Ever since we expressed our frustration and outrage about what was potentially the most annoying bug in Firefox to date, several big and small websites around the web picked up the cry, and a flurry of activity ensued on the Mozilla Bug Entry for this particular glitch. More than a thousand users contacted us about their experiences with this bug, and soon enough, the media generated enough attention to warrant this bug a second look. It didn’t take long for the bug to be pinned down and a fix found; and here we are today, only a month later, with links to a Firefox build that makes your copy and paste experience complete!
If you missed out on all the hype, there was a bug in all Mozilla products (yes, each and every one) that would sometimes render the copy functions useless. It made submitting that last minute report for university impossible, it made reply to others on Newsgroups and forums with quotes impossible, and perhaps worst of all, it made many men (and women) with healthy heads of hair tear it out by the acre as it drove them insane. No OS was safe, every single version whether for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, or more, was afflicted, and formats were of no avail. To top it all off, it had been bugged continuously be various users for over four years!
The Solution:
It turns out there are two different ‘bugs’ in Firefox;
- The first (and real) bug is that Firefox would *randomly* stop copying, and restarting the program would temporarily help. This bug occurs on all Operating Systems and in all Mozilla products.
- The second issue is not a bug, rather it is caused by malware on your machine, only affects Windows computers, and results in a complete and indiscriminating inablity to copy in Firefox. This is not a Firefox bug, but a symptom of an infected PC.
The first is the difficult one, but it has been fixed, thanks to your relentless barrage of emails to NeoSmart Technologies and me, your diggs on Digg.com, your blog posts, Bugtrac replies, and obsession with getting it fixed. It is now available in Firefox 1.5.0.4, which is due to be released any day now. You can download it in pre-release form from one of the links below.
The second issue regarding the malware is a bit harder to handle. Thanks to Richard Warrender, we have identified the malware as being the “advertmen” spyware infiltration. Removing it is not all that difficult, the problem lies in that this isn’t one of the more popular infiltrations; and fewer antispyware programs pick it up:
Warning: These steps involve modifying the system registry. Neither NeoSmart Technololgies nor the Computer Guru can be held liable for any damage incurred!!
- Important! Close all Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer windows.
- Run “regedit.exe”
- Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
- On the right-hand side you should see a String called “AppInit_DLLs” with a value of “pushow*.dll” where * is a random number.
- Right-click on this String and click Delete and then exit regedit.
- Open “C:\windows\system32\”
- In that folder there is a file called “pushow*.dll,” where * is the random number you saw above. Delete all pushow*.dll files.
You’re done! Don’t go to any of the evil sites, and please don’t do download another exe of unknown origin! Remember, prevention is the best cure!
If you would like to discuss this bug/spyware or any other, or ask for support on how to remove it, please use our forums; any support requests below will be deleted.
You can digg this entry here. Please don’t abuse the blog by posting support requests below, they belong in the forum.
I am jumping for joy. Finally the nightmare is over. Seriously though, 4 years is a long time to live with such an annoying bug, so I’ll just say it. IT’S ABOUT TIME!
I must concur 🙂
Glad you enjoyed it!
I can’t believe this is finally fixed!! Thank you very much for letting us know, no more shutting down my browser 20 times a day to fix it. yey :))
Your very welcome 🙂
Yay! Some more details about the bug and its reasons? Who introduced the bug and what were the failures in testing (etc.) that allowed it to remain. In other words: NOW THAT THIS UNFORTUNATE EPISODE IS OVER, WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT?!! David
sorry to say it doesnt seam to have worked. still cant paste from FF
It installs a version of Firefox called "Minefield." You have to use that, not the program called "Firefox."
still cant copy and paste in minefield
Damn, if all this is true, then we?re in this deeper than we
thought! I have been using Opera since, and it?s great, but for the
sake of this bug I will use FF for a couple of days 🙂
Nope, doesn’t work for me either, in Minefield or FF. Looks like I’ll be moving back to Opera, going to miss the extensions tho. Never had this problem till 1.5.0.2
OK, I will reopen the bug based on the comments here. I have yet to experience it, but I know better than to claim that means it doesn’t happen anymore.
BTW, I’m on Windows Server 2003, and, though I forgot to mention it before, I never did get this bug on 2k3…..
Reliable fix, and I now suspect spyware/malware
Okay found a fix that seems to work reliably. I’d like others to try it and see if it works.
1) Close all instances of firefox.
2) Rename firefox.exe to afirefox.exe (or any other name for that matter).
3) Start the renamed executable. No need to reboot or do anything else.
My problem was cut/copy not working at all, scroll wheel on mouse not working at all. Tried reboots, uninstalling, removing profiles and reinstalling version 1.5.0.1, 1.5.0.2, 1.8, 1.0.5, and 1.0. Tried the new.net removals. Tried changing user.js. None of that worked. The above steps did work.
