Problem with drop down windows (History, Form Drop Downs, etc)
All of my drop down menus seem buggy, including but not limited to, search bar history, drop down menus on forms, options given to me on auto-complete, etc. Whenever I go to type something in, such as a "g" in the address bar to begin typing in a website, the drop history suggestions wont display unless I hover my cursor down to where the drop down menu would reach to. To illustrate better, if I keep my cursor in the address bar and type a g, nothing will drop down. If I place my cursor about an inch down (where the first or second recommendation would be displayed) then I can see all of the options.
This happens on all sorts of things, and while it makes it annoying to quickly go to a website, it makes certain websites or forms inaccessible completely. Any ideas? Running windows 7 with only adblocker installed. I've tried both using firefox in safemode and disabling hardware accelerated graphics with no success. Thanks.
Oh, and in case I'm still not clear, after this question, the "This happened" box, I can only see the dropdown options by quickly clicking the down arrow and then rapidly scrolling to where the options would be if the dropdown displayed normally.
All Replies (7)
Try to disable hardware acceleration.
- Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
If disabling hardware acceleration works then check if there is an update available for your graphics display driver.
Cor-el,
I tried disabling hardware acceleration, and even tried it a second time after your reply. Still no dice. Any other ideas?
Try a clean (re)install and delete the Firefox program folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\).
Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.
- Firefox 12.0.x: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html
Uninstall your current Firefox version, if possible.
- Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall your current Firefox version, because all profile folders will be removed and you will also lose your personal data like bookmarks and passwords from profiles of other Firefox versions.
Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.
- It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Firefox
Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored elsewhere in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by a reinstall, but make sure that you do not select to remove personal data if you uninstall Firefox.
If that still doesn't work then try a new profile as well.
See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":
There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.
If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.
See:
Tried both methods and still nothing :( I just noticed too that when I go to forums and such and hover over a topic, I no longer get that drop down preview box. Additionally, and something you may be more familiar with, when I hover over things such as "find" and "save page as" in the firefox menus, the box that gives the shortcuts for those options (Ctrl+f, etc.) also is unable to display. It shows for a quick second before disappearing.
Out of curiosity, I tested to see if I had this issue on both google chrome and IE. The issue remained in chrome but not in IE. I'm really baffled as to what can be causing this.
Did you close and restart Firefox after disabling hardware acceleration?
Yes I did.
Cor-El,
After doing some more research I found out this problem is evidently being caused by my wireless mouse. Sure enough, as soon as I went back to using my trackpad the issue fixed itself. Thank you for all your help, sorry it ended up being such an oddball solution.