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Why are keyboard shortcuts not enabled in FireFox 25 on Win7?

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  • 5 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I am trying to use Firefox 25 on a Win7 computer. When I used this computer before, the keyboard shortcuts worked in Firefox. Now, however, they do not.

I have already been through the Options menus, and I do not see a place to turn keyboard shortcuts on or off.

I have several add-ons; all disabled. Yalho toolbar, SEQ Quake toolbar, Alexa toolbar.

I need the keyboard shortcuts. Not only does not having them slow me down, it is very very very annoying to have to take my hands off the keyboard, put them on the mouse, click where I want, and THEN go back to the keyboard to type. ARRRGH!

I am trying to use Firefox 25 on a Win7 computer. When I used this computer before, the keyboard shortcuts worked in Firefox. Now, however, they do not. I have already been through the Options menus, and I do not see a place to turn keyboard shortcuts on or off. I have several add-ons; all disabled. Yalho toolbar, SEQ Quake toolbar, Alexa toolbar. I need the keyboard shortcuts. Not only does not having them slow me down, it is very very very annoying to have to take my hands off the keyboard, put them on the mouse, click where I want, and THEN go back to the keyboard to type. ARRRGH!

Chosen solution

Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.

(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)

  • On Windows you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • On Mac you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the option key while starting Firefox.
  • On Linux you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by quitting Firefox and then going to your Terminal and running: firefox -safe-mode (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
  • Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

FirefoxSafeMode

Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode" Safe Mode Fx 15 - Win

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.

To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.

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All Replies (3)

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Are there particular shortcuts (e.g., Ctrl+v paste, Ctrl+t new tab) that aren't working?

If the problem is with access keys within the web page, i.e., moving to a different form field by pressing a key combination, Firefox on Windows uses a combination of Alt+Shift rather than Alt alone (to avoid conflicts with menus). This can be changed. Please see this thread from earlier this year: ASP.NET shortcut key(Accesskey) is working with 'ALT+Shift+Letter' combination, How to remove shift frm this combination.

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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Chosen Solution

Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.

(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)

  • On Windows you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • On Mac you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the option key while starting Firefox.
  • On Linux you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by quitting Firefox and then going to your Terminal and running: firefox -safe-mode (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
  • Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

FirefoxSafeMode

Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode" Safe Mode Fx 15 - Win

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.

To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.

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Note that you have a ;lot of toolbars installed that might intercept keyboard shortcuts.


Note that your System Details List shows that you have a user.js file in the profile folder to initialize some prefs on each start of Firefox.

The user.js file is only present if you or other software has created it, so normally it wouldn't be there. you can check its content with a plain text editor if you didn't create this file yourself.

The user.js file is read each time you start Firefox and initializes preferences to the value specified in this file, so preferences set via user.js can only be changed temporarily for the current session.