Has there been a recent change to keyboard shortcuts?
Until a few days ago if I pressed the down arrow while a message in the list pane was highlighted the blue highlight moved down, opening the next message. To scroll the message I used the slider. A further press repeated the action, but now the repeated action scrolls the message instead as the focus has shifted. How do I get the the down arrow to keep repeating the same action? I looked at shortcut F (actually it's only f) but that also changed the focus so the f went into the Find in page box. It was not even obvious the focus had changed as the blue highlight remained in the list pane.
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I can't reproduce your experience: using the up or down arrow scrolls through the Threads Pane (message list) even if the Message Pane is scrolled, either with the mouse wheel or the scroll bars. F (forward) and B (back) achieve the same result, with the added advantage they work the same if you view messages in a tab or window. The focus is never switched to the Message Pane.
Does the same thing happen in safe mode (hold Shift when you launch TB)?
Note that Ctrl+F is the shortcut for Find in Message, so I wonder if there's a keyboard hardware problem.
I've just tried Safe Mode and it appears to operate normally.
After I sent the question I was tryng out possibilities. I found that the TAB key could be where the problem comes in. It is defined in the Keyboard Shortcuts help file as "Move to Next UI Element" but doesn't define UI Element. It seems to cycle between the left pane (normally set at Inbox), the message list pane and a third location which I would have assumed to be the message text but did not then see evidence of this. Sometimes the cycle is a lot longer. I now see that it sometimes looks as if it is moving around the message including the headers. On other occassions it might include the search box. It is getting confusing but I believe the answer is somewhere in this effect (not a hardware problem with the keyboard - it is brand new). I had assumed that clicking on a message in the list it would set the focus there but maybe I'm wrong, or something else changes of which I am not aware. Currently it appears to be working but I would like to know what stops it working correctly on occassions.
If you recovered normal operations in safe mode, there are a few ways to fix it so it works in normal mode. First, look for incompatible add-ons, then reset the toolbars if the layout is broken, then toggle the hardware acceleration setting.
I seldom use Tab to move through the window, but I notice it places the focus on each URL in a message, so that could account for a 'long cycle'.
The only add-on I have is the English language as opposed to American English. I've reset the toolbars and turned off hardware acceleration (not sure what this does). I don't normally use the TAB key, I was searching for possible causes when I found this. I can only assume I had inadvertantly used it a few days ago causing the problem.
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The problem has recoccured and I hadn't touched the TAB key. It comes and goes and I can't think what causes the behaviour to change.