650510 - When opening a PDF file in Firefox 4, keyboard input becomes inoperable. Mouse functions, somewhat.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 273456

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[chris]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

If a PDF file is opened within a Firefox session, keyboard input becomes inoperable. For example, say a webpage has a link to a pdf file. You click on link FF4 opens PDF in new tab. Now click on "+" button to open a new tab, or even try clicking into the text input box for the search toolbar. You cannot input anything. Closing the PDF does not immediately restore keyboard input capability.

I have found that going to File>Open New Window after closing the PDF tab restores keyboard input. Or closing FF4 and restarting FF4 (after closing tab with pdf open) restores keyboard input capability.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open pdf file (which opens into new tab)
2. Open new tab
3. Try to click search box or into address bar
4. Cannot input text while PDF is open
Actual Results:  
Cannot input text into any text input box while the PDF is open in said tab.

Expected Results:  
Should still be able to input text or keyboard while the PDF is open in the other tab.

I will do some additional testing such as leaving the PDF tab open and closing the browser then reopening browser (with leave/remember tabs open option enabled) and seeing if keyboard input is restored that way.

Comment 1

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

Which PDF reader are you using? What version?

Does the issue still occur if you start Firefox in Safe Mode? http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

How about with a new, empty profile? http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#Make_a_new_profile

Comment 2

[chris]

I am utilizing the latest Adobe reader "X" which is actually ver 10.0.1

Restarting in Safe Mode with add-ons disabled does not alleviate the problem.

I have tried this on two separate computers each with their own FF4 clients (one machine is Vista x32 the other is W7 x64), and thus each with their own profiles (though I have not yet created a new blank profile). Problem still occurs. I will redo with a blank profile and report back.

All plug-ins and add-ons are up to date on both computers. Both computers are using the latest non-beta version of FF4. 

I would like to note that another work-around I have found instead of closing the browser and restarting, after opening a pdf following a link, and after opening a new tab without having closed said tab with pdf, if you right click anywhere on the new tab it will then allow you to input into the address field and or the search box field for the session of that browser and any subsequent new tabs opened. Even if you reopen the pdf again, as long as you are in the same browser session input is restored.

I don't know what the technical term for all of this is, or even if perhaps it is a bug with adobe reader 10 in itself, or abode reader 10 and FF4, but I would like to note that this does not occur with IE9 and adobe reader 10 so this would lend me to think it is something with FF4 itself or FF4 using adobe reader 10.

Comment 3

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

Duplicate of bug 627275?

Comment 4

[chris]

Possibly; in that person's initial report back in January, he was using FF 3.6; I can state that this behavior never occurred for me using FF 3.6 and adobe reader 9 or 10 (or at least I never noticed it). I only noticed it when I upgraded to FF4... It seems though that reading through 627275 and 537325 that a PDF seems to take some sort of focus of the whole browser when loaded into any tab. Though for now, this bug is close enough to 627275 will can this as dup; I think he describes a different aspect/behavior than what I describe of the same bug.