I don't know when it started happening... it might have been when I did one of the IE upgrades. Or maybe it was when I installed recent intellimouse drivers. Or maybe it was because of the phase of the moon or something, but...

For the last several months I've been sometimes clicking on a link in IE, and it seems like I really did click it (the link even changes color to indicate that it got the mousedown event), but it doesn't follow the link. IE just sits there as if I'd never clicked. When nothing happens after a few seconds, I look at the throbber to see if it's going, and it's not. It's as if it deliberately ignored my click.

When I click the second time, the throbber starts going and everything works.

This is very annoying, and it didn't used to happen to me. Does anyone know what causes it?

Note: I've had it happen on both 98 and Win2K, in both IE5 and IE6, on two computers with two different kinds of mice.

Follow up: If you want to see what it's like, click on a link like this one but don't let up the mouse button. Instead, drag your mouse slightly off the link before releasing the mouse.

Notice how the link changes color as if you had clicked it, but you didn't go anywhere?

Now, I'd assume that I was dragging my clicks, but I'm not. As far as I know, my clicks are stationary clicks.

I think that is actually a microsoft "feature"! The exact same thing happens to me with IE on MacOS X. It happens maybe one time out of twenty and it is one of the little annoyances with IE that causes me to use OmniWeb most of the time.

-Mike

ditto with IE 5.5 Win2k. It's random as all getup.

IE5 on ancient Win98, too, if that's some consolation. Another even bigger annoyannce is that one never knows in which IE window will page requested from 'links' toolbar be opened: it is very rarely the one from which I click; 'normal' favourites work normally. Ah, well... I have built a kind of protective resignation concerning such MS 'features'.

Okay, this is really starting to piss me off. It's happened to me several times tonight, including some very deliberate clicks on a "submit" button in an HTML form.

Is there a fix for this terribly annoying bug?

And while I'm griping about IE, has anyone seen this bug...?

Sometimes, say, once in twenty times, you launch a new IE session, and the the "text size" option has gone from "medium" to "smaller".

Anyone?

Just the other day i had it go from normal to larger on me at work. It took me 5 or so minutes to figure out why my screen res had suddenly seemed to have gotten lower.

So if I'm not the only one having these problems (and since they've existed in the last several releases of IE), why can't I find them mentioned in the Microsoft Knowledge Base?

Tony,

I was also looking a cupple of weeks for a really pissing me off Microsoft feature....After a while (mostly after 1min.) I had on W2K Workstations the following message, when I did try to connect to my server shares.
"An Error Occured while reconnecting X: to \\xxxxxx Microsoft Windows Network: The Local Devices Name is already in use.
And mostly I had all network drive with a RED X! After a few clicks and F5 on this drives I got it reconnected. So finally I found a solution. I did include in the netlogon the following command:
Net Config Server /autodisconnect: -1
This turn off this automatic disconnection...
I found the info here:
http://www.helmig.com/j_helmig/autodscn.htm
This is now like using Windows XXLP!
I did solve one of my 1mio. MS problems.

<i>Microsoft Knowledge Base</i>

[cough] oxymoron [/cough]

;-) -Mike

Is it just me or do HTML markup tags not work in this forum?...

<i>italic text</i>
<a href="http://www.empeg.com">link</a>

There is a new doohickey at the top of the message as you are posting. It is a box labeled "MAKE POST". If you look at the contents of that box, all will become clear to you.

(Yes, I think this feature-removal on the latest BBS upgrade sucks, too.)

(Yes, I think this feature-removal on the latest BBS upgrade sucks, too.)

The HTML and Markup settings are fourm independant. HTML is still working fine on the other parts of the BBS, just not here in Off Topic...

Hi Drakino.

The HTML and Markup settings are fourm independant. HTML is still working fine on the other parts of the BBS, just not here in Off Topic...

Don't you contradict yourself with that? I know the BBS is saying that HTML is disabled at the top of the page while I write this.
Did you want to say that the settings can be set independently for each forum, or that it is independent of the current forum? I would say the first statement is correct, while your words sound like the second statement.
Either way: It would be nice if HTML was enabled for all forums.

cu,
sven

I know the BBS is saying that HTML is disabled at the top of the page while I write this.

Well, then...

let's try some HTML then.

Works for me. I might be special, though, since I'm a moderator. Anyone else? (make sure to choose "HTML and Markup" from the drop-down box when posting.)

Err, which pull-down box, Tony? The only one I can see is one for icons...

Err, which pull-down box, Tony? The only one I can see is one for icons...

Same here.... Probably something Moderator specific.

/Michael

Hmmm. On my screen, between the "Post Icon" box, and the "Post" box, is a box labeled "Make Post" and you get to choose between "using Markup", "using HTML and Markup" and some others. If you don't get this box, then I will notify Paul.

Nope, just the Post Icon combobox, Email replies & preview/attach checkboxes and the Continue button...

/Michael

OK, we'll talk to Paul about it, thanks.

No such thing here...

moderator "voice of God" abilities?

I doubt it. For instance, when I go back to edit one of the posts in the FAQ forum, I don't get the dropdown box, so all HTML fails in edited FAQs after the upgrade. Good thing I moved it all over to riocar when I did.

Hi Tony.

Works for me. I might be special, though, since I'm a moderator. Anyone else? (make sure to choose "HTML and Markup" from the drop-down box when posting.)

That drop down box must be a moderator´s special feature. I looked around to find such a box, but there is none.

cu,
sven

If you think about it, this is predictable and expected behavior.
The browser changes the color of the link when a Mouse Down event occurs. The hyperlink isn't activated until the Mouse Up occurs, this way you can cancel what you clicked by simply moving your mouse off the link.
Maybe they should move the hyperlink color change to the Mouse Up event too though. That way, you'll really think you're crazy when absolutely nothing happens..

Right, I understand how the color change happens on mousedown.

My point is that I'm reasonably certain that I'm not moving the mouse between mousedown and mouseup. In other words, I made a perfectly valid click. And I can tell for sure that IE got at least the mousedown event because the color changed. So why is it eating the mouseup events and not following the link?

Let me strengthen the above statement. I am absolutely certain that the mouse is not moving between the Down and Up events. I have watched several failed clicks carefully, making certain the mouse pointer did not budge.

Also, if it were a general problem with my dexterity, I would be missing clicks in other applications. I am not. The problem only happens in IE as far as I can tell.

Okay. Well, your example threw me off track.
I have observed it before but couldn't reproduce it. I assumed it was because I was rolling off. It hasn't happened in a while though.

I have seen the same problem and I'm personally convinced it's because of a smaller threshold for link clicking than other clicking maneuvers. That is, moving 1 pixel off in IE is enough to abort whereas you have to move 3 pixels in other apps. Just a guess, though.

I would assume the same thing, but I watched very closely once and saw the bug when the mouse pointer did not move even one pixel.

Just a random thoight to throw in here, you say that you don't move the mouse, but is IE moving the link? I usually get the "missed-click" behavior when IE is still loading the page, and shifts the contents around due to images and such.

Interesting thought. But no, that's not the case in the instances I can think of. In those cases, the page was done rendering.