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Playing Flash Videos Disables Keyboard and Touchpad Scrolling and Function

teampunishment
teampunishment
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Any time I've played a Flash video in the last week, embedded or on YouTube, it has disabled my ability to scroll with both my touchpad and the arrow keys. The only method that works is to manually click the scrollbar on the side of the screen.

It seems to be that the controls that typically allow me to scroll get claimed and committed to the "nested" window of the flash player, because the arrow keys will start to raise and lower the volume. The scrolling controls on the Touchpad simply do nothing. It's all well and good if I'm watching something in full screen, but when I want to let something play while I continue browsing, it's incredibly frustrating.

It's very annoying, and no amount of clicking outside of the embedded video player will resolve things back to my control. Only once the video is done playing or the tab is closed will I regain the ability to scroll as I wish.

I've seen this question asked TEN YEARS AGO and mozilla still has not come up with a proper solution. I enjoy firefox and would rather use it than having to switch to chrome, but this problem is becoming too prevalent.

Any time I've played a Flash video in the last week, embedded or on YouTube, it has disabled my ability to scroll with both my touchpad and the arrow keys. The only method that works is to manually click the scrollbar on the side of the screen. It seems to be that the controls that typically allow me to scroll get claimed and committed to the "nested" window of the flash player, because the arrow keys will start to raise and lower the volume. The scrolling controls on the Touchpad simply do nothing. It's all well and good if I'm watching something in full screen, but when I want to let something play while I continue browsing, it's incredibly frustrating. It's very annoying, and no amount of clicking outside of the embedded video player will resolve things back to my control. Only once the video is done playing or the tab is closed will I regain the ability to scroll as I wish. I've seen this question asked TEN YEARS AGO and mozilla still has not come up with a proper solution. I enjoy firefox and would rather use it than having to switch to chrome, but this problem is becoming too prevalent.

All Replies (1)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
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How did you duplicate all that text from the old question? I'll link to it since it covers a lot of ground: Playing Flash Videos Disables Keyboard and Touchpad Scrolling and Function.

In short, the YouTube player is unusually tenacious once given the input focus. Unlike other players, simply clicking in the page doesn't seem to regain control. Workaround mentioned in the old thread include:

(1) Full screen the video and then switch back

press f then Esc - focus will move back to the page

(2) Switch to another application window and then back

press Alt+tab then Alt+tab - focus will move back to the page

(3) Click on a different tab then click back - focus will move back to the page

Some users also reported that the YouTube player behaves normally (i.e., clicking the page regains control) if you disable the Flash Player plugin's protected mode feature. See these pages for more info: