Strange problem with Firefox 3 – return key not working on address bar
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008Since upgrading to Firefox 3, I’ve had an intermittent problem, both on my work and my home PC’s. Every now and then the enter key will refuse to submit a URL entered in the address bar.
The strange things is that selecting a bookmark from the bookmarks drop down, or from the bookmarks toolbar still works as normal. A restart of the browser does of course fix it, but it seems an odd little bug.
Anyone else experience this?
July 1st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Yes, I experience the the exact same problem.
I find it very annoying..
.gabs
July 1st, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I have the same problem (WinXP machine). Happens at least once a day. I’ve tried to selectively disable extensions. Not success yet. What I noticed is that the search box keeps working.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I suffer from the same problem running Firefox 3.0 on OSX 10.5.4 (had same issue with 10.5.3). I’ve got the following Add-ons:
Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5
Delucious Bookmarks 2.0.64
PicLens 1.7.0.3458
Web Developer 1.1.6
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I should also mention that Bugzilla has an unconfirmed bug number 438932 concerning this issue. I’m also wondering if it has something to do with the number of tabs I currently have open (46).
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Same problem at least once a day, and I agree it is very annoying, I hope their is a fix soon, for we need the return button! Sheesh
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Thanks for the info Chris, at least they are aware of it now.
Let’s see if it progresses.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I’ve been having this problem on mac. Pre and post Leopard and with Firefox 2 and post Leopard with ff3
July 5th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I’ve the same problem
July 6th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Yes – I confirm I’ve had the same problem on OS X 10.5 and Win XP. I believe I’ve even experienced it on my OpenSuse 11.0 machine but I can’t remember for sure.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I have same problem of the return key and the little blue go arrow not working on Firefox 3, on OS X 10.5. Its not to do with the number of tabs as it happens to me with none or a few. If you go to the bugzilla page Chris Lamothe has linked to above, and signup, you can Vote for this bug, which might help get it fixed?
July 9th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I wonder if it’s maybe due to the del.icio.us extension. I hadn’t noticed this problem until today when I installed it. Someone else mentioned they had the del.icio.us extension as well.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Try restarting your system. It’s possible an update has thrown things out of whack.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
For Apple:
Goto System Preferences…
Keyboard and mouse
on the bottom click Select (All controls)
It should start working or else try restarting ur machine.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I was just experiencing this, as well. I had the del.icio.us extension installed, disabled it, restarted and it was fixed. But, I’m not sure if just the restart might have corrected it.
July 24th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I’ve also been experiencing this. A restart of firefox (without disabling any of my plug-ins) seems to have fixed it for the time being.
I also have the delicious toolbar, so let the rumours and conjecture begin…
August 7th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Well, I have been experiencing this problem for quite a while now, it’s really annoying. It happens when I spend a lot of time in firefox without restarting it… I also have the delicious add-on, and restarting fixes the bug, but soon after, it messes up again…
August 7th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I’ve had the same problem on both my Windows and Mac systems, and especially after visiting a site that requires Java. I was able to reproduce the problem after visiting a particular site. After having read through this thread, I tried disabling my delicious plug-in. Restarted Firefox, went through the same scenario that always created the problem before, and this time, no problem.
Given this, I’m not sure if it is just delicious, or if it is a problem with delicious and web site that require the Java JRE.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:57 am
same here. also have delicious
August 9th, 2008 at 3:59 am
I’m having this problem on Safari and I’m running OS 10.4. Whenever I hit ‘Return’ in the address bar (and in other places, I have to hit it several times before it responds. But I noticed that when I’m writing an email, I cannot hit ‘Return’ to get a carriage return at all. In TextEdit and Word, Return also doesn’t work at all. But if I hit ‘enter,’ that does work. It’s extremely annoying and I cannot figure it out…does anyone know how to solve this problem?
August 15th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Im also having a similar problem. It doesn’t happen all the time and seems quite random. The problem occurs in firefox search bar, in Mircosoft Word and Excel, and for example if I write an email in google mail. Both enter keys fail to work. It seems to happen for a time and then go away. It is not however a problem with the physical keyboard as the enter key always works on the Vista login screen. I am running Windows Vista Home edition on a less the 1 month old Compaq A905TU laptop. I thought it might be a virus but virus scans/cleans have failed to correct this problem.
Mark.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Same problem; OS X 10.5. Had delicious add-on; saw suggestion here that it could be causing; removed it … problem solved! Bye, delicious add-on.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:02 am
but i like the delicious add-on and i use the delicious toolbar buttons pretty often…does anyone know how to fix this problem without getting rid of the add-on altogether?
February 5th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
I work on FF 3 Beta 2. I have been facing this issue. After looking around i found my AVG anti-virus link scanner add-on disabled the return key. I also have FF 3.0.6 installed on the same machine. I don’t face this problem with it.
February 10th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
I have also been experiencing this problem, namely hitting return in the address bar doesn’t work in FF 3.1b3pre and now also doesn’t work in 3.2a1pre. Following Rohit’s advice I too disabled AVG Safe Search add-on and everything is fine again.
February 26th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Third motion that AVG safe-search add on causes this problem. (using 3.1b2)
March 3rd, 2009 at 6:58 am
Fourth motion that AVG safe-search add on is the problem. I disabled it and lo and behold, no further issues with enter key.
