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Bug With Firefox - Disabled Attribute of Input Not Resetting When Refreshing

html
form-persistence
browser-behavior
firefox-bug
Nikita BarsukovbyNikita Barsukov·Jan 25, 2025
TLDR

If you are struggling with a Firefox bug where an input's disabled attribute doesn't reset after refresh, here's a quick JavaScript fix:

// "Let's turn back time... or at least the disabled fields" document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => { // "Each disabled input field holds a secret power..." document.querySelectorAll('input:disabled').forEach(input => input.disabled = false); });

This will ensure all disabled input fields are enabled after a browser refresh.

Understanding what's going on: Browser form persistence

Deeper insight into the ghost 'disabled' attribute

Web browsers tend to remember form states, including the disabled attribute of input fields. To avoid this, you can use autocomplete="off" on your form or specific input fields. This attribute informs the browser not to store the form's state:

<input type="text" autocomplete="off">

Or apply to the entire form for convenience:

<form autocomplete="off"> ... </form>

Handling form reload peculiarities

Leverage the pageshow event, which fires once a page becomes visible again (e.g., after reloading):

// Hit refresh? No problem, we got you covered! window.addEventListener('pageshow', () => { // "Back in black" - re-enable each disabled input field document.querySelectorAll('input:disabled').forEach(input => input.disabled = false); });

Bridge the inconsistencies across browsers

Pro-tip: HTML validation is crucial in avoiding syntax problems. Do remember to use autocomplete="off" uniformly across your forms. Tools like W3C Validator will help check your code for syntax issues.

Tackling browser-specific operations

Firefox's peculiarity

Firefox differs from other browsers like IE8 or Chrome, in preserving the disabled state of an input field even after refresh. Delve into the Firefox Bugzilla report (ID 443289) to understand more about Firefox's unique form persistence behavior.

Bootstrap and anomalies

Bootstrap users might find helpful insights through the documentation and bug reports corresponding to input behaviors. They might throw some light at any potential interference with input states causing persistence issues on Firefox.

Making use of 'hard-refresh'

Not commonly known, hard-refreshing (CTRL+F5) requests the browser for a fresh copy of the page, which might reset form states to their initial state. However, this isn't a consistent fix for the disabled state persistence in Firefox.