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Location bar loses focus while typing url or search terms

  • 4 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by mverwijs

matthucke
matthucke
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I will type a URL or a search query into the location bar. A list of suggestions (from recent history, bookmarks, etc.) appears below.

As soon as I type a character that results in my current url/search string not being found in the list of suggestions, the list goes away - and so does the keyboard focus. The focus seems to go nowhere it all - I am continuing to type, and the characters are not appearing in the location bar.

I then have to click on the location bar and retype the characters that were lost when the focus went away.

For someone who navigates with the location bar regularly, this has made the location almost unusable.

I will type a URL or a search query into the location bar. A list of suggestions (from recent history, bookmarks, etc.) appears below. As soon as I type a character that results in my current url/search string not being found in the list of suggestions, the list goes away - and so does the keyboard focus. The focus seems to go nowhere it all - I am continuing to type, and the characters are not appearing in the location bar. I then have to click on the location bar and retype the characters that were lost when the focus went away. For someone who navigates with the location bar regularly, this has made the location almost unusable.

Chosen solution

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

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All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Chosen Solution

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

matthucke
matthucke Question owner
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Thanks cor-el,

Although I said this was a "New Installation" with no extensions, as it turns out, Ubuntu ships Firefox with two extensions pre-installed by default, for integration with their Unity desktop (which I don't even use... it's awful.)

Disabling these did the trick.

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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You're welcome and thanks for reporting how you fixed it.

mverwijs
mverwijs
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Disabling didn't work for me actually (XUbuntu 12.04, Firefox 14.01).

I had to remove the entire extension:

apt-get remove xul-ext-ubufox

This removed the Ubuntu-branded Firefox installation as well. But that was a bonus as I was already using a firefox downloaded mozilla.org in order to debug this annoying issue.