Separate Security Issue, please update your Flash 28.0 r0 https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ Current Version 30.0.0.113

Hi, Since extension information did not turn up please : Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Firefox Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes).

If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:

• Click the menu button , click Help and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:

• On Windows: Hold the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
• On Mac: Hold the option key while starting Firefox.
• On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run firefox -safe-mode
  (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)

When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, theme, or hardware acceleration. Please follow the steps in the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article to find the cause.

To exit 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 others with the same problem.

Can we ban those "top 10 contributors" which only spams forums with COMPLETELY UNRELATED responses?

NO! Safe mode doesn't solve the issue nor updating flash… *sigh*

Hi wojtek, The purpose of safe mode is to find out if you have any add-ons that may be causing your command key not to work. It's a troubleshooting tool.

I'm also on macOS, so I can help you. :)

First, let's verify your settings. If you go to Firefox > Preferences > General, then scroll to the Tabs section make sure When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately is disabled. For more information, see Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings

If the problem still occurs, we'll need some more info about your Firefox setup. Go to [=] > Help > Troubleshooting Information then click Copy text to Clipboard. Open a reply to this post, and go to Edit > Paste to paste the info from your Troubleshooting Information page.

There is a setting to open links in tabs in the background, but there is no such setting for opening a links in a new window as far as I know. loadDivertedInBackground is about links opened via JavaScript.

You can hold the Shift key in addition of the Command key (Shift+Command and left-click) to toggle the background/focus setting as set in Options/Preferences.

Chris Ilias said

Hi wojtek, The purpose of safe mode is to find out if you have any add-ons that may be causing your command key not to work. It's a troubleshooting tool. I'm also on macOS, so I can help you. :) First, let's verify your settings. If you go to Firefox > Preferences > General, then scroll to the Tabs section make sure When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately is disabled. For more information, see Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings If the problem still occurs, we'll need some more info about your Firefox setup. Go to [=] > Help > Troubleshooting Information then click Copy text to Clipboard. Open a reply to this post, and go to Edit > Paste to paste the info from your Troubleshooting Information page.

I know the purpose of safe mode, and most of the time I use it before posting - and I did it this time as well :-)

cor-el said

There is a setting to open links in tabs in the background, but there is no such setting for opening a links in a new window as far as I know. loadDivertedInBackground is about links opened via JavaScript. You can hold the Shift key in addition of the Command key (Shift+Command and left-click) to toggle the background/focus setting as set in Options/Preferences.

I have this option de-selected.

But the problem is not that Firefox always fail to open in background - it only fails on some sites (as mentioned in the original post - gmail is one of the examples). There is probably some JS mambo-jumbo at play which overrides original firefox setting. Again - I tried browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground but then it open everything in background tab which is less then ideal…

I've tested this on Gmail, and I can confirm your issue, so I did some searching in Mozilla's public bug database. There is one filed 5 months ago, and it was determined to be a Google issue. They reached out to Google, who responded that "Our QA team can reproduce, we're tracking this internally..."

For now, middle-click or control-click > Open Link in New Tab should still work.

OK, I don't have middle-click on touchpad and context-menu is a bit inconvenient.

Could you share the bug you've found?

On the separate note - how this could be gmail/google bug? How on earth a website could override user setting?

.wojtek said

On the separate note - how this could be gmail/google bug? How on earth a website could override user setting?

The message list in the Gmail inbox -- at least the one I see -- doesn't use links at all. It is a heavily scripted table. The regular behaviors for links are not applicable in that case; Google does whatever it wants to.

jscher2000 said

The message list in the Gmail inbox -- at least the one I see -- doesn't use links at all. It is a heavily scripted table. The regular behaviors for links are not applicable in that case; Google does whatever it wants to.

But problem is not the message list but any link within a message. I opened dev console and it looks like a normal link:

<a href="…" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:#4477bd;font-family:'Helvetica Neue','Helvetica',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;line-height:1.5;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="…">blablabla</a>

I thought that it was cause by target="_blank" but removing it doesn't help.

I also found two somewhat related options: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.link.open_newwindow http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction

But now matter how I would set them the link either always open in new focused tab or in the current window…

I would really love for the web to go back to simplest form…

.wojtek said

But problem is not the message list but any link within a message.

As far as I can tell, I have just the default settings and when I Ctrl+click an ordinary link in a message (on Windows), it opens in a new tab in the background. These happen to be messages from various Google services; I'm not using this particular mailbox for anything exciting. I can't test on Mac at the moment.

.wojtek said

OK, I don't have middle-click on touchpad and context-menu is a bit inconvenient. Could you share the bug you've found?

Here you go: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429831 NOTE: Bugzilla is not for feedback or support. For more info on Bugzilla etiquette, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

Chris Ilias said

.wojtek said

OK, I don't have middle-click on touchpad and context-menu is a bit inconvenient. Could you share the bug you've found?

Here you go: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429831 NOTE: Bugzilla is not for feedback or support. For more info on Bugzilla etiquette, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

Thanks - this is exactly the problem. I followed the bug but... this shows how broken/quirky the web is :(