I click in the address bar and it goes blank. This doesn’t happen in Opera.
It annoys me too, but if you click on the address bar, there should be a drop down of the last few addresses visited, and the most recent will have the symbol to click on to copy the URL - looks like a “pages symbol”.
But that doesn’t let me copy or modify the address. This problem is recent, like as of last night. Clicking does not allow me to select the address, it just blanks it and gives that menu you mentioned.
You should have three icons in the drop down: copy, share and edit.
If you click the edit (pencil) icon, the last address appears in the address bar with the edit cursor positioned at the end.
At least, it does for me.
I get the pencil, but no editing.
Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear:
Before last night and as long as I have used Chrome, WinOS and Android, when I click in the address bar I could highlight, edit, or copy the contents. That ended last night and now I get that useless menu that doesn’t behave as y’all say it should.
I’m hard-pressed to tell if it was Chrome’s fault or mine. I cannot find a setting for that behavior.
Check the SDMB theme that you’re using. Sultantheme behaves differently than Straightdope 3.7.3 and may be the cause of your problem
Now it adds an extra link with the url directly below the current one. You CAN use the pencil icon, but I also have copy (two papers) or share icon (has option to copy there, too).
Seems like a solution in seek of a problem to me, not sure why they changed it but it’s not just you.
When I tap the address bar in Chrome (Android 8.1) it empties the field but shows the URL I was viewing in the first line of the drop-down menu. Next to that address are the Copy, Share and Edit icons. Looks like this:
Tapping the Edit (pencil) icon returns the URL to the address bar and allows me to edit from there.
Does yours look different than the above screenshot?
This just started happening today for me too on chrome with android. I just noticed it today. I’m guessing its a software update.
However when I open mine I do have the 3 options. The copy, share & edit options. Using the copy option allows me to copy the url.
Having played with it a couple of days… I like it now. You copy a url, then try to paste it in the title bar. Before you had to erase the existing one. Now you can just paste and go.
I saw this for the first time last night. I have a bookmark to a SharePoint site, but needed to go one level above that. So I clicked on the SharePoint bookmark expecting to just tap on the address bar and edit it. But I got this instead. Unexpected and non-intuitive. It took me a few minutes of dicking around with it to figure out how it worked. It’s part of the “mobile first” trend and it’s fine once you know how it works.
I like the new version way better, but you have to know what the copy, share, and edit icons are. Those should be labeled with text as well, IMHO.
Funny, the only change I’ve seen in Android Chrome recently is that the menu stuff has moved from the top to the bottom of the screen. I can still copy addresses the same as always. I have a Samsung phone on Android 8.0
I’m running Straightdope 3.7.3 and were it the theme it wouldn’t affect other sites.
No. The difference is because Copy doesn’t copy, Share doesn’t share, and Edit doesn’t edit. They basically do nothing.
And yes, I have turned it off and turned it back on again. 
Chrome works the old-fashioned way in incognito mode.
Sorry about that. I jumped to a conclusion.
No prob. And you can be sure I checked before replying!