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How to Fix the Find-As-You-Type Bug in Firefox

Filed under “Software”
by Adam at 12:36 PM on December 20, 2005

96 Comments

Not long after upgrading to Firefox 1.5, I noticed a really annoying problem — I couldn’t type a forward-slash character (“/”) into a form field without invoking the browser’s Find dialog. Since I type a fair bit of HTML into browser forms, this was a big problem. Update: Some people are still experiencing this bug in Firefox 2.0, and I’ve received comments indicating that the fixes in this post still work in 2.0. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

A little googling around showed that I’m not the only one to notice this bug, so I thought I’d post my solution here.

The fix in four steps:

  1. Type about:config into the Firefox address bar and hit the Enter key (or press the “Go” button). This will take you to a special advanced configuration screen.
  2. Your cursor should already be blinking happily in the “Filter” text box. If not, click in that text box and type “typeahead” to narrow the options down to only those relating to the Find-As-You-Type feature.
  3. Check the line that begins with accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart. This controls whether the browser will start searching text on a web page as soon as you begin typing, without having to first invoke the “Find” dialog by pressing Control–F or typing a forward-slash. I had disabled this feature in the Firefox options, but for some reason this value was set to “true.”
  4. If accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart has a value of “true” on your machine and you’re experiencing the same bug I was, try double-clicking that row in the about:config interface. This will set it’s value to “false,” which solved the problem for me.

If you try this on your own computer, please let me know if it works. I’ll submit it to Bugzilla if I can get confirmation that this wasn’t just a quirk with my installation.

Updates

  • 5/14/2006 @ 7:34 PM — A reader going by Kaph found out that the find-as-you-type bug was being caused on his computer by a file called user.js (more info). Since the about:config interface only alters the prefs.js file, the fix I suggested in this post didn’t work for him. Advanced users may want to try examining and editing user.js if they can’t restore the correct find behavior by using about:config. Be sure to back up the file before you make any changes, of course.

    If you aren’t comfortable editing JavaScript files, the first thing you should do is confirm that user.js is the source of the problem. Move the file out of your profile folder, restart Firefox if it’s currently open, then apply the fix I described above. Now restart Firefox once again to see if the fix “takes” this time. If so, then settings in your user.js file are over-riding your prefs.js file. Describe the situation to a technically-minded friend, and ask if they can help you out by altering the user.js file for you.

  • 1/27/2007 @ 5:10 PM — A commenter named Winter has determined that this bug can sometimes show up because of a conflict between the HTML Validator extension for Firefox and recent beta releases of the Firebug extension. If you’re experiencing this bug and have both of those extensions enabled, try disabling one or both of the extensions to fix the problem.

    This issue may go away as Firebug leaves beta and reaches version 1.0. It’s also worth noting that other in-browser validators, such as that offered by the Web Developer extension, don’t have this conflict. Web Developer doesn’t offer the same “instant” validation feedback, but validation-on-demand is good enough for most people.

  • 5/1/2007 @ 12:30 AM — Mike Youell reported that the ClipMarks extension was causing this problem for him. Uninstalling the extension fixed the bug in his case.

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Adam is a web developer and graphic designer who lives and works in south-central Kansas. He likes to speak his mind, both here and in his business blog. He only rarely writes about himself in the third person, honest. If you’d like to work with Adam, drop him a line.

96 Comments »

  1. i couldn’t type the single quote in a comment box. how annoying.

    your fix works. thanks!

    Comment by blustery — March 31, 2006 @ 9:13 pm

  2. Glad to hear it, blustery. I was starting to think that I was the only person in the world to have this problem!

    Comment by Adam Messinger — April 1, 2006 @ 4:46 am

  3. Absolutely brilliant - it works like a charm - well done you!!

    Comment by Alexandra — April 23, 2006 @ 10:52 am

  4. Oh dear…. I’m sorry… I apologise….It appears I spoke too soon….

    problem still in evidence…But it’s random, and happens unexpectedly…

    Comment by Alexandra — April 23, 2006 @ 11:33 am

  5. Sorry to hear that you’re still having problems, Alexandra. You might have installed an extension that’s interfering with Firefox’s normal operation, in which case my fix might not work.

    It’s great that FF is so extensible. However, since there’s no auditing process in place for the add-ons, users must proceed at their own risk. I’ve installed one extension (SessionSaver) that blocks me from installing any new extensions unless I disable it first. Another one, which I use for accessibility testing on web sites I build (Mozilla Accessibility Extensions), messes up the Control+PgDn keyboard shortcut for switching tabs. It’s entirely possible that there’s one out there which causes trouble with FAYT.

    Here’s the troubleshooting process I’ve used in the past to work out extension-related problems:

    First, undo the fix you applied by following the instructions in this article. You’ll want to be working with as clean a slate as possible for this process. Next, start disabling extensions one-by-one until the problem disappears. If you have a lot of extensions installed, it might help to keep notes of which ones you’ve disabled and the results (fixed / not fixed) of each.