My conclusion is that SOMETHING is interfeering with the clipboard for program known as firefox.exe. I have no idea what though. I tried copying notepad.exe to firefox.exe and placing it in the same directory, but when I start notepad as firefox.exe the clipboard in the renamed notepad works just fine. So now if I’m right we’re talking about something that interfeers with firefox very specifically and deliberately, or one of the strangest bugs I’ve EVER seen.
System is windows XP SP2. Firefox version currently in use is 1.5.0.1.
Additional:
I can rename back to firefox.exe to reproduce the bug. Tried about 7 times (closing firefox completely between attempts, and rebooted once in between tries just to make sure I had a clean running system). If the name is firefox.exe cut and copy do not work, mouse scroll does not work. If the name is afirefox.exe all works fine. The existance of firefox.exe is not a problem. I can have a copy named firefox.exe but I must start my first running instance from an executable named something else otherwise copy, cut and scroll do not work.
I am glad that I found this blog!!! This “bug” has been driving me nuts for the last week. I tried every fix that I could find on the ‘net and nothing worked. All other computers that I have do not share this “bug”. All computers are XP and all have the latest XP updates. This laptop is used most of the time for Internet use so I suspect a malware but have run many programs with no success at finding it yet. The fact that it only happens on this laptop with extensive Internet browsing leads be to believe it is something that I “picked up”. FYI…The “afirefox” renaming works.
Sammy Yousef, your fix worked like a dream.
Computer Guru, I downloaded and installed the Minefield and the problem was the same as with Firefox. Then I changed the name for the exe file that launches the Minefield browser from firefox.exe to afirefox.exe, and everything works fine just as when I did the same change with the firefox.exe file that launches Firefox. Could the problem be that you have named the exe file in Minefield, firefox.exe, and not minefield.exe? As Sammy Yousef pointed out, the bug seems to be related to the name firefox.exe.
Hello Ibsen, I had replied to this bug here, but unfortunately the databased crashed and this reply was lost. Basically at the moment we have pinned the problem down as being *two* seperate bugs; one that results in a random loss of copying abilities and occurs in all Mozilla products on all operating systems, and this has been fixed in Minefield, and another bug that only occurs on Windows in Firefox and results in *never* being able to copy. This latter "bug" is actually a problem with the end-users' PCs and not wholly related to Firefox; normally it is caused by malware or download managers intercepting the copy commands; and it is fixed by renaming the file. I hope this clears things up.
This really works! I had also been plagued with these annoying pop-ups that no program could find.
I tried your fix and all is back to normal. No pop-ups even on IE and Firefox is back to its normal firefox.exe.
I did find out that I had to reboot after the registry deletions. Some of the DLL’s that were present in the ’32 folder would not delete until after I rebooted and the registry was clean.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Minefield IS GARBAGE is slow , not is firefox this is a fixed bug hahah crap.
for those of you still having the malware problem, the name of the dll is not *always* pushow*.dll but can be a variant on popupshow.dll Just read over your dll's in the relevant folder and make sure you don't have any permutation. I have not encountered a case where it wasn't a bad dll. The firefox security group is keeping an eye on this, but without knowing exactly what the malware is and when it started propogating, it is difficult to determine whether 1.5.0.2 was more vulnerable than past versions, or if the timing was a coincidence. If someone actually has the exe that installs this spyware that would be awesome to get to the devs. As for the amount of time it took to fix the bug, if it's not reproducible it is nearly *impossible* to fix. What most likely occured was something else was fixed and devs realized that also fixed the problem, or someone was fixing something else and noticed a behavior that would create this problem under certain circumstances. Fortunately the vast majority of users never encountered the problem, unfortunately that meant the users that did, had to suffer, especially as more critical bugs that affected everyone had to take precedence. *****Minefield is experimental and not recommended for any use beyond testing code, hence the name. Bon Echo will be Firefox 2, not 1.8 (that is a gecko version number). Get *Bon Echo* if you want the fix, or wait for 1.5.0.4 (which will be the next patch, 1.5.0.3 is the current version) Not sure on the target date for that, but it shouldn't be far off.*****
I actually have downloaded this malware somewhere from a p2p network under a totally different name. I thought this is the program I am searching for, so I just install it. But it happens to be a malware, and my uptodate pc-cillin did not make an alert….. But thanks to the guidance here, I am able to remove it. Where should I send this malware installation to?
If you could RAR it and email it to ComputerGuru@NeoSmart.net that would be great, and I’ll have our team analyze it.
Glad to hear you got it fixed 🙂
If you could also email it to majken@gmail.com or attach it to bug 334500 at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=334500 yourself (this is what I'll do with it) that will get it in the hands of the firefox devs. Thanks.
ok… because the form on bugzilla looks quite complicated, I will just upload it on a file hosting http://rapidshare.de/files/19895786/bad_soft.rar.html go and download it from rapidshare Hope this helps
Yes, it looks complicated, but once someone explains it to you it's pretty simple. It's up there, thanks!
