Firefox 1.5 Special Report: Text input boxes/web forms; problems with

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 8:43 a.m. PT

3 min read

A fairly widespread issue exits where text input boxes become unresponsive in Firefox 1.5.

One simple workaround is to simply use the tried and true method of entering text in a separate editor and then pasting it into Web forms.

MacFixIt reader Elaine is one user who has switched to this method in reaction to the Firefox 1.5 flaw. She writes:

"I too have experienced the unresponsive keyboard as described today. My temporary workaround is to type the form answers into a TextEdit document and either use Copy in Text Edit and then Paste into FireFox form or Drag and Drop the answer line by line into the form.

"The workaround was helpful during one of those live chat tech help sessions when I couldn't type anything into the text fields. I even had to go to the Dock to return to the Firefox window to paste or drop the text into the fields. I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.3 and Firefox 1.5, with the NoScript extension enabled."

Meanwhile, James Kaup corroborates the problem on eBay:

"I'm having the same problem. It happens on eBay's site in the input boxes for subcategories found on the left-hand side of a search page. I do seem to get one chance if Firefox is the last program opened, but even that situation is no guarantee of success."

More workarounds

One reader suggest simply clearing the Firefox cache (accomplished by accessing "Preferences" in the "File" menu, clicking on the "Privacy" icon then the "Cache" tab) for some instances of the problem:

B.Y. Low writes:

"Another way to overcome the text input problem is to clear the cache in Firefox's preferences. Then you should be able to type as normal."

Another reader reports that simply opening a new window resolves the issue in his case:

"Interesting work around I've found. The bug affects the current window only. If you open a new window (not tab) and use that, the new window does not have the problem. This bug generally happens, I've noticed, only after Java is loaded and you navigate away from the page that ran the JavaScript. All of a sudden your keyboard stops working in that particular Firefox window."

This issue can be permanently fixed by installing an updated version of the JEP (Java Embedding Plug-in) and deleting the old Java-related plug-ins that come with Firefox 1.5. This can be accomplished via the following process:

First, download the the JEP .95 package.

Quit Firefox.

Next, drag the files JavaEmbeddingPlugin.bundle and MRJPlugin.plugin to the /Library/InternetPlug-Ins/ directory.

Finally, remove the bundled JEP files (also named JavaEmbeddingPlugin.bundle and MRJPlugin.plugin) from Firefox. This is accomplished by control-clicking the Firefox icon in the Finder and selecting "Show package contents." Navigate to the Contents/MacOS/plugins/ directory and delete JavaEmbeddingPlugin.bundle and MRJPlugin.plugin.

Re-launch Firefox and check for persistence of the issue.