Feedback Anyone else using Linux to access the forums?

tonyturley

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Scott Depot, WV, USA
Name
Tony
In the past few weeks, I've started having browser problems when going to Amin's forums FujiXSpot, PhotoLounge, and ForeverFilm. When I'm scrolling up or down a page, the browser window will randomly jump to the top of the page no matter how many times I scroll down, or sometimes it will keep jumping to the bottom of the page. When I go to post a new message or reply to an existing one, it will type the first letter, then the browser window will suddenly change focus to another part of the window. It appears some sort of script is running, as I'll see a status box on the lower left of the screen flicker on and off. It is really quite annoying.

I'm running Firefox on Ubuntu 14.04. I've tried replacing my keyboard and mouse, in the event it might be a hardware issue. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox without any add-ons, and I've tried running Firefox in safe mode. This is a relatively recent problem on this machine, and it doesn't happen when I access the forums from a WinX box or my Android phone. I will say it seemed to begin after I caught my baby granddaughter banging around on my old keyboard while the machine was on. I am not savvy enough with Ubuntu to know how to track down any errant scripts or programs running in the background. Any tips or ideas out there?

TT
 
@tonyturley Will test on the issue (none so far with Chromium and Chrome, so it's a Firefox thing) and report back - may take a couple of hours, though. I wonder if we're looking at a settings problem here (something turned on that shouldn't be turned on within in the browser). No jumping of pointers in other applications, I assume?

EDIT: Okay, using Firefox on Ubuntu 14.04 now - no issue whatsoever. The only thing I can think of (apart from some weird hardware failure) is some kind of assistive technology turned on within the browser. Sorry for that - can't fathom this without a hands-on.

Funnily enough, my external pointing device (a trackball) behaves seriously randomly at the moment as well (triple clicks and the like), but I guess that's age (it's probably dying). Touchpad and other external devices work fine (for a given value of "fine" - some would need different settings ...)

M.
 
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@tonyturley Will test on the issue (none so far with Chromium and Chrome, so it's a Firefox thing) and report back - may take a couple of hours, though. I wonder if we're looking at a settings problem here (something turned on that shouldn't be turned on within in the browser). No jumping of pointers in other applications, I assume?

EDIT: Okay, using Firefox on Ubuntu 14.04 now - no issue whatsoever. The only thing I can think of (apart from some weird hardware failure) is some kind of assistive technology turned on within the browser. Sorry for that - can't fathom this without a hands-on.

Funnily enough, my external pointing device (a trackball) behaves seriously randomly at the moment as well (triple clicks and the like), but I guess that's age (it's probably dying). Touchpad and other external devices work fine (for a given value of "fine" - some would need different settings ...)

M.
Thanks for checking, Matt. It is indeed a Firefox issue on my machine. I was hoping uninstalling and reinstalling it would fix things, but it didn't. I'm going to install Chrome this evening and see how that works.

TT
 
Chrome's nice - but I'm partial to some of the plugins available for Firefox, that's why I still keep it as well.

I recommend Chromium daily PPA:
Code:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/stable/ubuntu
They do a very good job of making a current build available.

If you uninstall/reinstall Firefox, take care to purge (on uninstall or afterwards) before reinstallation; if things still keep malfunctioning, you may want to try uninstalling all direct dependencies, but that may turn fiddly.

M.
 
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Chrome's nice - but I'm partial to some of the plugins available for Firefox, that's why I still keep it as well.

I recommend Chromium daily PPA:
Code:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/stable/ubuntu
They do a very good job on making a very current build available.

If you uninstall/reinstall Firefox, take care to purge (on uninstall or afterwards) before reinstallation; if things still keep malfunctioning, you may want to try uninstalling all direct dependencies, but that may turn fiddly.

M.
Excellent information, thanks.

TT
 
I may have fixed it . . . I did the full purge on Firefox, and also deleted the Mozilla backup directory that had my old profile, forcing the reinstall to create a new profile. So far, no jumping, but it has only been about 10 minutes. We will see how that goes. Well, that didn't take long. After a few minutes of behaving itself, Firefox went back to its previous behavior. Time to try Chromium.

TT

EDIT: site seems to be behaving much better with Chromium. Don't know why FF continues to misbehave, even after the purge and profile flush.
 
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This looks like a user profile issue to me now - some misinterpretation of pointer settings, maybe? I'd check the mouse settings next - but this feels downright strange. Though, come to think of it: When creating your new profile, what exactly did you add/alter? Do you use a Firefox login/sync account? What add-ons did you, well, add?

M.
 
No add-ins, Matt. No synch or log-in, either. I just let Firefox create a base user profile, importing none of my previous settings. It does seem very odd. I know it started after my granddaughter hammered around on my old keyboard, but the new keyboard, purge, and reinstall should have fixed it.
 
Strange stuff happening - I hope you find out what went wrong; I remember having similar issues, but only when some hardware was broken or incompatible ... The only lead I'd still follow would be assistive technologies that got activated unintentionally; banging on keyboards can do that ...

Moving some new hardware in tomorrow and going to update other stuff - should be fun (i.e. stuff is bound to malfunction and break in the next couple of days - software-wise, I hope ...).

Best of luck with getting to the bottom of this.

M.
 
I ran another couple of checks. I think it was actually me who did cause the pointer to jump out of text boxes (or around within them) a couple of times the last few days by brushing the various touchpads on laptops while writing - it's actually happened a couple of times while trying to write this post! It's a right nuisance, but it's quite probably me at the moment (bad hand positioning?). The one thing I can say is that it happens more from within text boxes in browsers, but that's like saying that drinking happens more regularily from cups than glasses in my case :)

If all this resetting hasn't helped and a device failure can be excluded (I'd suspect the mouse rather than the keyboard), the only thing out of your control that I can think of are resource limits of some kind - Firefox is an awful memory hog, so RAM limitations can cause all kinds of issues; on an old laptop I still use occasionally, simply starting Firefox can cause a full system freeze (but mind you, so can calling up two instances of Chromium). But if this behaviour persists, there may be more to it - maybe Ubuntu changed some system layer to enhance the sensitivity of pointer devices, and depending on your usage, you might run into issues. For the time being, I for one think it's rather more likely that I cause the - moderate - problems I'm having at the moment, though.

In case I find out something, I'll keep you posted - in the meantime, good luck again with figuring it out.

M.
 
It does seem to be a Firefox issue, as the behavior does not manifest when accessing the forums using Chromium. I may tinker at some point and see if I can track it down, but for now, Chromium it is.
 
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