    When or if disabling one of your extensions causes the problem to stop, you have two options. You can either re-enable all of your other extensions and try to do without the problem extension, or you can disable all extensions except that one and then re-enable the problem extension both by itself and in combination with your other extensions one at a time. This will tell you if the extension is causing the problem on its own, or if it’s interacting badly with another extension you have installed.

    Once you know exactly what the problem is, you can either ditch the extension(s) that are giving you grief or look for an alternative that does the same thing. For example, while researching this response to your comment I just discovered a new extension called Session Manager that might be able to replace SessionSaver.

    If you’ve jumped through all these hoops and are still experiencing the bug, your last resort is to completely remove and then re-install Firefox. Let me know if you think this is necessary, and I’ll post some instructions on how to do it without losing your bookmarks.

    Good luck!

    Comment by Adam Messinger — April 23, 2006 @ 4:10 pm

  6. Thank you so much for your response Adam…. I’ll have a go…it may take some time, because I am what is known in the trade, by the cognoscenti, as a “Technical fudge-wit”….Doofus doesn’t cover it…..
    Oh look! I just used apostrophes, and no problem!! Grrrrrr!!

    Comment by Alexandra — April 23, 2006 @ 11:29 pm

  7. Well, I wish you the best of luck. Don’t feel too bad about lacking computer skills. It probably just means you’re talented in some other way that a typical computer geek isn’t. :-)

    Comment by Adam Messinger — April 24, 2006 @ 6:08 pm

  8. […] Ah het is een bug van firefox. Neem aan dat dit dan vanzelf gefixed wordt. Ik kan trouwens niet vinden hoe je dit uitzet in html, dus wellicht ben ik in de war met iets anders. […]

    Pingback by [CSS] Caret in text input stylen?* - Webdesign, Markup & Clientside Scripting - GoT - Powered by React — April 28, 2006 @ 5:16 am

  9. […] It’s a known bug. What version do you have? the latest 1.5.0.3? EDIT: http://www.adammessinger.com/2005/12/20/firefox-find-bug-fix This help? […]

    Pingback by .net Magazine :: View topic - oooh, this is interesting...forward slash key messed up — May 4, 2006 @ 1:32 am

  10. […] http://www.adammessinger.com/2005/12/20/firefox-find-bug-fix
    that fixed it for me. Its the find-as-you-type bug, and its a major pain in the ass. […]

    Pingback by WTF is wrong with my firefox?? (CamaroZ28.Com Message Board) — May 7, 2006 @ 2:50 pm

  11. Yep - I have been experiencing the problem off and on since I installed 1.5 and it is beyond annoying. For me the problem is that I can start typing in any form and it starts trying to find what I’m typing - exit the finder and try again - suddenly it’s being “helpful” again. This bug reminds me of IE and I started having flashbacks! Aieeeeee! No matter how many times I change the setting through the Tools->Options, it kept getting changed back. Now we shall see as it seems to be working - HOORAY!! I knew about about:config but didn’t think to try this - THANKS! :)

    Comment by Kaph — May 11, 2006 @ 10:18 pm

  12. Sorry to double-post but I discovered this solution did not work for me. :(

    What I discovered instead was that a “user.js” file buried in my FF profile included these same settings and the Tools->Options checking/unchecking does not override them! Thus every time I opened up FF the little boxes were checked exactly the way they are configured in this “user.js” file. Definitely not intuitive. If you have a problem like I did, search for “user.js” and you just may find the solution.

    Another weird quirk in 1.5: Suddenly I had cursors appearing on web pages in the darndest places! It was as if I was editing/selecting the page in an editor. Turns out F7 toggles this mode on/off (yeah, that’s intuitive…) and it was accidentally turned on. I mean… who the heck is going to turn this mode on anyway? And a function key to toggle it? Feature creep…

    Adam: One other thing: You might want to check your PHP code (could be WordPress too mb?) for gethostbyaddr() calls. I noticed when going to DSL that once my IP could not be resolved (part of the firewall) that hitting this API call on any PHP script causes a 30-second (!) delay when loading any page using the call! It’s N-A-S-T-Y! Thus when I submitted the first post and when I came back to this link there was a nice, fat 30-second delay both times with a blank browser screen. Not good. Thought you should know since that API call has no default timeout (it should). Sorry for the wordiness, but perhaps this will help someone else. :)

    Comment by Kaph — May 12, 2006 @ 1:20 am

  13. This problem was driving me absolutely crazy! Thank you for the fix! So far, so good.

    Comment by Foehammer — May 12, 2006 @ 2:39 pm

  14. @Foehammer: Glad to hear that it worked for you. By the way, if you’re getting your comment handle where I think you are you might enjoy GameSpot’s peek at the Halo 3 preview from this year’s E3 expo. :-)

    @Kaph: I did a little research on the user.js file, since I hadn’t dealt with it before. According to the MozillaZine Knowledge Base (an awesome community-created resource for FF users):

    The user.js file, located in the profile folder, is used to customize preference settings in Mozilla-based programs. When you launch the application, the valid preferences you’ve added to user.js are then automatically copied into the prefs.js file (also located in the same profile folder), which stores all the preferences for the current user. For that reason, before you create or edit the user.js file it is advisable to make a backup copy of the prefs.js file. Although the prefs.js file can be modified using (about:config) or through the options and preference settings within the Firefox / Thunderbird / Mozilla Suite program’s user-interface, the preferences you add via the user.js file will never be modified unless you yourself edit the user.js file contents.

