In Firefox 27.0.1 when typing in text boxes on various sites, fonts suddenly and randomly go corrupted.
I have no problem with fonts on webpages. The problem is on webpages where I can enter text such as on Twitter. In the text boxes where I enter text, the font will suddenly and randomly replace the characters I am trying to type with garbled nonsense. It is only with a few characters. In fact I can summarize them here:
? becomes É
' becomes è ^ becomes ? < becomes '
> becomes " [ becomes ^ { becomes ¨ ] becomes ç } becomes Ç
I even had to use Notepad just to enter the above details accurately.
This is driving me absolutely nuts because I have to reboot my computer to make this nonsense disappear. Thankfully the computer is new and boots up fast. But I am now having to do it 3 or 4 times a day. The computer runs very well and I did not have this problem for the first month.
When this problem is occurring in Firefox it is not occurring on any other browsers. It does not happen in Excel or Word or Notepad. In other words, it is definitely a problem within Firefox and not with my keyboard or anything else.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. What follows is an example sentence:
And I sure hope the instructions arenèt ÈReset Firefox to defaultÈ.
All Replies (8)
Do you have multiple keyboard layouts installed?
It is possible that you have switched the keyboard layout by accident.
- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258824 - How to change your keyboard layout
Windows remembers the keyboard layout setting per application and you may have changed the keyboard layout by accident via a keyboard shortcut.
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/The-Language-bar-overview The Language bar (overview)
- Make sure that you have the Language bar visible on the Windows Taskbar
- You can do that via the right-click context menu of the Taskbar: Toolbars > Language Bar
- Check the keyboard language (keyboard layout) setting for the application that has focus via the icon on the Language bar
- You need to do that while Firefox has focus because Windows remembers the keyboard layout setting per application
Thank you for your kind reply... I truly appreciate your efforts.
I do not have multiple keyboard layouts installed. So it is not possible that I accidentally switched them. But at your suggestion I just checked to make sure.
The reason I do not suspect the keyboard was addressed in my initial question. When this problem occurs, I immediately open up Notepad or Word to see what the keyboard will do over there. In any other text editing software the problem does not exist and the keyboard will type the characters I want perfectly. I also open an Internet Explorer Browser just to see if the keyboard works properly over there. It does. So I go back to the Firefox window where I am experiencing the problem and it still exists.
My problem has nothing to do with the way fonts appear on webpages. Those are fine. It is only on Firefox, in boxes where I can enter dialogue. I will have to pay closer attention and make not of which sites this is happening to. Maybe it is only on Twitter. Would that be possibleÉ Oops... there went the question mark fouling up.
A reboot will clear the problem up but of course I want to get to the bottom of it a correct this issue properly.
This is really a problem with switching the keyboard layout if you do get a different character than the one that should appear.
Windows remembers the selected layout per application, so it doesn't mean anything that switching to another application makes it work fine there.
I do not know if this also survives a reboot, so you can try if that has effect.
Did you try the language toolbar like I posted above?
Well, here's what I am not understanding:
Let's say I'm on Twitter. I am able to type messages just fine. I am in the middle of a message and "suddenly" this problem just pops up, right out of nowhere. It is instantaneous. I could have typed a ? perfectly one instant and at the end of the next sentence it will appear as É
From that point onward the problem persists until I reboot.
No, I didn't actually open up the toolbar and put it on my desktop earlier. I have it up there now but I have no idea what to do with it. I'm sure it must exist for a reason but I can't figure out what it's functionality is. Next time I encounter the problem I'll click that thing and see if it offers any ideas.
Thanks again.
The default key combination to rotate the layout is the Ctrl+Shift or Alt+Shift combination that is used in Firefox for menu items, so it is quite possible to change the layout accidentally.
To avoid an unintentional switch, assign a specific key sequence (Alt/Ctrl+Shift+number) to select keyboard layouts and remove the key combination to rotate layouts (Alt+Shift or Ctrl+Shift)
But I only have one layout.
Did you try to enable the language bar?
- Right-click context menu of the Taskbar: Toolbars > Language Bar
- Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Keyboards and Languages > Change keyboards > Advanced key settings > Change key sequence
When I go to the taskbar, right click on it to get to the context menu, language bar is not listed as one of the options.
But when I go to : Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Keyboards and Languages > Change keyboards > Advanced key settings > Change key sequence ...
... the settings were set so that control+shift would change the keyboard layout, but 'to what' I don't know. However it suggests that I was probably accidentally hitting the control + shift at the same time and accidentally changing the keyboard layout. So I disabled the ability to change the keyboard layout entirely by putting the setting to "unassigned". We'll see what happens, but this sounds promising.
Thanks again for your patience.
Dan