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keyboard shortcuts are doing the wrong thing, shift and control keys work on their own.

  • 5 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by philipp

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Whenever i press control, the screen zooms out, text shrinks. this is only in firefox, internet explorer still requires me to press control and plus or minus. in addition, if i press shift while in a text box in firefox, such as to type a capitol letter while writting this, the browser goes "back". i am using an onscreen keyboard to get by this. it doesn't matter which key i press in combination with shift, the browser goes back. these problems are only in firefox. ive restarted the brower, updated to most recent version, and restarted the computer. no keys are stuck and the mouse is working with fresh batteries. what can this be?

Whenever i press control, the screen zooms out, text shrinks. this is only in firefox, internet explorer still requires me to press control and plus or minus. in addition, if i press shift while in a text box in firefox, such as to type a capitol letter while writting this, the browser goes "back". i am using an onscreen keyboard to get by this. it doesn't matter which key i press in combination with shift, the browser goes back. these problems are only in firefox. ive restarted the brower, updated to most recent version, and restarted the computer. no keys are stuck and the mouse is working with fresh batteries. what can this be?

All Replies (5)

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Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web link} While you are in safe mode; Press the <Alt> or <F10> key to bring up the tool bar. Followed by;

Windows; Tools > Options Linux; Edit > Preferences Mac; application name > Preferences

Then Advanced > General. Look for and turn off Use Hardware Acceleration.

Poke around safe web sites and see if there is still a problem. Then restart.

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It is possible that some of the status keys have the wrong state and Firefox sees them as still pressed.

Try to press all the status keys (Shift, Ctrl, Alt) a few times to see if that helps to recover from this. If it doesn't help then close and restart Firefox or reboot the computer.

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this did not fix the problem. thanks for the input. any other ideas?

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Sometimes a problem with Firefox may be a result of malware installed on your computer, that you may not be aware of.

You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:

Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one.

Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.

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

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hello mmsimmons, in the past we have had similar reports by other users with a defective mouse (or mousepad), since shift+scrolling is a shortcut to go back/forward in the history in firefox.

to circumvent that, please try the following: enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named mousewheel.with_shift.action. double-click it and change its value to 0.