Firefox "popunders"

Not an advert, just a new page that automatically goes to the background.



You can see the new page show briefly and then all you can see of the new page is the scroll bar off to the right in the video. The post shown in the video is this one, but the problem is not specific to any one post. Any post that has a link designed to open a new tab/page may cause this issue.

This is a fresh Firefox profile using Firefox 21 and no add-ons, but these "popunders" started around version 17.





If I attempt to see how repeatable the problem is by:
...clicking on the link
...closing the new window (or just leave it in the background)
...clicking on the link again
The new window will most likely stay on top.

If I:
...click on the link
...close the new window (or just leave it in the background)
...wait a minute or two
...click on the link again
The new window will most likely "popunder".

I'm looking in Process Explorer for some event that happens after the wait. Maybe some clearing of some cache files - I don't know. I'm not finding any rhyme or reason to this "popunder" thing.

Does anyone else see it? Maybe it is the Intel video drivers. Don't those drivers manage windows Z order?

boohbah said:

why dont you have new windows open in a new tab checked. that way you wont have this issue.

Now that would be too easy of a fix

It has to do with the way that I organize my tabs and windows. Generally, one window (and its tabs) are all related. e.g. all the tabs in one window are Seven Forum threads - if I leave the forums, I want a new window. I usually right click links and select what I want to happen - so that setting does not really matter.

It does seem to be Flash related as the new window shown in the video does load the flash plug-in. But I cannot replicate the issue in a VM - with the same version of flash, same version of Firefox, same classic theme.

....now to figure out why....

Thanks A Guy for the flash lead.

boohbah said:

ah well, i tried.

And I thank you for doing so.

One work around is to set a home page that causes the flash plug in to load. Once flash has loaded, the issue seems to go away.

I was able to get the VM to do this popunder or steal focus thing too.

I had forgotten about logging in to prevent adverts from Seven Forums. After enough tests, I happened to get a Seven Forums page without flash related adverts and the popunder showed only after clicking to open a new window that did load flash. Now that I've logged into the forum in the VM, the popunder is consistent.

And Firefox has crashed more than once on the host computer and in the VM.

IE10 is looking pretty good right now

Testing in the VM now:
Firefox, Icedragon and Palemoon all have this "popunder" problem.
Firefox safe mode has the problem.
Windows safe mode & Firefox normal mode has the problem.
Windows safe mode & Firefox safe mode has the problem.

Java is not installed in the VM.











I don't need to solve the problem per se, I'm just curious if others see it and why it happens.

The link that A Guy posted...
Adobe Community: How do I troubleshoot Flash Player's protected mode for Firefox?
...mentioned disabling Flash's protected mode via a mms.cfg file.
That article above also had a link...
Inside Flash Player Protected Mode for Firefox
...that explained the protected mode. It shows Process Explorer with Flash running in the low integrity mode. I see the same thing with or without the protected mode disabled. Perhaps the protected mode cannot be turned off in newer versions of Flash - or I did something wrong.


It does not seem to be tied to the video drivers:

host:


vm: