Firefox 3.5 - A Few Problems Recently...

[J-Mac]

Firefox 3.5 has been acting a bit strange lately. I haven't changed the configuration - knowingly, anyway - but recently something doesn't seem to be working with either javascript or Ajax - I'm not certain which, if either. Here's what is happening:

On pages where a list of thumbnails appear below a larger image where normally you can click on a thumbnail and the larger image shows that thumbnail's image. Not a hard click or a page loading, but the image just switches quietly. No longer works for me. Yet if I open the same page in Chrome or even IE7 or 6 it works fine.

Similar problems with certain fly-out submenus: In Firefox 3.5 the submenus sometimes fly-out as designed but are not "clickable"; on some other pages the fly-outs don't work at all. Yet, again, they all seem to work fine in Chrome and IE.  No new extensions installed though some have had updates installed. None that I can think of address javascript or Ajax directly though I'm sure that many do in one way or another.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this? I know I haven't given much to work with here but I'm hoping that this is a familiar problem to someone here who knows the kind of coding that make menus and image-switchers work like they do.

Thanks!

Jim

[Ehtyar]

Some examples are probably necessary for those of us who haven't experienced the problem first hand, and for live debugging purposes.

Ehtyar.

[J-Mac]

Some examples are probably necessary for those of us who haven't experienced the problem first hand, and for live debugging purposes.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (August 11, 2009, 07:48 PM)

Well then I'll have to wait until I come across it again. At first I just thought these were isolated problems on the web pages since I had never seen this using Firefox before. Then after getting a few more recently I would open the same page in Chrome and/or IE to test them there and found that it was only Firefox that was having problems. Or at least my current installation of Firefox, not Firefox generally since I am not finding a lot of others with this problem. Am finding more than I expected however. But I can't be sure of which pages this happened on.

So as soon as I see it again I'll post the pages here.

Thank you.

Jim

Aha - I looked at some pages in my FF history and found one that was also in my Chrome history:  http://www.jbpet.com/Medium-Migrators,1753.html

That's a page with dog toys at J-B Pets. In Chrome if I click on the thumbnails next to the main image the main image changes. But in FF nothing happens at all for me.

Jim

[Ehtyar]

Works for me. I'm on 3.5.2. Are you sure you don't have an addon or a userscript interfering with it.

Ehtyar.

[J-Mac]

Works for me. I'm on 3.5.2. Are you sure you don't have an addon or a userscript interfering with it.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (August 11, 2009, 11:42 PM)

None installed recently, though a few that I use have been updated fairly recently. Extensions, that is. Not sure which, though. Almost all the extensions I use now I have used for quite a long time without issue. Really baffling - but then again, these things always popup mysteriously. Wouldn't be any fun if they didn't!

When I finally figure this out I'll probably be smacking my forehead, saying, "Of course!!". But until then it is frustrating.

Thanks!

Jim

[J-Mac]

Aha! Found it! Your last post made me go through all my extensions and GM userscripts again, just in case I was forgetting something. I was - a userscript I had installed very recently; maybe a week or so ago. I had forgotten all about it.

It's called "Anti-Disabler" and I installed it after once again trying to highlight and copy some text - I think from Snopes Urban Legend site. I searched for a hack to get around the script Snopes uses to block the ability to highlight text on their web site for whatever reason. The userscript works great for its intended purpose, but apparently can cause a few unforeseen glitches.

I disabled it and Voila! All seems well again. Well, at least on that J-B Pets page I mentioned.

Thanks for the "poke", Ehtyar!

Jim

[Ehtyar]

There is a preference in FF for that which I've used for a very long time. I'll poke around and see if i can find it for you.

Ehtyar.

[edit]
It appears I may have been mistaken. After going through my entire about:config (ugh) and asking in #firefox@freenode, I couldn't find a preference that prevents overriding the text selection functionality. Sorry J-Mac.
[/edit]

[J-Mac]

There is a preference in FF for that which I've used for a very long time. I'll poke around and see if i can find it for you.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (August 12, 2009, 01:01 AM)

It is in the javascript options on the Content page in Options, if it is the one I'm thinking about. That does have selections that allow you to permit or deny web authors to resize windows, strip the status and/or title bar and menus, and to disallow the right-click context menu. However I tried all and none covered the Snopes script which disallows highlighting of text.

If your setting is a different one, please do tell!

Thanks!

Jim

[Ehtyar]

Ya sorry, as I said in my edited post above (which I did before checking for new posts, st00pid) I was apparently thinking of a non-existent preference. It strikes me though that I've never had this problem (though I do use NoScript). Can you shoot me an example URL?

Ehtyar.

[mrHappy]

visit snopes.com and disable noscript and you can't select text. Enable it and you can.

[Ehtyar]

I can select the text regardless...something very fishy going on here.

Ehtyar.

[J-Mac]

I don't think your NoScript is fully disabled. Snopes uses a script to prevent highlighting text and you can see it in the page source there, as I have quoted below:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var omitformtags=["input", "textarea", "select"]
omitformtags=omitformtags.join("|")
function disableselect(e){
if (omitformtags.indexOf(e.target.tagName.toLowerCase())==-1)
return false
}
function reEnable(){
return true
}
if (typeof document.onselectstart!="undefined")
document.onselectstart=new Function ("return false")
else{
document.onmousedown=disableselect
document.onmouseup=reEnable
}
-->
</script>

So you still must have something blocking that script. Are you perhaps getting a cached page on which NoScript already disabled that script?

Jim

[J-Mac]

I took a closer look at the GM userscript and suddenly noticed that it was by default active on all sites. I changed that to only work on Snopes plus I will add others only if I can't select text. That seems to be allowing the thumbnail switching at other sites again.

Jim

[Ehtyar]

I went back to double check my results, and found that I had to navigate to another section of the site to experience what you were talking about, and found you are correct - I cannot select text on the site. Very nasty stuff. Sorry for all the confusion J-Mac

Ehtyar.

[J-Mac]

Yeah, I should have mentioned that I think the script is only on their "articles", not the main home page. Anyway, all is cool now.

Thanks Ehtyar!

Jim