    The user.js file does not exist by default, and so you’ll need to create the file before you can start adding your preferences.

    This is interesting, and may shed some light on why my suggested fix doesn’t work for everyone. The fact that user.js doesn’t exist by default, yet some people seem unaware of its existence on their own computers suggests that one or more extensions might be creating the file to store certain settings. If true, this would be another example of the potential pitfalls of Firefox’s extensibility.

    If it doesn’t already exist, the Mozilla Foundation needs to create a best practices guide for extension developers that covers things like this. Of course, that won’t do any good unless there’s peer pressure within the developer community to follow the guidelines (much as there is among web designers and developers to adhere to web standards).

    Thanks for the information. I’ll make an update to the original post, noting that user.js may also be a source of the problem.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — May 14, 2006 @ 3:02 pm

  15. Adam - I tried your fix and still have the problem, but randomly like Alexandra. I’m running FF 1.5.0.3. Interestingly, when I type the apostrophe and the stupid search bar comes up, occasionally “speed.pointroll.com” comes up in the status bar. I did a search on this and found that Pointroll is an ad service that recently integrated their service to work with FF. So I’m wondering if this is either spyware, or a joint venture between FF and Pointroll. If so, a rebellion is in order.

    Of course, remapping keyboard shortcuts would fix this, but there’s no menu option. I tried all the extensions, and nothing worked.

    I’m about a nickel away from going back to IE this is so annoying. Can’t type a forward slash or apostrophe in any webpage.

    Comment by Jim — May 16, 2006 @ 9:29 pm

  16. @Jim: Have you tried checking the user.js file, as suggested above by Kaph? The problem might be there instead. Try moving it out of your profile folder, restarting the browser, and using it for a day that way. If the problem never crops up during that day, you know user.js is likely to be the culprit.

    As for your spyware concerns, I think you probably don’t have anything to worry about. Unless you know something I don’t (and please share if that’s the case) the Pointroll “integration” you mentioned was more like an upgrade to their service so that their ad buyers could reach Firefox users.

    Because FF and other browsers (including IE since the Windows XP SP2 patch) have become strict about blocking popups, web advertising companies are having to get creative to avoid irrelevance. So now instead of popups, we have to deal with those god-forsaken “page curl” flash ads. I realize that many sites depend on ad revenue to keep their doors open, but I reserve the right to block flagrantly annoying advertisements. Adblock Plus is my good buddy.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — May 17, 2006 @ 12:49 pm

  17. Does anyone know if there’s already a listing on Bugzilla for this issue? I couldn’t find it with a quick search, but if it’s been entered as a bug I’d like to add some of the info that commenters have contributed to this discussion.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — May 17, 2006 @ 12:55 pm

  18. Nope. The problem is still there. I deleted the user.js file. I also tried playing with various accessibility.typeaheadfind settings, but nothing worked.

    I’m still convinced there’s a vulnerability that’s being exploited. I recently started using Netscape.com search instead of Yahoo.com because Yahoo bothers me when they reposition the screen for ten seconds on a new window. If I type a ‘ or / on Netscape.com, things work fine. But if I go to Yahoo’s search page and type these characters, the search box opens up.

    Now here’s the funny part. I go back to the Netscape search page and now IT doesn’t work right after visiting the Yahoo site. So something on certain web pages triggers this behavior. Once the behavior starts, it doesn’t turn off until I reboot my laptop.

    Comment by Jim — May 18, 2006 @ 9:26 am

  19. By the way, I created a login on bugzilla this morning to report the bug, and found out that a LOT of people have already reported it. See for example bugs 334028, 336448, and 334084.

    Unfortunately, this was Mozilla’s response to one of the people reporting the bug:

    “Yeah, it’s supposed to do that. No, there’s no way to disable it.”

    I hope this doesn’t mean they have no plans to fix this. Because a lot of people are apparently bothered by this.

    Comment by Jim — May 18, 2006 @ 10:08 am

  20. The problem is that it’s not supposed to do that if you’ve disabled it in the settings. I sure hope the Mozilla Foundation isn’t starting to turn its back on users. If so, they’ll see many of them departing for Internet Explorer 7 when it’s released later this year.

    Thanks for the Bugzilla bug numbers. I’ll check them out later today or tomorrow, as time allows.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — May 18, 2006 @ 1:08 pm

  21. It worked for me. Thank you! Windows XP 2002 SP2, ff1.5.0.3

    Comment by Carl Manaster — May 22, 2006 @ 12:03 pm

  22. Before i was having troubles typing into forms (like the one on google), anything i typed went into the find box. I had to restart ff to fix it (sometimes even that didn’t work). A friend told be to disable begin to find as you type. Which fixed that. Now sometimes i can’t type ” ‘ ” (single quotes) into forms. Like the other problem it doesn’t happen all the time and it happens less often to. Hopefully your solution will fix it. Lets see :)

    Comment by Vin — May 31, 2006 @ 4:48 am

  23. Thank you! That was driving me crazy!

    Comment by Bob — June 23, 2006 @ 1:04 pm

  24. Worked for me - - thanks

    Comment by theMezz — August 12, 2006 @ 4:01 pm

  25. I have no user.js and I’ve changed the appropriate settings and it STILL happens to me sometimes. This bug and the copy-paste bug (copying and pasting rarely works properly in Firefox) drive me crazy.

