Solved IE11 address bar loses focus while typing

[SJMaye]

After updating to IE11 I noticed I would be typing in the address bar focus would be lost. I would get a few words typed in the address bar and without warning the text would go gray indicating focus was lost. Very frustrating having to re-click in the field to continue typing.

Anyone know what's up with this?

 

[ThrashZone]

Loss of focus can happen for several reasons most commonly is a utility updating and stealing or over using resources,
Troubleshooting for win-7,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/220165-troubleshooting-steps-windows-7-a.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html

 

[SJMaye]

Thank you for your reply. Other things cropped up with IE11 forcing me to go back to IE9. The typing issue has disappeared.

 

[ThrashZone]

Going from ie9 to ie11 was a pretty good jump in versions,
I would suggest trying ie10 which I've found a much more stable version and more secure that ie9,
You never said what type of keyboard and mouse your using ?
By chance are these wireless ?

 

[SJMaye]

Going from ie9 to ie11 was a pretty good jump in versions,
I would suggest trying ie10 which I've found a much more stable version and more secure that ie9,
You never said what type of keyboard and mouse your using ?
By chance are these wireless ?

I had tried IE10 and it worked OK except for a few features on Amazon and Zillow. Maybe I will try it again. My keyboard is wired and mouse wireless. I thought that for a bit as well, but the issue was never observed in IE9 or IE10.

 

[ThrashZone]

Click the Start button and type in the search box/ msconfig
Hit Enter or click on the suggestion,
Go to the Startup section and take a screen shot or' shots of the startup listings/ use the link above my signature picture to see how to post screen shots here,
Lets see what's starting up with windows,
Cheers.

 

[SJMaye]

Back again.

The reason I was gone is I reverted back to IE10 to solve my issue and all is well. Now I want to see what can be done to fix IE11.

My gut tells me my problem is not a utility as my work computer on IE11 does the exact same thing. I may be explaining the problem incorrectly. Maybe it is not "losing focus". So you understand. I do not type well so I find myself looking at the keyboard as I type. I will click the address bar and start typing search terms. I will look up and notice that it stopped accepting the typing after only a couple of words and turned gray as if I clicked somewhere else on the page.

This seems to be a behavior of IE11 as it has now done this on two computers. I am shocked no one else has seen this problem. Or have they?

 

[UsernameIssues]

Accidentally hitting the Alt key can take you out of the address bar.

 

[SJMaye]

Accidentally hitting the Alt key can take you out of the address bar.

I can understand that, but this is happening repeatedly. And it does not explain why IE9 and IE10 do not exhibit the same problem. Let me have another look at work and watch closely as I type.

 

[UsernameIssues]

Accidentally hitting the Alt key can take you out of the address bar.

I can understand that, but this is happening repeatedly. And it does not explain why IE9 and IE10 do not exhibit the same problem. Let me have another look at work and watch closely as I type.

You are correct - that should happen in IE9 and IE10 as well. I originally had a few sentences asking about the menu bar - if you had it hidden in IE9, IE10 and IE11, but then I realized that it did not matter if it was hidden - hitting Alt would do the same thing. So I reduced my post to one sentence in the hopes that it would jar your memory about something.

Who are you using for your search provider?
Do you have automatic suggestions turned on?

I don't think that IE11 changed the way that it handles suggested search terms either - but I cannot think of anything else to test.

 

[ThrashZone]

Best chances of starting fresh are Full reset,
Reset process first opening Internet explorer
After which see this to remove Comp-view lists from Microsoft,
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/33571-google-search-display-issue-internet-explorer-11-fix.html
If you have issues with a website add it to your comp-view list,
Gear symbol/ Comp-view settings,
If your on the site already the site will be listed in the sites box all you need to do is click on the Add button and close the window,
Refresh the page with the F5 key.
This is also a wonderful free utility,
Temp files delete,
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/files/file/187-tfc-temp-file-cleaner-by-oldtimer/
Along with these free scanners,
http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free
http://www.superantispyware.com/?tag=SUPERANTISPYWARE
But ie11 is very Dpi and page Zoom sensitive so please verify what your using on both,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/443-dpi-display-size-settings-change.html

 

[tesseract]

I had this exact same behavior in IE11.

For me, the culprit was the Adobe PDF add-on. Disabling it resolved the issue.

See here:

Cursor loses focus in new tab in - Microsoft Community

 

[SJMaye]

I am using Google with automatic suggestions on for both computers. Same as I had it with previous versions on IE. Yesterday I did some test searches within the address bar of the IE11 machine. It worked correctly that time. The action is not consistent. I will continue to watch closely.

 

[SJMaye]

I have it! Or at least I can say I can see what it is doing repeatedly. When I open a new tab, click in the address bar and the cursor will blink there for right at 5 seconds or 5 blinks, then the cursor disappears. I can click back in the address bar and the cursor will blink there endlessly (I think).

I just did it again and noticed the entire new tab loses focus after the 5 seconds. When I first open the tab the cursor is blinking in the address bar and in the top right corner there is the bright red X close button to close all tabs. After 5 seconds button goes clear meaning inactive.

Focus is going somewhere else. Must not be the IE tabs because all the minimize, restore, maximize, and close buttons all go inactive after the 5 seconds.

Does this help explain? Any ideas?

 

[UsernameIssues]

Do your settings look like this:

 

[SJMaye]

Yes.

 

[SJMaye]

The link is to a video showing it in action. You will need to go to full scrren to see it well.

http://s12.photobucket.com/user/smaye/media/Public%20Shared/2014-02-02_9-04-04_zps6ddceebe.mp4.html

 

[ThrashZone]

I didn't see any video I did how ever get a invalid security certificate popup with photobucket.com ?

 

[SJMaye]

I went and set to share. Pls try again.

http://s12.photobucket.com/user/smay...ceebe.mp4.html

 

[UsernameIssues]

Did you try the issue highlighted by tesseract in post #12?


I see the event in your video. I had a similar thing happen for a with IE10. Then it just stopped (perhaps after an IE10 update). So I never found the cause.

Since you have found a way to make it repeat, then I would suggest running Process Monitor to see if an event can be detected that causes the issue. Stop the data collection right after focus is lost - then read the Process Monitor data (starting from the bottom) to see if anything loads or happens that stands out.