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So, what did I accidentally do?

Trebuchet

Penultimate Amazing
Trebuchet
Joined
Nov 20, 2003
Messages
43,436
Location
Port Townsend, Washington
I type pretty fast, but not well. Every once in a while I fat-finger something and Chrome goes all wonky. I can't type in a dialog box. Clicking on a page to open downloads it instead. When it happened this morning, I closed Chrome and restarted but it still wouldn't work. I expect I'm actually hitting Ctrl-something when trying to hit the shift key, but what the heck? Why would that even be a thing?
 
Trebuchet said:
I type pretty fast, but not well. Every once in a while I fat-finger something and Chrome goes all wonky. I can't type in a dialog box. Clicking on a page to open downloads it instead. When it happened this morning, I closed Chrome and restarted but it still wouldn't work. I expect I'm actually hitting Ctrl-something when trying to hit the shift key, but what the heck? Why would that even be a thing?
Click to expand...

ALT+CLICK downloads a link instead of opening it. Make sure your keyboard is clean, your ALT key isn't stuck, and there's nothing resting on it.

ETA: Not ALT. Could have sworn it was ALT. Turns out this only happens to me on my Mac, which has an OPTION key where the ALT key is found on my PC keyboard. That plus a click downloads a page.

And why wouldn't it be a thing?
 
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I've often slipped and brushed my TrackPad (which I keep on for some reason but only very rarely use) which usually has some unintended results.

The other day when almost finishing a lengthy post I somehow cleared it and went back a page, losing the entire entry. Yes, I know I can enter it into Notepad first, then copy it. I don't want to do that every time. But I did it on this rebound. The trouble is I can rarely capture the exact words I put down the first time.
 
1. Try right clicking on the icon you use to open it. A menu should appear where you can select to open it or inspect its properties.
2. Reboot your machine. Seriously. This fixes many problems.
 
alfaniner said:
I've often slipped and brushed my TrackPad (which I keep on for some reason but only very rarely use) which usually has some unintended results.

The other day when almost finishing a lengthy post I somehow cleared it and went back a page, losing the entire entry. Yes, I know I can enter it into Notepad first, then copy it. I don't want to do that every time. But I did it on this rebound. The trouble is I can rarely capture the exact words I put down the first time.
Click to expand...

You can set chrome to disable/enable the touchpad with search/shift/p
 
alfaniner said:
I've often slipped and brushed my TrackPad (which I keep on for some reason but only very rarely use) which usually has some unintended results.

The other day when almost finishing a lengthy post I somehow cleared it and went back a page, losing the entire entry. Yes, I know I can enter it into Notepad first, then copy it. I don't want to do that every time. But I did it on this rebound. The trouble is I can rarely capture the exact words I put down the first time.
Click to expand...

In Firefox, I find that if sometimes I immediately choose page forward, my post is still there, intact.

Also, if I accidentally close a tab, clicking History will show me a "*forum name* - Reply to Topic" choice which if I click it, restores my post unchanged.

For a while I had a problem where I would be typing, and suddenly the tab I was typing in would close, or if I only had one tab open, it and Firefox would just close with no warning, and I would be looking at my desktop. Turn out that it would happen when I was trying to type a word beginning with an upper case "W". What I was doing was accidentaly hitting CTRL+W instead of SHIFT+W - CTRL-W is a shortcut to instantly close Firefox.

As far as the OP goes, I'm guessing that Chrome might have an inbuilt keyboard shortcut to toggle links to download instead of open.
 
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Trebuchet said:
I type pretty fast, but not well. Every once in a while I fat-finger something and Chrome goes all wonky. I can't type in a dialog box. Clicking on a page to open downloads it instead. When it happened this morning, I closed Chrome and restarted but it still wouldn't work. I expect I'm actually hitting Ctrl-something when trying to hit the shift key, but what the heck? Why would that even be a thing?
Click to expand...

When you right click on a link and choose "Open in a new tab" or "Open in a new window" does it act accordingly or still save the webpage?
 
theprestige said:
ALT+CLICK downloads a link instead of opening it. Make sure your keyboard is clean, your ALT key isn't stuck, and there's nothing resting on it.

ETA: Not ALT. Could have sworn it was ALT. Turns out this only happens to me on my Mac, which has an OPTION key where the ALT key is found on my PC keyboard. That plus a click downloads a page.

And why wouldn't it be a thing?
Click to expand...
Alt-click downloads a link in Chrome, I just tried it.

Sometimes just clicking on the ALT keys a few times in rapid succession unsticks them.
 
Trebuchet said:
So, (rule of) any idea what I accidentally typed?
Click to expand...

Yes: The Option key on a Mac keyboard.

If it's not that, then you'll probably have to figure it out for yourself, and share your discovery with us.

