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Problem: Firefox suddenly (newly) loads a (previous) page without being asked.

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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Whilst in the midst of playing the "Orion Sandbox" game (I think it`s a Flash game) on Y8.com, all of a sudden I`m back in Google Maps that I`d been in earlier.

Please note: 1. I was using the mouse. I did not touch the keyboard. 2. I say "... (newly) ..." because although I`d been in Google Maps earlier, upon right-clicking the Back Button it shows the current instance of Google Maps is a new one in the History, after the game which is now the previous page. In other words I have not somehow gone back. (This counts against it being something to do with the fleeting impression I`ve gotten sometimes that the mouse is being interpreted as being in a different position than the pointer appears on the screen. In other words it`s not a case of I clicked on the game, but it got taken as a click on the Back Button, because I`ve not actually gone back). 3. This is not the first & only time something like this (sudden, unrequested page loading (or, similarly, sudden unrequested tab switching)) has happened (There`s been a few occurences, but I don`t recall them in such detail).

What`s going on?

(It`s like sometimes the mouse has appeared to be briefly dragging an image that is from a previous page/other tab (I don`t recall exactly) not even on the current page, like there`s some invisible ghost of the previous page still on the screen or something). (Memory pointers/mapping getting mixed up?).

Whilst in the midst of playing the "Orion Sandbox" game (I think it`s a Flash game) on Y8.com, all of a sudden I`m back in Google Maps that I`d been in earlier. Please note: 1. I was using the mouse. I did not touch the keyboard. 2. I say "... (newly) ..." because although I`d been in Google Maps earlier, upon right-clicking the Back Button it shows the current instance of Google Maps is a new one in the History, after the game which is now the previous page. In other words I have not somehow gone back. (This counts against it being something to do with the fleeting impression I`ve gotten sometimes that the mouse is being interpreted as being in a different position than the pointer appears on the screen. In other words it`s not a case of I clicked on the game, but it got taken as a click on the Back Button, because I`ve not actually gone back). 3. This is not the first & only time something like this (sudden, unrequested page loading (or, similarly, sudden unrequested tab switching)) has happened (There`s been a few occurences, but I don`t recall them in such detail). What`s going on? (It`s like sometimes the mouse has appeared to be briefly dragging an image that is from a previous page/other tab (I don`t recall exactly) not even on the current page, like there`s some invisible ghost of the previous page still on the screen or something). (Memory pointers/mapping getting mixed up?).

All Replies (2)

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These are the ways I can think of that a tab could navigate to a previously visited Google Maps address:

  • Clicking an entry on the History menu
  • Clicking a bookmarks, if it was a bookmarked page
  • Dragging and dropping the URL into the tab
  • Submitting a search to Google Maps through the address bar or search bar (and if Google Maps is not your default search engine, it would require clicking a specific icon)

Otherwise, launching a new tab or new window would be more likely/expected.

I do think there are occasional cases of context switching confusion where something you started dragging lingers around even when you would expect it to be canceled, but I don't recall when I've seen that.

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You might be pressing the Alt key while rotating the mouse wheel.

  • mousewheel.with_alt.action = 2 change to 1 (scroll) or 0 (nothing)

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.


0: Nothing happens
1: Scrolling contents
2: Go back or go forward, in your history
3: Zoom in or out (reflowing zoom).
4: Treat vertical wheel as horizontal scroll
5: Zoom in or out (pinch zoom).