# Why won't my "back" button work on the STMB
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [November 25, 2009, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865 "2009-11-25T02:39:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/1 "2009-11-25T02:39:28Z")
Title says it all. I’m running the latest version of Firefox, and the “\<” i.e. go back a page function works on every site and in every application except here. What’s up with that? Is anybody else having this problem? Because I can’t seem to lock down the reason why it won’t work here. It works everywhere else.
Ideas?
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### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/2 "2009-11-25T02:50:06Z")
Ermmm… It seems to be working fine now. But damnit, it’s been doing it for two days, why did it wait 'till I finally post a thread about it to start working again?
Fucking gremlins.
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### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/3 "2009-11-25T03:16:17Z")
GAAAHH! Now it’s doing it again.
Notably this: I do a search and it gives me multiple threads. I click on a thread, read what’s new, and hit “back” but it won’t go back!
Is this a board problem or is it on my end?
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/4 "2009-11-25T03:35:02Z")
Mine works okay. In fact, I often have to use it to be able to post. Although the Board is working much better now than it was, there are still a couple of glitches. One of them is when I press Submit to post, I get an error message. Using the Back button to return, the composed message is still there, I press Submit again, and it works! This happens a lot, and occasionally I must even do this procedure a second time.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/5 "2009-11-25T03:42:58Z")
Delete your temporary internet files.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/6 "2009-11-25T04:36:43Z")
I delete them regularly, but the glitch still happens.
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### Author:  [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/7 "2009-11-25T13:44:48Z")
I am so glad someone brought this up. This is happening to me too, both at home and on my work computers. All with Firefox. I need to try IE to see if its doing it there as well. I wonder if its a recent Firefox update that caused this? It wasn’t doing this last week.
I noticed last night on my home PC that if I clicked my back button twice or more in rapid succession that it would then go back, but not by only clicking it once like it should be doing.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/8 "2009-11-25T13:57:51Z")
Mine was doing that, too, yesterday. Thought it was just the computer but now I see others are having the prob, too. Though now it’s fine.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/9 "2009-11-25T14:01:02Z")
Just quit navigating that way. (Sooner or later those searchresults URLs _do expire_, although generally not in the timeframe it should take to read a single thread).
Instead, rightclick and open thread you’re interested in in a new background tab or a new background window. When done, close it. No back button necessary.
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### Author:  [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/10 "2009-11-25T14:42:47Z")
So, the last couple days I’ve noticed something really damned annoying.
I’ll go into a thread in the SDMB, read it, decide to go somewhere else, and hit the back button. Nothing happens.
I go and look at my options for the back button, and the thread is in there twice in a row. For whatever reason, I can’t even click the back button really quickly to get out. I’m stuck in “why I like cheese” unless I choose a higher level menu from my back list.
But the non-threads (GD, Pit, etc) don’t double up in my back selections.
Anyone have any ideas?
-Joe
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### Author:  [@Morgis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgis)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/11 "2009-11-25T14:49:07Z")
I’ve been having the same problem yesterday and today. I’m also using the latest version of Firefox. I’m just trying to browse the forums normally, not opening threads from a search.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/12 "2009-11-25T15:01:12Z")
Same issue yesterday for me, using Firefox 3.0.12
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### Author:  [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/13 "2009-11-25T15:15:49Z")
None of this is anything we’re doing or not doing - it’s a local issue with you and your browser. Sorry we can’t be more help but your experience is just that, your experience.
There are many tweaks/plugins for Firefox and it’s quite possible one of those applications is compromising your SDMB experience.
Some of our users are advanced Firefox types, perhaps one of those people can talk about why this is going on and any possible fixes.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/14 "2009-11-25T16:01:08Z")
It is a known issue with Firefox, [discussed in this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=541309)
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### Author:  [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/15 "2009-11-25T16:41:29Z")
I also wanted to note that it doesn’t appear to happen on any other website, so I’d like to think that rules out Firefox.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/16 "2009-11-25T17:04:48Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#):
>
> I also wanted to note that it doesn’t appear to happen on any other website.
Same. And I don’t use Firefox.
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### Author:  [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/17 "2009-11-25T17:36:50Z")
Using Firefox 3.5.5 on Linux and Vista, no problems of any kind to report.
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### Author:  [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/18 "2009-11-25T18:46:16Z")
The same thing’s happening to me. What it’s doing is for some reason whenever I go to any forum or thread, it goes to it two or three times. So if I hold the Back arrow to go back any number of steps, I have to go back at least 2 steps before actually getting to the previous page.
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### Author:  [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/19 "2009-11-25T18:58:29Z")
Back button needs to be double-clicked consistently on Opera 9.60. Just started happening this week.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-my-back-button-work-on-the-stmb/518865/20 "2009-11-25T18:59:05Z")
[moderating]
Sounds like this belongs in _About This Message Board_, so I moved it.
[/moderating]
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