The good news is, you put your fingers on the home keys and start working your way through the keyboard from likely presses to unlikely presses, and you should have the answer pretty quick, just by process of elimination.

Not as satisfying as building mechanical throwers, perhaps. But think of all the keyboard-pressing you already do, in the service of this forum! What's a few more WPM-equivalents, for a good cause?
 
grmcdorman said:
That would apply to everything, though, and from the description it's Chrome only.
Click to expand...

Rule #1 of tech support: The user's problem statement cannot be assumed to be complete or factual.

If the best explanation means that other things are going wrong, that the user hasn't reported, or that the user reports aren't going wrong, then it is almost certainly the case that the best explanation is the correct explanation, and that other things are in fact going wrong even if the user doesn't notice them or think they're going wrong.
 
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grmcdorman said:
That would apply to everything, though, and from the description it's Chrome only.
Click to expand...

Only Chrome as far as I've observed. Win7 on an older Dell laptop, with an accessory Microsoft wireless mouse/keyboard combo. The anomaly survived, sort of, through shutting down and restarting Chrome. "Sort of" because when I brought it back up it simply did nothing.

At least I've figured out the scrolling-down problem, which happened this morning. I'm not sure what triggers it but tapping the laptop down-arrow key reliably fixes it.
 
robert77wade said:
Try and re-install chrome, if that doesn't work, check your mouse settings if everything is all right there. Or your mouse could be faulty.
Click to expand...

I don't know that, in this case, Chrome is acting out of sorts. It might be that whatever key combination he's fat-fingering (my personal bane is typing too fast, hitting enter to do my search and hitting shift at the same time. Which opens a new blank window) is the correct combination to perform the task it's triggering.

Pretty much agree with what theprestige said. This could kind of be one of a bunch of different things, and we don't know if it's just chrome affected. Usually no one looks around at other programs when encountering the problem. They stop and try to fix it.

That being said, there is an option to reset chrome itself. This worked for me when I downloaded a virus that was changing my chrome dns.
 
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plague311 said:
I don't know that, in this case, Chrome is acting out of sorts. It might be that whatever key combination he's fat-fingering (my personal bane is typing too fast, hitting enter to do my search and hitting shift at the same time. Which opens a new blank window) is the correct combination to perform the task.

Pretty much agree with what theprestige said. This could kind of be one of a bunch of different things, and we don't know if it's just chrome affected. Usually no one looks around at other programs when encountering the problem. They stop and try to fix it.

That being said, there is an option to reset chrome itself. This worked for me when I downloaded a virus that was changing my chrome dns.
Click to expand...
When I reboot, chrome also reboots. It opens all the closed tabs but I can choose not to do that. (not reinstall)
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
When I reboot, chrome also reboots. It opens all the closed tabs but I can choose not to do that. (not reinstall)
Click to expand...

Reset and Reboot aren't interchangeable. A reset of the browser puts everything back at default settings within the browser itself. A reboot just shuts down the program and opens it back up with the same settings it was shut down with. In google's case, it remembers all of the tabs that were open, etc.
 
plague311 said:
I don't know that, in this case, Chrome is acting out of sorts. It might be that whatever key combination he's fat-fingering (my personal bane is typing too fast, hitting enter to do my search and hitting shift at the same time. Which opens a new blank window) is the correct combination to perform the task it's triggering.

Pretty much agree with what theprestige said. This could kind of be one of a bunch of different things, and we don't know if it's just chrome affected. Usually no one looks around at other programs when encountering the problem. They stop and try to fix it.

That being said, there is an option to reset chrome itself. This worked for me when I downloaded a virus that was changing my chrome dns.
Click to expand...

Yes, as I said in the OP, it's fat-fingering that's the problem. I'll have to look into the reset thing.

Skeptic Ginger said:
Then I don't understand the difficulty. I have to reboot every couple days lest my computer starts slowing to an intolerable pace.
Click to expand...
The difficulty is that I'd prefer to reboot at a convenient time, not be forced to by Chrome having gone nuts while I'm in the middle of responding to a post on this forum!
 
Trebuchet said:
Only Chrome as far as I've observed. Win7 on an older Dell laptop, with an accessory Microsoft wireless mouse/keyboard combo. The anomaly survived, sort of, through shutting down and restarting Chrome. "Sort of" because when I brought it back up it simply did nothing.

At least I've figured out the scrolling-down problem, which happened this morning. I'm not sure what triggers it but tapping the laptop down-arrow key reliably fixes it.
Click to expand...


Are you using a mouse? Sometimes scroll lock is keyed to the middle button which can be a wheel as well as a button.
 
The Man said:
Are you using a mouse? Sometimes scroll lock is keyed to the middle button which can be a wheel as well as a button.
Click to expand...

I vote for this.

Many users don't understand that clicking the mouse wheel is different to scrolling the mouse wheel.