    Comment by Louis — August 17, 2006 @ 1:59 pm

  26. What extensions do you have installed?

    Comment by theMezz — August 17, 2006 @ 2:03 pm

  27. A lot, actually:

    DOM Inspector
    Talkback
    Live HTTP Headers
    User Agent Switcher
    SearchStatus
    SiteAdvisor
    Reveal
    Firefox Showcase
    JavaScript Debugger

    I just tried uninstalling a couple that I don’t use (User Agent Switcher and SiteAdvisor) and updating a few others. Maybe that will help.

    Comment by Louis — August 17, 2006 @ 2:14 pm

  28. I uninstalled a couple that had to do with the clipboard, like copy+ url , ect and that, plus I did the suggested edit and it seems ok.

    On the other hand my work computer has copy+url and copy and paste works fine and always did.

    Weird indeed.

    Comment by theMezz — August 17, 2006 @ 2:18 pm

  29. It didn’t work for me. It worked in the session where I set it to false in about:config, but it went back to being “broken” when I restarted my computer.

    I have a number of user.js files in extension subdirectories, but not in my profile folder itself. None of the found user.js files contained accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart.

    Firefox 1.5.0.6, windows xp, extensions: talkback, forecastfox, adblock, dictionarysearch, greasemonkey, download manager tweak, disable targets for downloads

    Comment by Mike — August 17, 2006 @ 10:35 pm

  30. As a followup, if i have two firefox windows open, and change accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart in window a, it fixes it in window a, but is still a bug in window b.

    Comment by Mike — August 17, 2006 @ 10:37 pm

  31. @Louis: I’ve never had a problem with copying and pasting — that’s a new one on me. I’d suggest you try the extension troubleshooting procedure I outlined in comment #5, and see if perhaps one of your extensions is causing the trouble.

    @theMezz: Thanks for swinging back by here to offer advice for your fellow commenters! :-)

    @Mike: I’d give you the same suggestion as I gave to Louis; it may be an extension problem. You might also want to try disabling all of your Greasemonkey scripts to see if that fixes it. If so, re-enable the scripts one at a time until the problem re-appears to find out which script is the source of the trouble.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — August 19, 2006 @ 11:48 am

  32. I’m using FF 1.5.06 and I have the same problem .. occassionally!. It drives me crazy. The only place I’ve noticed it is in the Yahoo eMail editor. When I go to create/reply to an email 1 in 10 times when I hit the ‘ it goes to the Find bar. If I close yahoo, 1 in 4 times it works the next time. If I close again, it almost always works the next time.

    annoying. sometimes when it happens, I just go to ie to send my email.

    Comment by Brian H — September 9, 2006 @ 4:52 pm

  33. This bug is definitely annoying. Thank you so much for posting this fix. Btw, what causes this bug?

    Comment by Tushar — September 20, 2006 @ 2:35 pm

  34. You’re welcome, Tushar. I was just as annoyed as you, so when I managed to fix the problem I thought it might do some good to tell others how I did it. I’m glad this post has been helpful to some people. :-)

    I’m not sure what causes the bug. Since the user.js file is sometimes involved, I suspect badly-behaved extensions may be part of the problem. I’ve had buggy extensions cause all manner of strange behavior in the past, that’s for sure. I love that Firefox is so extensible, but it occasionally has a down-side.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — September 20, 2006 @ 10:17 pm

  35. That was incredibly helpful! Thank you!

    Comment by KingRamze — September 24, 2006 @ 11:13 am

  36. Thanks a lot ! The ‘quote’ bug drove me crazy. Your tip worked perfectly for me at first try (I have no user.js file). Adam, you just saved me :-)

    By the way the Keyconfig extension I tried before did not solve the problem because these special shortcuts (quote and slash) do not appear in the list…

    Now, the last important annoying bug in Firefox for me is the weird and random copy/past bug (I copy something in firefox and it never pastes anywhere, or I copy something outside firefox and I cannot copy it into the firefox adress bar for instance).

    My extensions are :

    Adblock plus
    IE view
    Add bookmark here
    Adblock filterset.G updater
    Bookmark Synchronizer 3
    Tag util

    I have this bug for monthes, randomly. I guess this is since version 1.5 but I’m not sure. One day I will have to adress it properly, unstalling extensions, etc. Sometimes i’ve got to run IE to be able to copy what I want, weird enough !…

    Anyway, thanks again !

    Christophe

    Comment by Christophe — September 26, 2006 @ 7:34 am

  37. I too have this problem. (I haven’t tried the fixes above yet.)

    For what it’s worth, I’ve found if I open up Microsoft Word, then type a word with an apostrophe into any document, it clears out whatever is causing the problem. I can immediately go back and copy/paste or type apostrophes in Firefox again without issue.

