4 ms·

Specifically the right-click menu option, which is often greyed out for no apparent reason. This happens on both Windows and Linux. Ctrl+C still works, but how

Specifically the right-click menu option, which is often greyed out for no apparent reason. This happens on both Windows and Linux. Ctrl+C still works, but how does Firefox break something as basic as the right-click menu and copy in 2024?

clipsy 2y ago
[flagged]
lightedman 2y ago
The website you are visiting might be breaking it. There are many sites which will force that option to grey out upon right-click. This is by design.
- goda90 2y ago
  Many websites will also prevent highlighting text as well. Reader mode is helpful for that.
  - db48x 2y ago
    Or just hold down shift, at least in Firefox. This avoids sending the events to the javascript on the page so that the user can act on the page without being blocked, while still using a page’s own context menu if it really does provide a useful one (Google Docs, for example, has one with actual editing actions in it).
- walrus01 2y ago
  It's the duty and responsibility of a properly implemented browser to not allow a "website" to break basic UI functionality because it pushes some javascript. I don't care about how Safari and chrome and edge do it. Firefox should not follow their lead. This is a fine example of why people install plugins like ublock origin and similar.
  - db48x 2y ago
    Firefox does it best here, because you can hold shift to get the original context menu back when the page blocks it or provides their own.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      Exactly. There are legitimate use cases for hijacking the right-click menu to make it better. For example, Google docs, GMail, etc. The best solution IMHO is the shift key to get the normal menu. It's the best of both worlds.
- 462436347 2y ago
  > The website you are visiting might be breaking it. There are many sites which will force that option to grey out upon right-click. No, this is a new thing that happens on sites that weren't and aren't doing that. Also tab-switching fixes it.
  - wormius 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure that merely tab-switching hasn't fixed it for me. I've done both mouse and alt-tab, i've ctrl-w'd the tab and ctrl-shift-T'd it. I've opened the same site in a new tab and it still wouldn't work. I've had to completely shut the browser down. Maybe it's different between Windows and Linux, perhaps (I'm using Windows for this). Maybe there's more than one cause, but the reason I hate this bug so much is because simple fixes like just alt-tabbing or even closing and re-opening or full-reload doesn't work. I'm like 99% certain that's the case. I'll have to verify next time this happens. It seems to happen at least a couple times a month.
    - stuffoverflow 2y ago
      Clicking the URL bar once always fixes it for me.
db48x 2y ago
Because the bug involves sending and receiving messages to multiple other processes. Each webpage you visit is potentially in a different process, and each of those processes maintains its own selection state (that state is visible to javascript running in the page, and you don't want to leak what you copy on this page to any other, so it would be hard to put it anywhere else). There is only one context menu though (in the main process), so it has to send a message to the content process to find out if anything is selected or not. It seems that somehow the message is going to the wrong content process, to a page where nothing is selected. The context menu itself then displays exactly the right thing, based on the data it got back.
- teruakohatu 2y ago
  I hear what you are saying but the entire architecture is build around IPC message passing. A lot of user interaction will work the same way. There is nothing inherently more difficult about this scenario than many others within Firefox. If it has such a convoluted code path that it cannot even be debugged then that’s an issue with the architecture, not that the user has a crazy difficult edge case which every other browser seems to manage. Judging by the comments a lot of people in this thread have been affected by this issue.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    > Judging by the comments a lot of people in this thread have been affected by this issue. I'm sincerely surprised by how many people on Hacker News are apparently copy/pasting with the context menu rather than using Ctrl+C. PSA for some common keyboard shortcuts: Alt+Left to navigate back (Alt+Right to navigate forward) Ctrl+T to open a new tab (Ctrl+Shift+T to reopen previously closed tab) Ctrl+N to open a new window (Ctrl+Shift+N to reopen previously closed window) Ctrl+Shift+P to open a new private window Ctrl+W to close the current tab (Ctrl+Q to close all windows) Ctrl+R to reload the page (Ctrl+Shift+R to do a forced reload of cached assets) Ctrl+Plus to zoom in (Ctrl+Minus to zoom out, Ctrl+Zero to reset zoom level) Ctrl+Tab to focus the next tab in line (Ctrl+Shift+Tab for the previous tab in line) Alt+One to focus the first tab (Alt+Two for the second tab, etc.) Ctrl+F to search the text of the page (/ (forward slash) for quick find)
TaylorAlexander 2y ago
I have been affected by this one on my Ubuntu desktop for months. It is very annoying! Ctrl+C also works for me, but I am so used to right clicking it really throws me off.
soupbowl 2y ago
This has been driving me crazy on both Windows and Linux as you say.
alexfromapex 2y ago
This has been happening to me on MacOS as well

clipsy 2y ago

[flagged]

lightedman 2y ago

The website you are visiting might be breaking it. There are many sites which will force that option to grey out upon right-click. This is by design.

