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.

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

My arrow keys are not working in Firefox. I can't use them to scroll on a page.

  • 4 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 199 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

I somehow pressed some key combination on my keyboard that now always puts a cursor in the content of my Internet browser page. And now when I try to use my arrow keys on the keyboard to scroll down email, content, etc., it jumps to the top of the page instead of scrolling. How can I fix this?

I somehow pressed some key combination on my keyboard that now always puts a cursor in the content of my Internet browser page. And now when I try to use my arrow keys on the keyboard to scroll down email, content, etc., it jumps to the top of the page instead of scrolling. How can I fix this?

Chosen solution

Yes, that's called "caret browsing" and you can turn it off on the Preferences page here:

  • Mac, either:
    • "3-bar" menu button > Preferences > Advanced > General mini-tab
    • Firefox menu > Preferences > Advanced > General mini-tab
  • Windows, either:
    • "3-bar" menu button > Options > Advanced > General mini-tab
    • Tools menu > Options > Advanced > General mini-tab

Uncheck the box for "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages"

Success?

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (4)

Chosen Solution

Yes, that's called "caret browsing" and you can turn it off on the Preferences page here:

  • Mac, either:
    • "3-bar" menu button > Preferences > Advanced > General mini-tab
    • Firefox menu > Preferences > Advanced > General mini-tab
  • Windows, either:
    • "3-bar" menu button > Options > Advanced > General mini-tab
    • Tools menu > Options > Advanced > General mini-tab

Uncheck the box for "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages"

Success?

debway said

I somehow pressed some key combination on my keyboard that now always puts a cursor in the content of my Internet browser page. And now when I try to use my arrow keys on the keyboard to scroll down email, content, etc., it jumps to the top of the page instead of scrolling. How can I fix this?

Thanks! I did find that earlier and noticed it worked. Thanks for reinforcing that!

Caret Out {web link} Disables change of the caret browse mode by shortcut key(F7).

You can toggle this pref to false on the about:config page to disable the F7 shortcut if you do not intent to use caret browsing mode.

  • accessibility.browsewithcaret_shortcut.enabled = false