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I have recently started using Ubuntu 25.04. Firefox browser works fine at first. After some amount of time, however, Firefox starts not working properly. The address bar and some icons on the toolbar (for example, "going back page", "going forward page", Reload button, the 'X' close button on each tab, the star mark, the "open application menu" button) become NOT clickable.

Interestingly, the webpages work fine even in this situation. I can still change the tabs (by clicking them or 'Ctrl+tab') and have no problems to see the contents of the webpages. The bookmark bar also works. But once I open a new tab, I can't close it because of the problem I described above.

The only solution I found is to close the current Firefox session (= the whole tabs in the problematic Firefox window) and just open a new Firefox session (new Firefox window) which is not the best solution.

Do you happen to know about this Firefox issue and how I could solve this issue?

sadradio
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    I face same behavior from time to time, to me it is bug. U24.04 FF138.0.1 (snap) – user.dz May 19 '25 at 07:45
  • possibly related and a potential solution https://askubuntu.com/questions/1399383/how-to-install-firefox-as-a-traditional-deb-package-without-snap-in-ubuntu-22/ – graham May 19 '25 at 09:27
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    I'm also seeing this on firefox 138.0.4 via canonical snap on Ubuntu 25.04 Wayland. Was working fine until like today. – partofthething May 20 '25 at 18:31
  • @partofthething: Thanks for your comment. Mine is 'Ubuntu 25.04 Plucky' and 'Firefox Browser 138.0.3 (64-bit)'. Maybe 25.04 is too new in this community. Let's wait for someone who knows the solution. Or it may be gone later if we keep updating Firefox and others. – sadradio May 21 '25 at 22:17
  • I found a different bug in 138.0.4 (autoExportHTML stopped working), but when I tried the nightly build (140.0a1) it was working, so I'm going to wait until my Mint packaged firefox catches up to 140. You could try the nightly build to see if your bug is fixed there. I believe I have seen your sporadic bug too, but with some UI flailing around I have been able to work around it. – jrw32982 May 22 '25 at 18:18
  • Having same issue on Fedora 42, fresh setup, stock Firefox 138.0.4 (64-Bit) ("Mozilla Firefox for Fedora") from official Fedora repository – puaaaal May 26 '25 at 11:26

2 Answers2

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I have the same problem in Firefox installed from deb. I don't know the cause, but I've found a way to cure the symptoms: if I select any tab and drag it around with my mouse in the tab list, it immediately makes all of the tabs responsive again. This has made the issue much less frustrating for me. Hope this helps someone.

I would write this as a comment but I'm not allowed to.

Yuliy Daniel
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  • Thanks for your suggestion. Since I posted this question, I haven't seen this problem yet. This might be due to a recent Firefox update a few days ago (now my Firefox version is "139.0"; see my previous comment, it was "138" before). But, if I find this problem again, I will try your suggestion to resolve the issue and add a comment about it here how it went. – sadradio May 29 '25 at 22:25
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    I just experienced the problem with Firefox again, but solved it with your suggestion. So, I confirm that this solution works. Thanks! – sadradio May 30 '25 at 23:23
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    impressive that you found that and thanks for posting it! So simple - and not only works on Ubuntu but also here on Fedora 42! – Henning Jun 21 '25 at 11:26
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    Also works on Gentoo. – palapapa Jun 26 '25 at 10:23
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It's a known Firefox bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1955112

As mentioned by others, workaround that doesn't require restart is dragging a tab around.

Viesturs
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