Firefox window insists on randomly scrolling
Hi, I have been using Firefox for many years now, but just recently it has annoyingly started to randomly scroll up or down. This may happen almost immediately, or it may only happen after a few minutes. This is extremely disconcerting when reading (for example) a large webpage or forum.
Initially I thought it was a faulty mouse. I tried swapping out the mouse, but then I discovered that even if I open the browser, scroll (using the scroll wheel on the mouse) partway down a page, and then immediately turn off both mouse and keyboard, it still randomly scrolls (usually up) after a few seconds. I have also tried to see if I can get any other application to do this, but no, it is definitely only Firefox.
A quick read online and somebody else mentioned "Enhanced mouse scroll" or something similar, but I think they are talking about a Windows "feature". I am running Ubuntu 20.04 64 bit with the latest version (98.0) of Firefox.
I have not changed any settings with my browser in recent times either, however there have been periodic Ubuntu updates, and this covers Firefox updates too. Any help would be appreciated, thank you.
All Replies (9)
Well, it's been several days now, and still no response. Infuriatingly Firefox is still doing this (and again, I have many other apps that I use, and none of them exhibit this behavior).
Maybe the only answer is to ditch Firefox as my go to browser. This random scrolling has made it near unusable.
I regret I can't shed any light, having never experienced the problem. If the first article linked below doesn't help, starting in troubleshoot mode may.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-and-diagnose-firefox-problems https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems
ok, a brief update. This problem is as yet unresolved. Thanks @terry21, I had already tried your first suggestion (clearing cache and history etc.) but that didn't work. Also tried disabling "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages" in the settings but that made no difference either.
I'm going to try entering "troubleshoot" mode next, but at present I am pretty busy with other things, so I'm just doing this as and when I can. I have noticed that if I physically click and drag the scroll bar down to a particular position, then it never changes. It's only when I use the scroll wheel on my mouse that Firefox then enters this "irritation mode enabled" operation where it randomly skips up and down (usually up though)
Can you use about:preferences? By default, Firefox enables autoscroll and smooth scrolling, and you may need to disable these.
MarjaE said
Can you use about:preferences? By default, Firefox enables autoscroll and smooth scrolling, and you may need to disable these.
I have used about:preferences before, but not in this case. I did find two settings in the conventional setup that I think are the two parameters you are speaking of, namely: Use autoscrolling Use smooth scrolling
I have tried using Firefox with both of these enabled and disabled. Made no difference. Perhaps there are advanced settings only available in about:preferences that you are thinking of?
I just tried running Firefox in troubleshooting mode, and it still does the same thing. so at least I know it's none of the plugins or add-ons of mine that are doing this, not that I have many anyway.
There are many mousewheel.* preferences in about:config which you could look at. One is mousewheel.system_scroll_override.enabled. I have pasted a link below to a thread in Reddit. (Note: you will have to remove the blank space).
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox https://www.reddit. com/r/firefox/comments/p2az3r/ff_91_messes_with_scrolling_by_default_why/
Well I have tried setting both of the following to false, but I still get the same nonsense going on. general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel.migrationPercent
I basically did a search for any and all mousewheel parameters, and set them all to false (the above ones were the only ones found to be true).
I have also noticed that Mozilla Thunderbird is doing the same thing too. Again, no other application I use does this (I run various spreadsheet, wordprocessing all in Libre Office, CAD packages etc.). The behaviour is limited to Mozilla. They have changed a parameter in the last few months and it is causing this infernal scrolling issue.
Modified by Witenite
If it isn't happening in other applications, it isn't the mouse, I suppose. You could check that it isn't a profile problem by creating a new profile. You don't need to configure it unless it proves to be free of the problem.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data
Hi, ok I did try refreshing Firefox (using the Help -> Refresh Firefox) and also refreshed the entire profile. It carried through most of my bookmarks, history etc. though I did have to reinstall/reconfigure some of my add-ons. As per above though, my extensions are not the problem though, as I have run it in troubleshoot mode before, and with all extensions disabled, it still does the same thing. In fact even the about:support page does the auto scrollup!
I have also noticed that if I click on the scroll bar and move it around (position doesn't matter) then this stops the behavior, for that particular tab. Any other tabs persist in misbehaving, however any tab where I physically click on the scroll bar and move it, stops acting up. I can even use the scroll wheel and the misbehavior does not return. It only returns when I refresh the tab or restart firefox.
The good news from the above observation is that this to me proves without any shadow of doubt that this is not a hardware (keyboard/mouse) problem.