    Maybe once a day it happens to me. So it’s not all that inconvenient for me to zip over to Word for a quick second & then back to Firefox.

    I’ve been using this “quick fix” for months now.

    Comment by Lynnette — September 26, 2006 @ 3:00 pm

  38. […] The simple fix is explained in the 8 Ways to Sunday blog. […]

    Pingback by What’s All This Brouhaha? » Fixing Firefox Frustration — September 26, 2006 @ 6:15 pm

  39. Bummer.
    This fix did not work for me, nor did changing the user.js file. I’m running ff 1.5.0.7 with lots of extension. However, running in safe mode with no extensions did not solve the problem.
    There’s a flashcard website that uses keyboard letters to navigate, and when I press the keys, I get a search.

    Very annoying. I guess I’ll have to hold my nose and use IE.

    Comment by Russ — October 8, 2006 @ 2:57 pm

  40. Can anyone who’s commented here confirm whether or not this bug still exists in FF 2.0? I’m holding off on the update until Tab Mix Plus is updated, so it’d be good to hear from some people who have taken the plunge.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — November 1, 2006 @ 11:32 am

  41. Yes, the bug is still there.

    I just upgraded to 2.0 this morning and I had to battle the bug just to make this post!

    Comment by rand — November 4, 2006 @ 11:17 am

  42. Man, that’s disappointing. I posted a note on one of the Bugzilla entries for this bug, telling them about this post and the comments here. I got the response: “that’s not a fix.”

    How can it not be “a” fix if it’s worked for several people? It might not be the only fix, but you’d think they would at least want to look into it…

    Comment by Adam Messinger — November 5, 2006 @ 11:44 am

  43. […] Resources: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35815…, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33644…, http://www.adammessinger.com/2005/12/20/firefox-fi…   « Missing CNET Editor, James Kim And Family |   […]

    Pingback by Form Quick Type - Firefox Bug Fix » Intrevio Dot Com — December 3, 2006 @ 4:58 am

  44. Awesome, your fix worked and now i can say things like I’m and ‘cool’ and holy shit i’m loving Adam’s easy, clear cut fix. I also love ’s. they are fun to use!

    Comment by brent — December 6, 2006 @ 4:18 am

  45. Hey, thanks! I had this problem in Gmail for the first time today, using Firefox 2, and applying this fix has made the problem go away.

    Comment by Chris — December 12, 2006 @ 4:38 pm

  46. I just switched to Mac this week and have had this problem with Firefox 2.0.0.1 since I installed it. None of the fixes above worked permanently, so I started disabling extensions. It seems the most recent build of Firebug is the culprit. Too bad, t’is a good little tool.

    Comment by Matt Brett — December 23, 2006 @ 5:37 pm

  47. this worked for me!! i am glad i finally starting researching to resolve it; it was making me insane.
    thanks a lot!

    Comment by Kristina — December 27, 2006 @ 12:51 am

  48. I was having the same problem with the apostrophes. Your solution totally worked. I found the link to your site on a gmail forum. I’m so glad somebody found you and was able to help me find you too.

    Thanks!
    Audra

    Comment by Audra — December 27, 2006 @ 9:36 am

  49. Brent, Chris, Matt, Kristina, and Audra: Thanks for your comments! I’m glad this fix is still proving useful for people more than a year after it was first posted. :)

    Comment by Adam Messinger — January 1, 2007 @ 9:33 pm

  50. […] Anyways, enough on that garbage. If you want to fix that problem, check this article out. So, the rant of the night is about lenbabies. Now, I’ve heard some people swear by these things, but I just don’t get it. So I screw this thing onto my camera, and then I can move it around and selectively make parts of my photo in focus? And the rest of the photo looks all crappy and stuff? Some parts you can’t even tell what they were any more? This reminds me of George Lucas smearing vasoline all over his camera lenses to get some weird effect. Maybe back then you had to, but can’t we do better than that nowadays. […]

    Pingback by Lensbaby? Huh? at The Hidden Rift — January 11, 2007 @ 2:11 am

  51. I’ve been experiencing this problem since Firefox 1.5, and thanks to Matt’s comment, I finally fixed it: Firebug is indeed the problem.

    Those of you who have already disabled Type Ahead should then first try disabling Firebug. If this doesn’t help, disable your other extensions one by one until it works. I’ll try reinstalling Firebug, but I doubt this will help.

    Comment by Paul Lammertsma — January 11, 2007 @ 6:08 am

  52. The more I hear about this type-ahead find problem, the more convinced I am that either:

    (1) this bug can can have more than one cause or

    (2) there’s only one real bug at work here, but it’s so deep in FF’s guts and can be triggered for so many different reasons that it appears to be a multi-focal problem.

    In either case, Firebug has never caused any trouble for me. I have yet to try the 1.0 beta version, however. It’s possible that this newer version does trigger the find-as-you-type bug.

    I’d encourage people who believe Firebug to be the source of their troubles to submit a bug report to the extension’s author. You do this by either commenting on this weblog post or posting to the Firebug Google Group. Be specific and thorough in your description of the problem and how you decided that Firebug might be the cause. The more informative your bug reports, the faster a problem can be fixed.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — January 11, 2007 @ 3:36 pm

  53. This apostrophe/quick-find bug happens periodically for me when I startup Firefox. When it does occur, the only thing that fixes it for me is to toggle the Carret Editing mode (press F7 twice). I got the idea from Kaph’s comment above where he mentions the F7 editing mode.

    In other words, if I start Firefox and my apostrophe key has been hijacked, I press F7 to turn on Carret Editing and then press F7 again to turn it off.

    This toggling is enough to fix the problem and set my apostrophe key back to normal. I’ve been able to use this ‘hack’ consistently for the past week and your readers might find it useful as well.

    [I have edited this comment at Aaron’s request. — Adam]

    Comment by Aaron Schmidt — January 17, 2007 @ 1:56 pm

  54. Thanks for the interesting input, Aaron. It seems to support the notion that this is an issue related to caret focusing in general, rather than just the find function. That was the stance taken in response to my comment on Bugzilla, where the person responding pointed me toward this (more general) bug report.

    My fix is still working for some people, which probably means that it addresses a symptom of the bug rather than the root cause. Hopefully the programmer community that works on Firefox can get the fundamental reasons for this bug sorted out soon, because it sure seems to be affecting a lot of people.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — January 17, 2007 @ 4:28 pm

  55. I believe there are actually two separate issues that are being discussed.

    1. The “apostrophe in a form issue” (which is perhaps not a bug at all as the Mozilla folks assert) and is dealt with using the solution proposed here.

    2. A much more annoying “random focus grab” problem where the “search as you type” form appears whenever *any* thing is typed into a any form.

    I have the second problem and haven’t seen a solution proposed yet, other than that it might be a bad add-on. In my case, often when I go to the google.com and start typing in a search, the search-as-you-type dialog opens and grabs the focus. The solution is go click on any other window and click back on the form field.

    Comment by Winter — January 18, 2007 @ 9:56 am

  56. #55:

    Issue #2 was in fact Firebug! I should have read the entire comments section in more detail. It’s not enough to disable Firebug from the menu bar; it must be entire disabled via the Add-ons menu to make the problem go away.

    A reproducable scenario:

    1. Exit Firefox with Firebug enabled.
    2. Go to googe.com
    3. Start typing in a search.
    4. The “search as you type” dialog grabs focus.

    This can be repeated any number of times and teh SAYT dialog always grabs focus.

    Now go to the Tools | Add-ons dialog and explicitly disable Firebug. Note: the firebug icon is no longer just grayed-out in the status bar; it’s completely gone.

    No attempt to repeat the above steps and the SAYT dialog doesn’t appear.

    Re-enable Firebug and the issue returns.

    This is a Firebug problem even with the latest 1.0b9 build.

    Comment by Winter — January 18, 2007 @ 10:27 am

  57. #55:

    One last things: there is an active discussion of this issue in the getfirebug.com forum. Apparently the issue is a clash between Firebug and HtmlValidator. If HtmlValidator is disabled (via the add-on menu) then the problem goes away.

    Firebug alone will not cause the problem (which I can confirm on my system anyway). Both Firebug and HtmlValidator must be enabled.

    Comment by Winter — January 18, 2007 @ 11:14 am

  58. Thanks Winter - you’ve hit the nail on the head for me. It was a conflict between Firebug & HTML Validator robbing me of my apostrophe’s (yay) and // (double yay) thank you thank you!

    I’d (yay) searched everywhere for a fix and finally found your post - if you haven’t already I would post this to the Mozilla forums - Nice one!

    Comment by Adam — January 20, 2007 @ 10:31 am

  59. Well, that explains why Firebug wasn’t causing any problems for me — I don’t have HTML Validator installed. I’ve been using the validation features of the Web Developer toolbar instead. Thanks for the info, Winter.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — January 21, 2007 @ 4:02 am

  60. thanks! your fix worked without me having to even talk to anyone who knows how to do more on the computer than email!

    Comment by sarah — January 24, 2007 @ 9:28 am

  61. after a quick check, the autorun mod seems to work for me (the same characters were constantly dropping out when using gmail - very frustrating when u can’t use the char t, as in: ea- -his you mo-herf* … ;)
    Thanks.

    Comment by cam — January 26, 2007 @ 4:31 am

  62. Thanks for your continued comments, everyone. I’ll keep updating with new information for as long as people keep finding this post helpful in resolving the bug.

