Taskbar buttons are disappearing
Several times in the past couple of weeks, taskbar buttons have mysteriously disappeared. This is apparently XP, where the buttons are rectangular, and each one represents a web site. On another site, I was advised to use Alt-Tab, and that usually helped, but once, it would only allow me to go to the two windows whose buttons were there. The missing buttons mysteriously reappeared in most cases (usually on the right, regardless of where they had been before) , or at least the windows were still there when I clicked on the red X in the upper right corner for the rest.
One clue is that when an ad was slow to come up on the screen--an ad which only supported the web site I was looking at, but was not what I intended to look at--I would switch to another window and then the button for the window I had been on disappeared. I have also seen the button disappear when a site froze, even if it wasn't for a very long time. This also happened on a computer with IE7, but mainly when the site had frozen permanently. I also lost the button for a window I had been on when a popup ad came up.
On another site I was asked if this was taskbar grouping. It was not. Each button represents an individual window. Sometimes there are multiple tabs, but I try to avoid letting that happen.
I could not follow some of the advice given because this computer is at a library. The person who was in charge of the library's computers did not know what was going on.
All Replies (10)
The usual advice in this case, as you already found, is to use Alt + Tab to see if that brings up the lost windows. I can't remember having seen a cause for this issue mentioned.
Are there any extensions installed on that computer?
Are any of the missing windows opened via a JavaScript window.open call?
A possibility is to divert all link to open in a new tab, so you only have one window.
No, I don't like tabs. I like windows. That's why I wait for popup ads to give me new ones if I use new windows at all. That could be that JavaScript window.open call. For a notepad I use Excite email, where a new window opens to compose an email.
I asked what this computer's details were and was told ALT-H and click on About Mozilla Firefox:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090729 Firefox/3.5.2
You can try to update to the latest Firefox 3.6.8 version to see if that fixes your problem.
No, I can't. I can only do what this library will let me do.
I forgot how to come here Saturday but I posted this on another site:
I got on the computer about 30 minutes ago. It was the first time it had been turned on all day, but the Internet was already up and I just typed in the site I wanted to go to. The Internet was very, very slow. The button on the taskbar eventually disappeared but the window was still there. The site required me to select a sponsor before I could continue. The sponsor's ad came up as a popup (but very slowly to begin with, with just the blue border and the name of the site, the minimize button, the maximize button, and the red X at the top), with the toolbar so I could type in a new address. At that point, the taskbar button for the popup ad appeared, and so did the button for where I had been, but on the right instead of the left, which would be normal. No problems since then.
My responses on Monday on that other site to a response by someone who claimed none of that was a problem:
Firefox, not Explorer. And whoever was here and turned everything on must have clicked on the Firefox button. It was 12:59 and the library was supposed to open at 1:00. Nothing that happened during those first 10 minutes was "normal".
Well, it just quit. It said "Firefox is sorry" but they didn't tell me how I could get a copy of this report that will be sent. And it destroyed the stuff I had saved. Oh, sure, they act like they're doing me a great big favor by restoring the session. But the email is GONE.
It would be great if I could see what happened, and maybe it would be a clue to what's going on with the buttons.
Modified by vchimpanzee
Sounds like the symptoms of a malware infection.
Do a malware check with a few malware scan programs.
You need to use all programs because each detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of the database.
- http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
- http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
- http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
- http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php - Ad-Aware Free
- http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
See also "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked and What to do when searches take you to the wrong search website
It is a library, but I'll tell them.
The problem is happening today. The computer was working fine until I went to Yahoo groups and then I don't know what happened. It slowed down a great deal and the taskbar button disappeared. At times the maximize button turned blue; it is normally white on a blue background. Then I got a popup message stating that virtual memory was too low and that Windows was increasing virtual memory and might deny some requests. I clicked and the taskbar button for the window I was on came back. The message about virtual memory moved to the lower right and there was an upside down yellow triangle with an exclamation point inside which I could have clicked on to see it again, except it's gone now.
This problem is not unique to Firefox. I was on IE with Windows 7 and the Internet was slow and one of the buttons disappeared, and then reappeared. For this particular version of Windows 7, a button was a small image of the window.