Hyperlinks won't open on one specific site (NYTimes.com)
On one website, that of the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com, and only on Firefox (I also use Chrome & Edge, and I experience none of the following problems while using either browser), I am unable to open any hyperlinks or tabs or anything at all to maneuver through the NYT website, or domain, I should say (it's not just the homepage; it's all sites that begin with the nytimes.com URL, including all NYT thematic & geographic hubs, all articles and even the My Account/Profile page). When I hover over any link, nothing happens, the appearance of the mouse does not change as it normally does when hovering over a link. When I place the mouse amidst the text of an article, again, the appearance of the mouse does not change to the usual flashing "|" symbol. I can't even highlight text. In short, it's as if the NYTimes domain DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE PRESENCE OF MY MOUSE ON THE SCREEN AT ALL, as if it's not even there. A few more observations that may be helpful (in order of what I think is increasing importance, but I'm no expert): -- This was a very sudden change that occurred about 10 days ago. I was only using Firefox at the time, had 2 windows open, each with 25+ tabs. In one window, I had 3 NYT articles open in separate tabs, and earlier that day, while reading one of them, everything was normal/this problem had yet to present itself. Later that day, I returned to the computer, saved the 1st of the 3 articles I had read earlier in my Favorites (I meticulously save online content, articles, etc. in hundreds of folders, sub-folders, sub-sub-folders, and so on in my Favorites). I then closed that tab, and turned to the 2nd of the 3 NYT articles I had originally opened in separate tabs in the same window. Soon after starting to read this article, I hovered over a hyperlink embedded in the article, just to see what the source of that info was, but oddly my mouse did not change its appearance as it does when hovering over any type of link. I ignored it at first, but then, a minute later, I came upon a hyperlink I knew I didn't just want to hover over but also to click on & open. Except I couldn't. Within seconds, I realized I could not click on anything anywhere on any NYT webpage. Not sure if this is helpful, but when I first started reading that 2nd article (the 1st instance of experiencing this problem), I don't at all remember doing anything that could possibly explain this? I know I didn't do something odd with my settings, certainly not anything specific to the NYT alone. Leaning heavily on my very vague & limited memory of the seconds/minutes just before 1st realizing my mouse was not being recognized as such while hovering over a hyperlink, I think it's possible that I somehow accidentally pressed on some weird combo of keyboard digits...? Is there some kind of shortcut that leads to this sort of change in user experience on a given website or domain?
-- I am able to VISIT any NYTimes site - whether it's the homepage, or an issue-themed section, or a specific article. I can reach these sites by typing the URL in the search bar (which I only do to reach the homepage, obviously), or by clicking on a hyperlink leading to a NYT webpage that I found amongst, say, the results of a Google News search, or perhaps I received an e-mail that references a NYT article & included a link to it. If I try to reach the NYT online from outside the NYT domain/websites, I face no problems doing so and viewing the webpage exactly as it's supposed to appear and does appear on other browsers simultaneously. The problem is maneuvering to anywhere else from that NYT webpage by clicking on something - anything - on it.
-- The mouse's scroll function does work. That means that upon arriving at any NYT article, I am able to navigate - really, just move up and down - to the effect that I am able to read the entire article (I have a NYT subscription, so access is not a problem). I can also scroll downwards using the keyboard, specifically by pressing the spacebar button. Perhaps most interestingly, I just realized that I can also scroll by clicking on the little rectangular sliding tab all the way to the right of the article, holding the click, and dragging/sliding the tab up to scroll up or down to scroll down. It seems that part of the screen is not considered part of the NYT webpage itself, where clicking on anything does absolutely nothing.
-- EXCEPTIONS (2): There seem to be 2 kinds of exceptions to my Firefox NYT problem. 1. The first is hardly an exception, it's simply that, upon arriving at a NYT webpage (via URL or hyperlink found in a non-NYT webpage or email or whatever else), before the page completely loads but has loaded enough that I can move my mouse around to various links & hyperlinks on the page, during those few seconds, or I estimate a maximum of 10 seconds (my Firefox browser can be pretty slow sometimes because of my bad habit of opening so many tabs in multiple windows), things are normal as far as the NYT page reacting to my mouse's presence as it hovers over links, and being able to click on those links and open new tabs for other NYT articles. But of course, this fleeting moment of hope that my problem has suddenly disappeared...disappears itself. 2. This makes no sense to me (not that any of this does). Simply put, every once in a while a NYT article/webpage will behave completely normally. Right now, in the Firefox window that contains this tab in which I'm writing to ya'll, I have 6 NYT articles open in separate tabs. 5 of them are exhibiting precisely the problem I've described above. But 1 of them https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/ny.../new-york-city-homeless-children.html just doesn't...it's working totally fine for me right now. This isn't the only example of this sort of exception that I've encountered; there have been, I dont know...a handful of others? I can't really provide a decent estimate of how frequently I've encountered a properly working NYT page or what percentage of NYT pages have worked for me. It is a fraction of them though, a small fraction. And as far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing distinctive or special or different about those articles. From my perspective, it seems totally random that they work while the vast majority don't. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it; it's simply as though whatever incredibly frustrating setting I've somehow inflicted upon my Firefox NYT experience occassionally forgets to implement itself? I'm at a loss.
PLEASE HELP!!! The NYT is a critical component of my media diet, which in turn is a criticial component of the learning & professional development I must currently be doing as part of my career & studies. Not to mention that I pay for a subscription that I'm having a great deal of difficulty making full use of. Does anyone have any idea what's going on here? How to fix it? I'd be forever indebted to you!! Thanks in advance!!!
Best, Kyro