    The latest: I’ve updated the main post with a summary of Winter’s reported HTML Validator vs. Firebug conflict. Thanks, Winter! :-D

    Comment by Adam Messinger — January 27, 2007 @ 5:37 pm

  63. Thanks al lot!. problem is solved . i am crazy about this (insomuch as one month)
    thanks thanks thankss..

    Comment by Firat — January 28, 2007 @ 1:44 pm

  64. […] Nach dem das Problem bei mir (sogar nachvollziehbar) trotzdem weiterhin auftauchte und offenbar auch bei anderen Anwendern, wurde nun wohl der Grund für das Problem gefunden. Nicht der Firefox ist Schuld, sondern eine Kollision der Extensions HTML-Tidy und Firebug. Ich verwende seit längerer Zeit beide Erweiterungen und entdeckte kürzlich in einem Kommentar bei 8 Ways To Sunday die Lösung, die zumindest in meinem Fall funktioniert: […]

    Pingback by Firefox: Problem mit Copy/Paste/Focus gelöst? - Jowra | Webdesign - Photo - Artwork — February 3, 2007 @ 10:39 am

  65. thanks a lot man, i was going crazy about this for quite some time. finally if found your site and now i’m free of this annoying bug the folks at mozilla never seemed to fix.

    Comment by jay — February 5, 2007 @ 5:01 pm

  66. Works.. thanks a lot ;) Such an irritating bug.. and the only one i’ve had with firefox … gone!

    Comment by Jason — February 27, 2007 @ 12:19 am

  67. Dude, you freakin’ rock! My wife has been plagued by this auto-start feature (and therefore, so have I) and your quick fix did the trick. Ah, I love technology.

    Comment by tclarkmd — March 8, 2007 @ 10:12 am

  68. Just used the fix and it worked. Terrific detective work here; I’d already discarded a keyboard thinking that was the problem. Many thanks.

    Comment by John P — March 8, 2007 @ 2:48 pm

  69. My problem stems from the “Find as you type” feature.

    Howerver it is not involved with any one particular character typed.

    The usual instance goes like this:

    I go to google.com and start to type something into the search field…but instead the FIND dialogue comes up. I close it out and make a second attempt at typing in the google search field but the exact same thing occurs. The only way to fix the problem to allow myself to type into the google search field is to do one of the following:

    1.) Restart the browser after closing ALL instances of it.
    2.) Open another program (such as notepad.exe) and type random characters into it. (Usually “asdf” in frustration…) copy those characters and PASTE them into the google search field. After that, I delete the characters with my BACKSPACE key and am then allowed to type text into the google search field.

    I get SICK of doing this and am even SICKER of waiting for this to be fixed.I CONSTANTLY use the “type as you find” feature. The fact that I use it for the majority of my searches means that turning it off is NOT an option. I’ve tried various fixes I’ve come across but NOTHING changes; short of disabling this feature.

    Any ideas?

    Comment by Cyryl — April 16, 2007 @ 5:29 pm

  70. This fix definately worked for me. It’s strange. I’ve never had the issue before but when I opened the browser this morning it went all renegade on me. Didn’t install any updates recently or anything.

    Comment by danni — April 20, 2007 @ 2:15 pm

  71. Cyryl: Sorry I didn’t respond to you earlier, but I’ve been super busy for the last several days.

    First of all, I’ve removed your e-mail address from your comment. I did this to protect you from spam, since spammers have computer programs that trawl the Web soaking up e-mail addresses to add to their lists. I notice that you’ve subscribed to receive follow-up comments on this post by e-mail, so if anyone posts some new helpful tips here you’ll be notified.

    Now on to your specific problem. I don’t have much to offer in terms of advice beyond what’s already been covered in my original post and the comments. In particular, I’d recommend you check out the stuff in the original post that’s under the heading “Updates.” Some of your fellow commenters have found their own solutions to this bug, and I’ve linked to their comments in those updates.

    You might want to read comment number 5. One of the early responders to this post was having this issue crop up almost at random, instead of predictably as I’d experienced. This might happen if you’ve installed a Firefox extension that’s interfering with the proper functioning of the browser. Comment 5 details the process that I’ve used in the past to troubleshoot extension problems, and following those steps might give you some success in squishing this bug.

    Best of luck!

    Comment by Adam Messinger — April 20, 2007 @ 7:19 pm

  72. I’m using 1.5.0.9. Your suggestion of setting accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart to false made no difference to the problem. However, setting accessibility.typeaheadfind to false worked a treat. I can still search with / or ‘. Btw, I use the Firebug extension and it doesn’t have any effect on the problem.

    Comment by Steph(an) — April 26, 2007 @ 10:11 am

  73. Thanks so much Adam, that has sorted my problem too.
    I’m currently using Firefox 2.0.0.3
    When the focus is on a text/input field the apostrophe key now functions as normal.
    If the focus isn’t on a text/input field it brings up the quick find, I’m guessing this is expected behaviour.
    Cheers, Craig.

    Comment by Craig — April 28, 2007 @ 4:51 am

  74. Uninstalling ClipMarks stopped the apostrophe / find bug for me.

    Comment by Mike Youell — April 30, 2007 @ 4:50 pm

  75. Thanks, Mike. I’ve updated the original post with your new info.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — April 30, 2007 @ 11:39 pm

  76. your solution worked for me. thanks. ‘/’

    Comment by Neil — May 5, 2007 @ 10:23 am

  77. worked for me as well! thanks a ton!

