Strange mouse behavior in Netscape

At times when I’m using Netscape (4.X) when I have several browser windows open at once, the left mouse button stops working. I can’t click on any links. I can however use the right button and open the links that way.
This condition persists until I reboot the computer.

Also while this happens, this condition with the house doesn’t affect any other application. Any ideas?

Happens to me, too. I just close Netscape and re-open it and use my history to get back to the right pages. It also tends to not close by just hitting “X”, you have to Ctrl-Alt-Del and close it that way. Ugh.

–Tim

I had a friend have something similar happen while using a Logitech mouse on his Win 95 system, but this would happen while using ACD-See to browse graphics or when using Internet Explorer 5.0. I had him install the latest mouse driver and the problem cleared up immediately.

If you are using Logitech hardware see if this works.

Good Luck!

It happens on my home computer which is Windows 98 and at work which is Windows 95.
And the mouses are not the same.

Also Internet Explorer isn’t affected.

That happens to me, too. It tends to happen on certain pages (in fact I avoid certain pages because of it), Netscape will stall while a page is loading, and then when I put my cursor over a link, there’s no indication of what the URL is in the bar at the bottom (as there usually is), and the left mouse button does nothing. Once this happens, many pages will refuse to load, Netscape will just stall when I try to load another page, and inevitably I have to reboot.

I don’t know what the problem is, either, but is this how it happens to you, BobT?

I have nothing but problems with Nutscrape. It won’t load some pages, stalls on others, etc.

BobT, I think you answered your own question when you said, “Also Internet Explorer isn’t affected.”

IE5 isn’t perfect, but IMHO it beats Netscape hands down.

Update your video drivers. Works like a charm.

I’m with Homer on this one. I used to have to reboot when it happened. However, closing the program, then hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del to go into the task manager and killing Netscape there, fixes it right up. The other hints about mouse drivers and video drivers are red herrings. Ignore them.

It’s annoying yes, but still not worth leaving Netscape over. IE5 is an OK program, but it has a depressing tendency to take over your desktop. It allows embedded Active X controls, which are an inherent security risk. It doesn’t include a mail client, unless you count Outlook, which is a proven security risk. Also, does it have a View Page Source option? I haven’t been able to find it.

Thanks for the advice. I have learned to coexist with Netscape and IE on my computer. I guess I will just have to accept their faults. I choose the browser depending upon what I think I’m going to need at that time.

Netscape has options, you must set them properly. Did you set them to read style sheets, for example?

Eventually, youll hit a page that has some idiotic asp, cgi, flash script or whatever & youll just have to reopen it. Happesn with IE too.

also, be sure to UPDATE to any new browser plugins…