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The "my keyboard's not working in firefox" problem

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

petersgavin
petersgavin
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Problem: The keyboard randomly at some point stops working in firefox for entering text. It works in all other programs. Shortcuts like ctrl-v still work. (you can write something in notepad, then paste it into firefox using ctrl-v) Resetting firefox does NOT work.

Why does the keyboard stop working? Why is this problem *still* occurring? It is definitely *not* accidental engagement of caret browsing, as one person suggested here. I'm not running any add-ons and the only plugin I run is Flash (up to date). Firefox is also up to date. I've never had the problem before a few months ago.

Solution commonly posted here on support: "Try pressing Windows + F9"


What does windows+F9 do? Why would windows+F9 fix it? I can not find this key combination mentioned anywhere at all on the internet.

Problem: The keyboard randomly at some point stops working in firefox for entering text. It works in all other programs. Shortcuts like ctrl-v still work. (you can write something in notepad, then paste it into firefox using ctrl-v) Resetting firefox does NOT work. Why does the keyboard stop working? Why is this problem *still* occurring? It is definitely *not* accidental engagement of caret browsing, as one person suggested here. I'm not running any add-ons and the only plugin I run is Flash (up to date). Firefox is also up to date. I've never had the problem before a few months ago. Solution commonly posted here on support: "Try pressing Windows + F9" What does windows+F9 do? Why would windows+F9 fix it? I can not find this key combination mentioned anywhere at all on the internet.

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Does this suggestion help for you?

That is the only thing that matters. It is possible that some of the modifier keys have the wrong state and Windows or Firefox sees them as still pressed. I.e. a keydown event has been detected, but not the corresponding keyup event and Windows or Firefox may think that a modifier key is still pressed.

Try to press all the modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Windows) a few times to see if that helps to recover from this. If it doesn't help then close and restart Firefox or reboot the computer (you may have to reboot more than once).

See also: