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right mouse button occasionally stops working in the content window

  • 3 cavab
  • 18 have this problem
  • 22 views
  • Last reply by t_paq

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occasionally, i'll be browsing and suddenly my right mouse button stops working within the page area, no right mouse click menu and no mouse gestures. at that point, it still works fine in other windows (even other FF windows); it even works in the tab bar of the affected window, but not within the page.

unfortunately, i have NOT found a way to reproduce it on demand, so i can't narrow it down to any of the extensions i have installed.

other tabs in the same window, either already opened or opened after the fact, are affected as well.

i've noticed that occasionally i'll click the right mouse button to bring up the menu, but nothing will happen; clicking it again, usually brings up the menu.

also, i use mouse gestures frequently, and i have noticed that occasionally when i perform the gesture to close a window, it will close the window and then pop up the right click menu. i've also seen it where it will execute a gesture spontaneously, as if i'd released the right mouse button (but i hadn't).

this suggests that either something is actually generating the MouseUp event prematurely or FF is reporting and processing an event that didn't happen. under the circumstances, then, could this "phantom" mouse event be causing a problem with the MouseDown event handler for the right mouse button, either causing it to ignore events or disabling it entirely?

occasionally, i'll be browsing and suddenly my right mouse button stops working within the page area, no right mouse click menu and no mouse gestures. at that point, it still works fine in other windows (even other FF windows); it even works in the tab bar of the affected window, but not within the page. unfortunately, i have NOT found a way to reproduce it on demand, so i can't narrow it down to any of the extensions i have installed. other tabs in the same window, either already opened or opened after the fact, are affected as well. i've noticed that occasionally i'll click the right mouse button to bring up the menu, but nothing will happen; clicking it again, usually brings up the menu. also, i use mouse gestures frequently, and i have noticed that occasionally when i perform the gesture to close a window, it will close the window and then pop up the right click menu. i've also seen it where it will execute a gesture spontaneously, as if i'd released the right mouse button (but i hadn't). this suggests that either something is actually generating the MouseUp event prematurely or FF is reporting and processing an event that didn't happen. under the circumstances, then, could this "phantom" mouse event be causing a problem with the MouseDown event handler for the right mouse button, either causing it to ignore events or disabling it entirely?

All Replies (3)

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i have noticed that when this happens, if i close a window with <ctrl-w>, then the right mouse button context menu starts working again EXCEPT that it appears on the right MouseDown event as opposed to the MouseUp.

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Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of your add-ons is causing your problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Themes).

See Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems and Troubleshoot issues with plugins like Flash or Java to fix common Firefox problems

If it does work in Safe-mode then disable all your extensions and then try to find which is causing it by enabling one at a time until the problem reappears.

You can use "Disable all add-ons" on the Safe mode start window to disable all extensions.

You have to close and restart Firefox after each change via "File > Exit" (Mac: "Firefox > Quit"; Linux: "File > Quit")

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unfortunately, this issue simply does not recur in any sort of consistent fashion; at least i haven't found any set of circumstances or actions that can consistently provoke it. i have created a new profile with my standard set of extensions, and the problem recurred. i've disabled some of the "less important" extensions, but that didn't seem to make any difference. i could try disabling all-in-one gestures, but i'm afraid the problem will disappear simply because without this extension, my propensity for right clicking would virtually disappear. it's a bit of a catch-22...

Modified by t_paq