Closing tabs with mousewheel creates a blank page and a ghost tab
This is not a problem that affects usability or prevents me from doing something, but it feels like the tabs are broken.
Every time I close a tab that is not empty it will create a "ghost" tab on the tab bar. I have attached an image that shows that "ghost tab". It will go away when I move my mouse away from the tab bar.
Sometimes it will make my browser window blank as if I had opened a new tab, and that doesn't go away until I select another tab.
I have had this problem for a while now and I have restarted my computer a couple of times, as well as just restarted Firefox. None of these have removed this issue. I have Firefox version 36.0.1 (just updated about 5-10 minutes ago), so it doesn't seem like it has been fixed.
Does anyone else have this kind of issue? I'm not finding anyone on Google complaining about it, although it's not really something that would need to be complained about since it doesn't really affect usability. Just thought of submitting this if it were a bug.
All Replies (7)
Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web Link} by holding down the <Shift>
(Mac Options) key, and then starting Firefox. Is the problem still there?
Hello and thanks for replying.
Yes it seems that it's not happening in safe mode, although every page seems to load forever and some not at all.
Note that this can be default behavior if you close (multiple) tabs to ensure that close buttons stay in the same position. As long as you have focus on the tab bar tabs should close and tabs to the left should be consistent. If you move focus from the Tab bar then the tab bar is redrawn.
If it works in Safe Mode and in normal mode with all extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) disabled then try to find which extension is causing it by enabling one extension at a time until the problem reappears.
Close and restart Firefox after each change via "Firefox > Exit" (Windows: Firefox/File > Exit; Mac: Firefox > Quit Firefox; Linux: Firefox/File > Quit)
cor-el said
Note that this can be default behavior if you close (multiple) tabs to ensure that close buttons stay in the same position. As long as you have focus on the tab bar tabs should close and tabs to the left should be consistent. If you move focus from the Tab bar then the tab bar is redrawn.
Hi,
No. This doesn't feel like it should do this, since I close the tab using the mousewheel which allows the mouse pointer to be at any position of the tab, not only on the X. This didn't happen before either.
And yes it did seem to go away with safe mode. I am now going to disable addons one by one to see if they cause the problem.
I disabled my addons one by one, restarted Firefox after each one and the problem disappeared. Then I started enabling them one by one, also restarting Firefox after each one only to find that the issue didn't come back.
Now I'm not entirely certain if one or more of my addons were the cause to this error. Do addons clear their cache when they're disabled? If so that could explain why it isn't happening anymore.
For now I can't say anything conclusive.
It is quite possible that you only needed to close and restart Firefox to recover from this. That is always the first to try in cases like this.
cor-el said
It is quite possible that you only needed to close and restart Firefox to recover from this. That is always the first to try in cases like this.
Like I said in the first post I have rebooted as well as restarted Firefox multiple times before and none of those times made any difference to it before.
Modified by Niko