Youtube/Firefox Space Bar Not Working

[easysurfer]

Well, that's odd .

Was doing a search on youtube (3/10/21, around 1 pm eastern) and the spacebar did nothing.

First thought problem was the keyboard so unplugged usb connection. Then tried restarting computer. Still no good.

So, I tried youtube on other browsers besides Firefox and the spacebar works fine.

To check my sanity, did a search and found a post in Reddit with others having the same problem.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

Same for me -- on both Safari and Firefox, on youtube only.

 

[easysurfer]

Same for me -- on both Safari and Firefox, on youtube only.

Must be something with Youtube that certain browsers can't handle.

Chrome works fine for me..

 

[braumeister]

Works normally for me in Safari on a Mac.

 

[Birdie Num Nums]

Thought it was only me. Firefox here. Still doing it.

 

[T-Minus]

Glad it’s not just me (Safari & Firefox) that’s effected. Already unplugged and re-attached keyboard and problem persists. Thanks for posting this...

 

[jim584672]

No problems here. Firefox 86.0 in Win10 LTSC and Arch Linux space bar pauses video, and unpauses it.

 

[easysurfer]

No problems here. Firefox 86.0 in Win10 LTSC and Arch Linux space bar pauses video, and unpauses it.

Must have cleared up. The Verge reporting back in business again.

So this was a weird one: depending on the browser you’re using, your space bar may not have worked in the YouTube.com search bar for a little while today. Pressing it would make absolutely nothing happen, so your YouTube searches ended up being one long string of words. The bug seemed to be around for an hour, based on when people started sounding off about it on Twitter, but as of 3:50PM ET, the site appeared to be working correctly again on all browsers.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/10/22323716/youtube-search-bar-space-bug-safari-firefox-chrome

Must have been gremlins .

 

[jim584672]

On Win 10 20H2 I did have the problem.

 

[easysurfer]

Did the folks at youtube or mozzilla ever find out what caused the strange no space thing? I haven't found any cause as of yet.

Well, the gremlins are back for me with a very very strange mystery.

I was on another site today, not youtube, filling out a survey when guess what? The spacebar on my Unicomp mechanical keyboard didn't work. Not only the spacebar, but other keys.

So, I unplugged the USB cable of the keyboard. Still doesn't work. Did a sign off/sign back in, still doesn't work.

I'm now thinking, can it be that by coincidence my keyboard stops working as this youtube/firefox thing happens.

I try another keyboard and that works fine (I'm typing with that now).

So, I decide to use my Unicomp keyboard plugged into my linux laptop machine. Result, the spacebar does not work .

I don't get it. . I'm thinking, the issue can't be like some hacker reprogrammed my keyboard as it's just a piece of hardware, not updateable by software. Yet at the same time, it's unlikely that the keyboard, the spacebar would just suddenly quit on the very same day that youtube/firefox issue happens.

 

[JoeWras]

Without getting too techie, I suspect it is google or firefox's software development model, likely based on "agile continuous integration." They introduced a bug and you and other reddit friends tested the product for them. This is partly what drove me to ER. I was tired of having our customers become testers.

Last Monday morning I had my first car trip longer than 1 mile in 4 months. I hop in, power up google maps and find it useless. It can give me directions, but only showed a micro-sized arrow at turns on the map. The blue route line was gone. I powered down the phone and operated seat-of-the-pants to a location I've been to before. Screw it.

Later I do a Bing search (joke) and a bunch of people are giving 1-star to the app because of this severe breakage. I wasn't the only one. Someone at google messed up big time and screwed up the app.

<sarc>Yep, we old school "waterfall" developers, as it was known, are just idiot old people. We were so wrong about developing quality products. </sarc>

 

[easysurfer]

Yes, like you are saying something probably got introduce and we ended up being the test dummies.

My deductive reasoning still doesn't explain my recent keyboard issue. I read that keyboard drivers can get corrupted. My next test is to restore my system back to a couple days ago (when the keyboard was working) and see what happens.

That still doesn't explain why the spacebar acts like it's been borked as doesn't work on a different machine. But I'm getting ahead of myself .

 

[easysurfer]

Update on my keyboard mystery. Still a mystery.

I was considering sending it in for repair with a bad spacebar and all.

Then I got this computer program that tests key presses to show what keypresses registered, what not. A catchy name of a program, called "Switch Hitter" .

So, I figure, what the heck? First time around, as expected, spacebar and several others showing as not depressed. So, I think, I'll try again to see if I can duplicate to point out what keys don't work if I send in for repair.

Well, guess what, next time around, all the keys worked fine .

Right now, I'm typing on the keyboard as though nothing is wrong. I even tested plugged into my Linux laptop and keys work fine. ... gremlins.

My new theory is, I did earlier pop off the spacebar and other nearby keys and removed a bunch of dust and debris. So, perhaps the remaining dust and debris got moved around and now the keys are making better contact. Just a theory.

Think I'm going to spend tomorrow taking off more keys and get rid of a lot of the other dust and debris. If the problem comes back, may just buy a new keyboard and start fresh.

 

[easysurfer]

Gave my keyboard a well-deserved cleaning.

My project tomorrow after the keyparts dry up is to put them back in the keyboard .

 

[Birdie Num Nums]

Firefox & Backspace Key

Today my laptop backspace key wasn't working, or so I thought. I googled and couldn't find a fix that seemed correct.

Turns out, it's still working fine with docs, etc, but just not in the Firefox browser, because Firefox has disabled it. See here:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-to-block-backspace-key-from-working-as-back-button/


I'll just use the browser back arrow icon at the top left, instead of the recommended ALT-LEFT keyboard keys.