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Sometimes my arrow keys stop working in Firefox; has anyone else seen this? Any ideas on what could be causing this?

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  • 21 have this problem
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  • Last reply by JoeV2

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Fairly often when I'm using Firefox I'll suddenly find that the arrow keys have stopped working. I could be typing something in a text box and using the arrow keys to navigate the cursor, or I could be using the arrow keys to scroll a page up / down, or anything else, or trying to arrow down through the menu bar selection. It doesn't matter; the arrow keys are completely ignored everywhere within the Firefox program -- except for one case: If I press and hold an arrow key long enough for the auto-key-repeat to kick in, then the arrow key will be recognized and the appropriate response will be performed -- but only rapid-fire, and only for as long as I hold down the arrow key.

When this problem occurs, it's only within Firefox. When I switch over to any other programs that happen to be running, the arrow keys behave normally.

The problem happens often, but not necessarily every time I run Firefox.

Fairly often when I'm using Firefox I'll suddenly find that the arrow keys have stopped working. I could be typing something in a text box and using the arrow keys to navigate the cursor, or I could be using the arrow keys to scroll a page up / down, or anything else, or trying to arrow down through the menu bar selection. It doesn't matter; the arrow keys are completely ignored everywhere within the Firefox program -- except for one case: If I press and hold an arrow key long enough for the auto-key-repeat to kick in, then the arrow key will be recognized and the appropriate response will be performed -- but only rapid-fire, and only for as long as I hold down the arrow key. When this problem occurs, it's only within Firefox. When I switch over to any other programs that happen to be running, the arrow keys behave normally. The problem happens often, but not necessarily every time I run Firefox.

All Replies (2)

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You may have switched on caret browsing. You can press press F7 (on Mac: fn + F7) to toggle caret browsing on/off.

  • Tools > Options > Advanced : General: Accessibility: [ ] "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages"

See also:


Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (Tools) > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

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I'm having the same problem. I tentatively blame the Adobe Reader plugin. In the current browsing session, the problem occurred when I opened a PDF. As soon as I disabled the Adobe Reader plugin, it went away. I've disabled the plugin and I'll see how things go. I'm running FF7.0.1 on WinXP SP3 with Adobe Reader 10.1.1.33. (I can confirm I'm not accidentally enabling Caret Browsing.)