    Comment by Jeff — May 15, 2007 @ 12:50 pm

  78. Thank you soooooooo much!!! I’m now happily able to use my ‘ key and my / key!!! THANK YOU! ^______^

    Comment by Liz — May 28, 2007 @ 4:19 pm

  79. setting typeaheadfindautostart to false fixed the problem for me. Thanks! Nathan

    Comment by Nathan Prather — May 29, 2007 @ 7:36 am

  80. Thank you. I just updated to Firefox 2.0.0.2 and every time I used an apostrophe that darn quick find box would open. Your change worked great.

    Comment by Linda — June 1, 2007 @ 6:59 pm

  81. same, same. darn apostrophe/search tool problem. and i thought firefox had no bugs. put up with it for a year before deciding to google the problem. thanks for the solution. let’s see how long it lasts. :P

    Comment by calvin s. — June 7, 2007 @ 12:43 am

  82. and i thought firefox had no bugs.

    All software has bugs. :-)

    thanks for the solution. let’s see how long it lasts.

    Glad to hear it worked for you. I recently had the problem come back on me, but following the same steps again fixed it.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — June 7, 2007 @ 12:03 pm

  83. Firefox 2.0.0.4 - As noted before, there are two problems being discussed here. Mine was the automatic initiation of the Find facility upon the typing of any character.

    As noted in 72. above, the setting of accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart to false made no difference to the problem on my machine. However, setting the item accessibility.typeaheadfind to false fixed it for me. Hooray.

    Suggest you put this in the material at the top.

    Comment by jcarerra — June 11, 2007 @ 10:40 pm

  84. Thank you, thank you, thank you! That damn quick find box would pop when I tried to type the apostrophe key and it was driving me crazzzy. I googled “apostrophe key generator quick find” and found this blog with the solution to this annoying problem. So I just wanted to say once again, thank you!

    Comment by Alan — June 25, 2007 @ 12:39 pm

  85. unfortunately I have set both to false, and the search window is still initiated by the apostrophe key (in FF 2.0.0.4)

    Comment by Anthony — July 5, 2007 @ 2:03 pm

  86. Unfortunately, Anthony, these fixes don’t seem to work for everyone. If you find another solution that does solve your problem, please let me know and I’ll add it to my post.

    Good luck!

    Comment by Adam Messinger — July 5, 2007 @ 10:26 pm

  87. Setting accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart to false fixed my problems. Finally! I can’t believe it took me so long to find this. Thank You!

    Comment by andy — September 1, 2007 @ 5:28 pm

  88. I had this problem today (with FF2) and found that it was caused by the Adobe Reader plugin. Once I closed the PDF file that was in another tab, then the text-input forms responded normally again.

    Comment by Dan — September 6, 2007 @ 2:12 pm

  89. Thank you. Running Firefox 2.0.0.6 for os/2. It’s really hard to search for info without the slash. Same situation: typeaheadfind autostart was disabled in options but not in about:config, fixing that cured it. Now to find out why your web form character echo is so slow. Seamonkey wasn’t this buggy.

    Comment by Walt — September 30, 2007 @ 3:42 am

  90. Awesome! Thanks for the help.

    Comment by Kris — December 3, 2007 @ 7:37 pm

  91. @Kris: Glad you found it useful. Your website is awesome, by the way. Looking through it reminded me how badly this one needs a redesign. :*}

    @Walt: Wow, I didn’t even know they made a version for OS/2! Sorry to hear that the live preview for my comments gave you trouble. It works fine for most people, but you aren’t the first to find it slow.

    If you’re not using an older computer, you might want to double-check the Firefox extensions that you’re running. Any extensions that regularly watch page content or the DOM and update in response to changes (like Firebug does) can cause performance problems when such changes are frequent (like my comment preview).

    Comment by Adam Messinger — December 9, 2007 @ 9:24 pm

  92. Thank you! :)

    Comment by Sarahhh. — December 12, 2007 @ 2:53 pm

  93. What an annoying bug. Looks like I can find several solutions to different occasionally appearing Firefox bugs in the comments to this post. Muchas gracias! Bookmarked.

    Comment by Lasse Heindorff — December 15, 2007 @ 2:24 pm

  94. change the casesensivtve line after u file type ahead and set it to 0

    Comment by tim — March 17, 2008 @ 9:53 pm

  95. was informed Netscape was ‘ending’, You should choose something else….in my ignorance? I chose Firefox and THOUGHT I was set…but now……
    when I choose to check my email……it appears that Netscape is back?????
    And I don’t get my email??
    I am computer illiterate but oh, it’s so much fun until…………
    ………..help? please? Lois

    Comment by Lois Schmidt — May 2, 2008 @ 3:43 pm

  96. @Lois: Netscape and Firefox are two different things. It’s complicated, but the short version is that the Firefox browser is a distant descendant of Netscape Navigator — another, much older, browser.

    There was a revival of the Netscape brand name when a new browser, based on Firefox, was released under that name for awhile. It failed to catch on, however, so it’s been discontinued. Firefox was unaffected by this, and will continue to be developed and supported.

    If you had a Netscape.com e-mail account, I’m not sure what will happen to it. The service is provided by AOL (who own the Netscape brand), so you might want to contact them about it. This page from their online customer support database might also be of help.

    Comment by Adam Messinger — May 4, 2008 @ 7:48 pm

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