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searches in the wrong tab

  • 7 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by user709721

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Lately, often when I am multitasking, I end up losing info. Say, for instance, I am listening to something in tab A while performing a search in tab B. The search instead takes place in tab A and I lose what I was listening to. Its REALLY beginning to tick me off, especially if its something I have to re-load in order to listen to/watch!

Lately, often when I am multitasking, I end up losing info. Say, for instance, I am listening to something in tab A while performing a search in tab B. The search instead takes place in tab A and I lose what I was listening to. Its REALLY beginning to tick me off, especially if its something I have to re-load in order to listen to/watch!

All Replies (7)

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Had you navigated within tab A from an earlier search result? It's not very common, but some sites will assign an identifier to a new window (tab) and repeatedly use that new window (tab). Most sites simply open a new window or tab whenever needed rather than trying to re-use the same one. To further investigate this diagnosis, can you tell whether the problem is limited to searches conducted on one site?

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Make sure that the focus of your cursor is inside the tab on which you are conducting a search

  • click on empty space inside the tab before start working in a tab

BTW Some of your Firefox Plugins are out-dated, so Update them by going to the following link:

Modified by Hasan

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'Had you navigated within tab A from an earlier search result? It's not very common, but some sites will assign an identifier to a new window (tab) and repeatedly use that new window (tab). Most sites simply open a new window or tab whenever needed rather than trying to re-use the same one. To further investigate this diagnosis, can you tell whether the problem is limited to searches conducted on one site? '

The only times I have really noticed it is when I have something running in Tab A. That's why its so annoying. I have, let's say, a game running in Tab A and have a question on what to do next. So I open Tab B and type "walk through" and hit return and the computer begins to look for results in Tab B. I then flip back to Tab A. Except that when the results pop up, they then pop up in Tab A, rather than Tab B and I lose my game. Or movie, or song, or whatever it is I was doing in Tab A. It does happen other times, but its only when there is something that I lose info on that it drives me nuts.

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what extensions do you have installed in tools > addons > extensions & does the same problem occur when you run firefox in safemode?

Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode

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Nothing extreme in my add-on. Flash, DiVX, Adobe, Logitech. I think that's about it. No idea on the safe mode. I'll try it once I'm not (once again) running three things at once :-)

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If you are running your search from the search box on the navigation toolbar, one alternate approach is to press Alt+Enter to force the results to a new tab. If you are searching within the page (e.g., using the Google home page or a Google results page), then the results really should be staying within tab B...

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Alternatively, if searching in the Firefox search box, click the search button with the mouse wheel.