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Why won't bookmarks open directly (left-click) from sidebar.

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Recently (probably when updated to V.30?) I lost the ability to click bookmarks in my sidebar to open them (I always have the sidebar open and it was previously my main way of navigating.) If I right click, I get a small menu which includes "open" but simply clicking on the bookmark does nothing at all.

I did see a support issue where someone was asking how to select a bookmark without opening it (the opposite of what I'm trying to do here) and the person was told to click on the far left to select without opening. I have now tried clicking all over various bookmarks - left, right, high, low, on the text, on the icon, double-clicking, etc. - nothing works. The stupid things just won't open unless I right click on them.

How can I get back to normal sidebar bookmark use?!

Recently (probably when updated to V.30?) I lost the ability to click bookmarks in my sidebar to open them (I always have the sidebar open and it was previously my main way of navigating.) If I right click, I get a small menu which includes "open" but simply clicking on the bookmark does nothing at all. I did see a support issue where someone was asking how to select a bookmark without opening it (the opposite of what I'm trying to do here) and the person was told to click on the far left to select without opening. I have now tried clicking all over various bookmarks - left, right, high, low, on the text, on the icon, double-clicking, etc. - nothing works. The stupid things just won't open unless I right click on them. How can I get back to normal sidebar bookmark use?!

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Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database file in the Firefox profile folder.


There are other things that need your attention.

Note that your System Details List shows multiple Flash plugins.

  1. Shockwave Flash 14.0 r0
  2. Shockwave Flash 13.0 r0

You can find the installation path of all plugins on the about:plugins page.

You can check the Flash player installation folder for multiple Flash player plugins and remove older version(s) of the plugin (NPSWF32) and possibly (re)install the latest Flash player.

  • (32 bit Windows) C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash\
  • (64 bit Windows) C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\