[Bug 641300] [NEW] Text Entry Boxes in Firefox sometimes get stuck in an endless "Select-All" making typing in them impossible

[Jeff Lane]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: firefox

I was holding off filing a bug on this because it seemed so random and I
had very little data to work with, but it's now been reported on the
ubuntu-users list by a second person so I am now opening the bug.

First, I have no idea how to reproduce this.  It seems pretty random in
occurrence.  Sometimes it happens frequently, sometimes very
infrequently.  In fact, until last night, I had not seen it happen at
all for several days.

So here is what happens:

Click in a text box.  I've seen this happen in the Search text box next to the address bar, in the "Find" dialog box that opens at the bottom of the window when you type the '/' shortcut and in text boxes like the one I'm using right now on Launchpad to type this narrative out.
Start typing.  
Every now and then, FF will get stuck in a "Select-All" and never seems to stop.  So if you were to type out the word "Ubuntu" you may get as far as "ubu" before FF highlights everything (as it would if you'd clicked on Edit/Select All or hit ctrl-A) and the next key you hit wipes out what you've typed already.

So in essense, it's kinda like the having a Ctrl-A lock.

SO far, the ONLY ways I've found to work around this is sometimes I can
click 5 - 10 times very quickly in another part of the browser window
(usually blank space on a web page, or somewhere where a control won't
intercept the clicks at least) or closing FF and restarting.  Once this
Select All thing starts happening in the text boxes, it doesn't go away.

It also does not seem limited to just one box either.  IN other words, I
can experience this in the text box you enter search terms into on the
Google landing page, click on a link, see it pop up in the FF Text
Search box when I hit the / shortcut, then see it also in a text box on
a different page, only to have it bite me when I click up in the address
bar to enter a different URL.

Initially, I thought I had a wonky trackpad on my laptop, however, now
that the second person has experienced this and complained about it, I
can rule that out.  His system doesn't have a trackpad.

You can see the mail thread here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives
/ubuntu-users/2010-September/228288.html

So far, the only people who have mentioned this are myself and the guy
who write the initial post in the mail thread linked above.  We're both
using laptops.  I'm running Maverick, but I've seen this since Lucid.

Hardware:

My system is an Alienware M15x laptop with trackpad. (sold by Dell)
His is a Dell Inspiron 1440 (wonder if this is a pattern)

I really wish I knew how to trigger this to happen, it just does from
time to time and I'm not sure how to tell you to reliably reproduce it.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: firefox 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-20.29-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-20-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Sep 17 09:05:40 2010
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu2
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu2
 firefox-branding 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu2
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox

** Affects: firefox (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug maverick

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Text Entry Boxes in Firefox sometimes get stuck in an endless "Select-All" making typing in them impossible
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/641300
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