goda90 2y ago
Many websites will also prevent highlighting text as well. Reader mode is helpful for that.
- db48x 2y ago
  Or just hold down shift, at least in Firefox. This avoids sending the events to the javascript on the page so that the user can act on the page without being blocked, while still using a page’s own context menu if it really does provide a useful one (Google Docs, for example, has one with actual editing actions in it).
walrus01 2y ago
It's the duty and responsibility of a properly implemented browser to not allow a "website" to break basic UI functionality because it pushes some javascript. I don't care about how Safari and chrome and edge do it. Firefox should not follow their lead. This is a fine example of why people install plugins like ublock origin and similar.
- db48x 2y ago
  Firefox does it best here, because you can hold shift to get the original context menu back when the page blocks it or provides their own.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    Exactly. There are legitimate use cases for hijacking the right-click menu to make it better. For example, Google docs, GMail, etc. The best solution IMHO is the shift key to get the normal menu. It's the best of both worlds.
462436347 2y ago
> The website you are visiting might be breaking it. There are many sites which will force that option to grey out upon right-click. No, this is a new thing that happens on sites that weren't and aren't doing that. Also tab-switching fixes it.
- wormius 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure that merely tab-switching hasn't fixed it for me. I've done both mouse and alt-tab, i've ctrl-w'd the tab and ctrl-shift-T'd it. I've opened the same site in a new tab and it still wouldn't work. I've had to completely shut the browser down. Maybe it's different between Windows and Linux, perhaps (I'm using Windows for this). Maybe there's more than one cause, but the reason I hate this bug so much is because simple fixes like just alt-tabbing or even closing and re-opening or full-reload doesn't work. I'm like 99% certain that's the case. I'll have to verify next time this happens. It seems to happen at least a couple times a month.
  - stuffoverflow 2y ago
    Clicking the URL bar once always fixes it for me.

db48x 2y ago

Because the bug involves sending and receiving messages to multiple other processes. Each webpage you visit is potentially in a different process, and each of those processes maintains its own selection state (that state is visible to javascript running in the page, and you don't want to leak what you copy on this page to any other, so it would be hard to put it anywhere else). There is only one context menu though (in the main process), so it has to send a message to the content process to find out if anything is selected or not. It seems that somehow the message is going to the wrong content process, to a page where nothing is selected. The context menu itself then displays exactly the right thing, based on the data it got back.

teruakohatu 2y ago
I hear what you are saying but the entire architecture is build around IPC message passing. A lot of user interaction will work the same way. There is nothing inherently more difficult about this scenario than many others within Firefox. If it has such a convoluted code path that it cannot even be debugged then that’s an issue with the architecture, not that the user has a crazy difficult edge case which every other browser seems to manage. Judging by the comments a lot of people in this thread have been affected by this issue.
- kibwen 2y ago
  > Judging by the comments a lot of people in this thread have been affected by this issue. I'm sincerely surprised by how many people on Hacker News are apparently copy/pasting with the context menu rather than using Ctrl+C. PSA for some common keyboard shortcuts: Alt+Left to navigate back (Alt+Right to navigate forward) Ctrl+T to open a new tab (Ctrl+Shift+T to reopen previously closed tab) Ctrl+N to open a new window (Ctrl+Shift+N to reopen previously closed window) Ctrl+Shift+P to open a new private window Ctrl+W to close the current tab (Ctrl+Q to close all windows) Ctrl+R to reload the page (Ctrl+Shift+R to do a forced reload of cached assets) Ctrl+Plus to zoom in (Ctrl+Minus to zoom out, Ctrl+Zero to reset zoom level) Ctrl+Tab to focus the next tab in line (Ctrl+Shift+Tab for the previous tab in line) Alt+One to focus the first tab (Alt+Two for the second tab, etc.) Ctrl+F to search the text of the page (/ (forward slash) for quick find)

TaylorAlexander 2y ago

I have been affected by this one on my Ubuntu desktop for months. It is very annoying! Ctrl+C also works for me, but I am so used to right clicking it really throws me off.

soupbowl 2y ago

This has been driving me crazy on both Windows and Linux as you say.

alexfromapex 2y ago

This has been happening to me on MacOS as well