I been living without enter-tastic web-browsing for close to a month and I am very happy to get that ability back.
Using Firefox 3.1 Beta 2. Thanks to Rohit for finding the solution.
March 13th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Upgrade to FF 3.0.7 – — fixed it for me…
March 16th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I have the same problem although I do not have the delicious extension.
March 19th, 2009 at 5:14 am
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.feedback.firefox.prerelease/browse_thread/thread/cb561039852c8e2e
Try Disable the AVG safe search add-on
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Got Firefox 3.1b2 and got the same issue.
Disabling AVG safe-search add-on fixed the issue for me as well.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
thank you Dominic!
I Disabled the AVG safe search add-on and it solve the problem (:
May 27th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
avg safe search add on was part of my problem too. I disabled it but also had to open avg and click on link scanner and disable all 3 safe search items there as well. Also had to remove the google search bar and use the smart bar instead.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
avg safe search disabling will solve the problem….. thanks
July 29th, 2009 at 2:47 am
i too had the same problem past 2 days, it was a mess.. i literally thought some network issue. finally it was avg safe search.. after disabling it, Enter is working fine. Thanks guys.
July 29th, 2009 at 11:04 am
As many other have been saying, disable the avg safe search and the return key will work again. just did it my self and it works again.
August 4th, 2009 at 2:43 am
I have the same problem: the return key won’t work when I start Firefox, and neither does the ‘go’ button. After a while, it does though. I do not have AVG; I’m using Avast. I repeat: no AVG on my PC. Tried running in Safe mode, and I have the same problem. Seriously considering rolling back to a previous version of Firefox now…
August 20th, 2009 at 6:56 am
I disabled AVG Safe Search long ago and still have the problem. Apparently Mozilla has no interest in fixing the bug. Time to try Opera.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:09 am
thank you faute, your solution proved right (at least for me
) and fixed my problem, i’ve just downloaded the fox 3.5 and since it’s a pc in my office i was a little vexed about the not-working button
TY again
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:07 am
well I got the ne version beta FF and when installing alexa sparky plugin my return key stopped working, disabled and its back working. so it may be certian adons
October 14th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Yeah I got the same problem, resolved by disabling Alexa Sparky.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
it was AVG Safe Addon that stopped mine working :s
December 28th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Try opening a new window (Ctrl-N) and then the Enter key works again
I don’t have AVG addon installed – so Ctl-N worked for me.
I also upgraded to Firefox 3.5.6 which also fixed the problem: http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/3.5.6/releasenotes/
December 28th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
AVG Safe Search is also my issue. Disabled it and the problem vanished. Haven’t found a place where AVG/Firefox has addressed this issue, but plenty have run across it.
http://digitalmutterings.com/blog/2009/3/22/your-enter-key-not-working-in-firefox.html
https://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=tr&comments_parentId=394639&forumId=1
December 31st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I have this problem on my vista 64 ultimate pc. It started about 2-3 weeks ago, I’ve been using firefox for years with no issue but suddenly this pops up. I don’t believe I have avg safe search installed as I dropped that anti-virus over a year ago but I’ll check the del.ico.us extension and see if it helps. It’s very annoying but all I have to do to get around it is go to file-> new window. and the new window doesn’t have the problem only the original one I tried.
January 6th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
AVG Safe Search was my problem too, thanks!
January 9th, 2010 at 2:20 am
Same problem, except I have Firefox portable (portableapps.com). I hit enter key, never works, always have to click arrow on end of bar…
January 11th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Dont have AVG Safe Search disabled all add-ons and still not working – doesnt work in the search bar either.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:48 am
I have Firefox 3.5.7 and also still have thesame problem of not being able to use the Go button on the address bar and the search area too. I have uninstalled AVG 8 but it still didnt work. What else do I do
January 21st, 2010 at 11:35 pm
I have the same problem but with no similarities in add ons and extensions. If I open up two windows (not tabs) the first one will always fail to work but the second windows is fully functional. From what I have read this problem seems to span OS and doesnt seem to be affected by any one particular addon .
February 7th, 2010 at 12:46 am
I have Firefox 3.6 and have been having this very annoying problem for awhile. As suggested, disabling AVG Safe Search 9.0.0.716 just fixed it for me. The uninstall button is grayed out.
Columbus, Indiana
Sat, 6 Feb 2010, 6:46 pm EST
February 10th, 2010 at 12:56 am
I don’t have either AVG anti virus or delicious add-on. Running 3.6 FF. I am unable to begin typing on a new line, now. Holding down the carriage return or the Enter Key for many seconds does nothing. While typing this comment, I’ve trid disabling my Symantic virus software and closing several tabs. Still can’t insert a new line. I see other posts here that also don’t have any blank lines or short lines in the middle of their post so maybe they too had the same problem….. My inability to use the enter or carriage return seems to be confined to text boxes. CR works in the search box and the address bar.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:18 am
I had the same problem start when I installed Miro. I uninstalled Miro, plus all the crap it installed but the problem remained. I was runniung FF 3.5.7 so I upgraded to 3.6 and the problem went away.