This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Address bar behaving strangely

  • 2 cavab
  • 6 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by derErgi

more options

I have a problem with selecting text in the address bar by clicking with the mouse.

What I expect to happen: A single click anywhere (without previous selection) selects the whole URL, additional clicks select parts of the URL or position the cursor. At most three clicks are needed to switch to any desired selection mode.

What happens instead appears to be more random. Sometimes I have to click 6 or more times until the whole URL is highlighted, however when I start typing, it does not always replace the whole string, but starts by replacing the last character. Sometimes the selection also feels laggy, with the highlighted section changing after a noticeable delay (about 300ms).

The address bar is still usable, but it does no longer repond to input consistently.

I am using Firefox 33.0.2. Disabling extensions and restarting did not affect the issue. However, when running Firefox in safe mode the problem disappears. Any ideas how I can fix this?

I have a problem with selecting text in the address bar by clicking with the mouse. What I expect to happen: A single click anywhere (without previous selection) selects the whole URL, additional clicks select parts of the URL or position the cursor. At most three clicks are needed to switch to any desired selection mode. What happens instead appears to be more random. Sometimes I have to click 6 or more times until the whole URL is highlighted, however when I start typing, it does not always replace the whole string, but starts by replacing the last character. Sometimes the selection also feels laggy, with the highlighted section changing after a noticeable delay (about 300ms). The address bar is still usable, but it does no longer repond to input consistently. I am using Firefox 33.0.2. Disabling extensions and restarting did not affect the issue. However, when running Firefox in safe mode the problem disappears. Any ideas how I can fix this?

Chosen solution

Hello,

Try disabling graphics hardware acceleration. You might need to restart Firefox in order for this to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).

Then perform these steps:

  1. Click the menu button New Fx Menu and select Options
  2. In the Firefox Options window, click the Advanced tab, then select General.
  3. In the settings list, you should find the Use hardware acceleration when available checkbox. Uncheck this checkbox.
  4. Now, restart Firefox and see if the problems persist.

Additionally, please check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in the following Knowledge base articles:

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

Read this answer in context 👍 4

All Replies (2)

more options

Seçilmiş Həll

Hello,

Try disabling graphics hardware acceleration. You might need to restart Firefox in order for this to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).

Then perform these steps:

  1. Click the menu button New Fx Menu and select Options
  2. In the Firefox Options window, click the Advanced tab, then select General.
  3. In the settings list, you should find the Use hardware acceleration when available checkbox. Uncheck this checkbox.
  4. Now, restart Firefox and see if the problems persist.

Additionally, please check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in the following Knowledge base articles:

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

Modified by CoryMH

more options

Disabling hardware acceleration fixed it. Thank you very much.