing, may be okay for a bit, but then...
2. type into a form, click on an email, or occasionally do nothing....
3.box appears and follows the cursor for the rest of the browsing session.  Move the mouse, see the box ... move the mouse, see the box....
It's that simple, and that unexplainable.  It just starts happening.
Actual Results:  
I just went and clicked a different email in a different tab than this.  Instead of "show" which had come from some webpage link, or possibly comment form, I now have a different subject line (from Ebay): "Don't miss out on item YU GI OH Japanese KAIBA @ Structure Deck NIP lot of 14 (280378570878)" following my cursor arrow around any time I move the mouse.  The message displays for about 4 seconds and then disappears till I move the mouse again.  I could change this to a different line again, but what's the point? -- you see how it works already...  When it picks up something this long it can get in the way of what I'm trying to read on a webpage.

Expected Results:  
Box shouldn't display at all.  It is totally useless.  You can't type in it, you can't use it to fill information into a form from, it doesn't even tell you anything relevant to the current page since it picks up something from early and then just repeats it.  All it does is get in the way of what you are trying to read when you scroll through a web page.  

I could send you a screen cap of this if you need one....

If it isn't a bug, but just something I need to turn off in the options settings, please let me know what I need to change -- I tried to find something that would fix it, but didn't succeed.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Please try safe-mode to exclude extension problems:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode
If that doesn't help with a new profile:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#Make_a_new_profile
If the problem continues, try reinstalling Firefox in a different folder.

Comment 2

[B J McCormack]

Safe mode worked, new profile didn't let me make one, ended up uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox and that seems to have fixed it.  Thank you!!

Comment 3

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Thanks for reporting back. Resolving WORKSFORME per comment 2.