Thank you Albert!
I see the light It works again!!! Kiss butt xxxxxxxx thanks
Would you please tell me how to uninstall this Minefield COMPLETELY? I want to rollback to firefox 1.5 because I cannot use those favorite extensions any more, even I reinstall firefox 1.5! Thanks.
Hello fairlawn…
Please use the forums for support; but if you want to use FF 1.5 extensions, please use our hack listed here.
Computer Guru – Please edit your post so that you're not pointing people to Minefield, especially as you provide NO warning that it's experimental and ***NOT STABLE*** As it is, 1.5.0.4 is code frozen and due to release any day now. If you are having trouble with firefox or minefield please use mozilla support channels, either the forums or knowledge base at http://www.mozillazine.org or go to #firefox on irc.mozilla.org
Hello Majken; thanks for pointing that out. I have updated the links to reflect the 1.5.0.4 tinderbox build, which I hope is secure and stable enough and also has the fix needed 🙂
dear my computer installed advertismen software. i can’t uninstall this. when i go to add and remove place , i try to remove, ask me to restart if i want to remove. i restart many times but i couln’t uninstall this. please reply me
This issue was taken care of in the forums; -CG
Good arm man, you saved me a lot of heart ache
Your welcome 😀
Thank you so much! I’ve been using Internet Explorer for like the last year because of the copy button not working.
Your welcome PJ 🙂
I have been hit by this bug ever since I switched to FireFox. I assumed it was due to some glitch in the OS, but now I read your posting trail, I realise it was the random it stops working.
THANK YOU for getting this fixed.
Thomas
“The Solution:
It turns out there are two different ‘bugs’ in Firefox;
The first (and real) bug is that Firefox would *randomly* stop copying, and restarting the program would temporarily help. This bug occurs on all Operating Systems and in all Mozilla products.”
.. this problem is still there in Firefox 1.5.0.4; not talking about malware but instead about the “Copy” option not being present/not working (CTRL C also) randomly (also “Paste”) .. works again (for example) even without restarting the program, just by opening (other) new windows;
Something was posted here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=214898&action=view (but) I mean that’s no solution .. Can’t believe that after hours of searching I’ve been unable to solve this 🙁 How can it be done ?? Please contact Vladimir, tnx: misenscene@gmail.com
This solution for rename firefox is genial..
Resolve my problem!!
Thanksss!!!!!
Pity there is still a copy/paste bug there.
Using WinXP SP2 FF 1.5.0.4 with two windows open copy/paste doesn’t work in the second window. The first windows is fine, the second it doesn’t work.
Also several other keys fail to work correctly, e.g. entering ‘ into a text box causes the find box to open (No I don’t have auto search switched on.). Again only in the second window, the first one is always fine.
The Bugzilla bug that pertains to the *continuing* problem on Windows and Mac OS X (but apparently not Linux) is 220900. It is not marked Fixed. The bug that you reference, 133439, is called “Copy to clipboard fails OLE call with CLIPBRD_E_CANT_OPEN” and is a specific, Windows-only issue that appears to be *in addition* to the unfixed 220900, which is called “Focus breaks, cut/copy/paste and other focus-dependent tasks broken”.
I was able to delete pushow6.dell on the first time, but when i went to /C:// or something like that, it only let me delete pushow87.dell or some number like that but it didnt let me delete pushow6.dell.
So i went to FF and the problem stop and i was wondering if there is anything wrong with leaving that file i couldnt delete there?
It needs all the files to run, so if you deleted some of them and the problem disappeared, you’re clean.
I recommend DLing the (free) MS Windows Defender – new definitions should have the fix for this.
Hi, I was very worried about this bug, but mine was for the fu**ing pushow*.dll, I erased the key and after I tried to delete the file from my computer but the process was running. If you want to delete without the bored of restart in secure mode, follow these little steps:
Remember that the asterisks may be replaced by the random number generated on your computer!
Thanks a lot to this page !!!!
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; es-ES; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060508 Firefox/1.5.0.4
Copy and paste bug
‘find’ bar open automatically
Firefox is a joke.
no serious computer user uses it any more.
these bugs have been goin on for YEARS and the newbies that firefox brought are done with opera and other opperating systems.
the probelem is esy….it’s not economics driven.
there’s no financial incentive to fix it.
With IE if there’s aproblem it reflects onthe whole of microsoft so it’s fixed.
There is NO long term solution known for th two bugs and that’s why the zillions of us who used firefox are abandoning it in droves
thanks a lot ..it worked
That’s always good to hear 😀
well nothing has fixed it for me, I don’t have the malware problem and as some people above have said, it’s not been fixed. I never experienced this problem with firefox until the release before last. Now it’s happening though it’s a real pain. Meh 🙁
No, this bug is not fixed. It happens all the time in 1.5.0.6.
It *is* fixed. If you are still seeing the issue please seek support from irc.mozilla.org in #firefox or forums.mozillazine.org