[SOLVED] Did firefox disable my keyboard?

[FountainDew]

Hi, I was browsing and just getting used to Ubuntu when I hit "Install missing plugins" at the top right of the firefox screen and then my keyboard was disabled. I saw a little application at the toolbar below that said "firefox" but when I clicked on it all I saw was this weird little icon pop up on the desktop; it looked sort of like lipstick and was about 10 pixels tall.

Does anyone have any idea what this is? I'm a complete Linux noobie so if this is a feature, I'd like to know how to turn this off! It's quite annoying :confused:

[drubin]

Hi, I was browsing and just getting used to Ubuntu when I hit "Install missing plugins" at the top right of the firefox screen and then my keyboard was disabled. I saw a little application at the toolbar below that said "firefox" but when I clicked on it all I saw was this weird little icon pop up on the desktop; it looked sort of like lipstick and was about 10 pixels tall.

Does anyone have any idea what this is? I'm a complete Linux noobie so if this is a feature, I'd like to know how to turn this off! It's quite annoying :confused:

Could you please explain how you got your keyboard back? This might help to identify the reason for it..

I have never heard of this..

[Het Irv]

I think I know what happened, that "Lipstick" you see is actually a window that has been made into the smallest it can go, if you take you mouse and resize it you should be able to see what it is.

As for the keyboard, if the tiny window has focus, then when you type the keystrokes will be sent to the small window, making it seem like the keyboard is disabled.

[FountainDew]

Sorry, I wish I could provide more info than this but my screen capture was obviously not working at the time.

However, I've been trying to recreate the problem and so far I'm only part-way sure of what is causing it. I'm using a Dell 630m laptop that has a 1.73 Ghz Pentium M with 512MB of RAM. and I did the following:

1.) Boot up Ubuntu
2.) Load any application
3.) Hold Fn + Up Arrow to adjust LCD brightness

Result: Huge performance drop where all applications are frozen and no system tabs are working. Even the mouse clicks are non-functional, the only thing still working is the mouse cursor and the power button to force shutdown.

[Het Irv]

I think what you are doing to recreate is something different. The orginal problem has happened to me before, usually when I get frustrated with Firefox and start clicking alot. I haven't been able to trigger it on purpose though.

[FountainDew]

I think I know what happened, that "Lipstick" you see is actually a window that has been made into the smallest it can go, if you take you mouse and resize it you should be able to see what it is.

As for the keyboard, if the tiny window has focus, then when you type the keystrokes will be sent to the small window, making it seem like the keyboard is disabled.

Thank you, you are absolutely right about the window resize! I guess while my computer was crapping out, my mouse clicking resized the window to the smallest possible size.

However, I'm still having this massive performance issue which is totally unrelated, so perhaps I should start another thread to deal with it?