People here can't really predict what your mouse will do for every application because that stuff is all user-configurable.
 
plague311 said:
Reset and Reboot aren't interchangeable. A reset of the browser puts everything back at default settings within the browser itself. A reboot just shuts down the program and opens it back up with the same settings it was shut down with. In google's case, it remembers all of the tabs that were open, etc.
Click to expand...
You lost me there.

I shut the computer completely down and it reopens, requiring my passwoerd. I can chose to restore tabs or not restore them.
 
Trebuchet said:
Yes, as I said in the OP, it's fat-fingering that's the problem. I'll have to look into the reset thing.


The difficulty is that I'd prefer to reboot at a convenient time, not be forced to by Chrome having gone nuts while I'm in the middle of responding to a post on this forum!
Click to expand...
Losing a post is annoying as hell.

If I have something long I've learned to copy it to the clipboard or a text file as I write it, but if the computer shuts down unexpectedly, yes, that would be a pain.
 
novaphile said:
I vote for this.

Many users don't understand that clicking the mouse wheel is different to scrolling the mouse wheel.

People here can't really predict what your mouse will do for every application because that stuff is all user-configurable.
Click to expand...

IT'S NOT THE MOUSE! IT HAPPENS WHEN I'M TYPING WITH BOTH HANDS.

Sorry for yelling, but I thought that was clear. It's most likely due to the left pinky landing on keys I don't intend, but I can't be sure. Maybe the left pinky hitting something while the right one is on its shift key.
 
Trebuchet said:
IT'S NOT THE MOUSE! IT HAPPENS WHEN I'M TYPING WITH BOTH HANDS.

Sorry for yelling, but I thought that was clear. It's most likely due to the left pinky landing on keys I don't intend, but I can't be sure. Maybe the left pinky hitting something while the right one is on its shift key.
Click to expand...


Here is an exhaustive list of Chrome keyboard shortcuts. Might be worth browsing through them

https://www.computerhope.com/shortcut/chrome.htm
 
Trebuchet said:
IT'S NOT THE MOUSE! IT HAPPENS WHEN I'M TYPING WITH BOTH HANDS.

Sorry for yelling, but I thought that was clear. It's most likely due to the left pinky landing on keys I don't intend, but I can't be sure. Maybe the left pinky hitting something while the right one is on its shift key.
Click to expand...

Sometimes I hit control [some letter] when I meant to hit shift [some letter]. That always mucks something up depending on which letter I hit.
 
smartcooky said:
Here is an exhaustive list of Chrome keyboard shortcuts. Might be worth browsing through them

https://www.computerhope.com/shortcut/chrome.htm
Click to expand...
I've had a brief glance through that and I can't see anything resembling what Treb was describing. My bet is on StickyKeys or something like that. There are a bunch of accessibility options with weird shortcuts (like pressing Ctrl five times in a row) that can seem baffling if you don't know about them.
 
arthwollipot said:
I've had a brief glance through that and I can't see anything resembling what Treb was describing. My bet is on StickyKeys or something like that. There are a bunch of accessibility options with weird shortcuts (like pressing Ctrl five times in a row) that can seem baffling if you don't know about them.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this. IIRC, Windows has the following:
Mouse Keys: Use the numpad to move the mouse.
Sticky Keys: Press keyboard shortcuts (like CNTRL-ALT-DELETE) one key at a time (they remain active for a short time after pressed). Turns on if you press SHIFT 5 times.
Toggle Keys: Plays a tone when CAPS LOCK, NUM LOCK, or SCROLL LOCK are enabled. Turns on if you hold NUM LOCK for 5 seconds
Filter Keys: Ignore or slow down brief or repeated keystrokes. Turns on if RIGHT SHIFT is held for 8 seconds

If you go to Start->Settings->Ease of Access->Keyboard, you can turn off the shortcuts that enable them. You can also see if they are enabled at that time. Worth a look next time it happens to see if one of them is turning on.

ETA: Older Windows you go to Control Panel->Ease of Access (or maybe Accessibility Options?) and view the settings.
 
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arthwollipot said:
I've had a brief glance through that and I can't see anything resembling what Treb was describing. My bet is on StickyKeys or something like that. There are a bunch of accessibility options with weird shortcuts (like pressing Ctrl five times in a row) that can seem baffling if you don't know about them.
Click to expand...

I didn't see anything on that list either. It only affects Chrome, so I don't think it's anything with Windows in general. Now I find myself wishing it would happen again. I'm pretty sure it's something reaching down with the left pinky.
 
Trebuchet said:
I didn't see anything on that list either. It only affects Chrome, so I don't think it's anything with Windows in general. Now I find myself wishing it would happen again. I'm pretty sure it's something reaching down with the left pinky.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure or certain?

Because if you are certain then the solution is clear. And really, even if you are just "pretty sure", would you miss your left pinky all that much?
 
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