Problem :
I’m not sure why this happened but I am no longer able to click and drag to highlight text in Google Chrome.
Using:
Google Chrome Version 41.0.2272.76 (64-bit)
OS:
Linux Kali 3.18.0-kali3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.18.6-1~kali2 (2015-03-02) x86_64 GNU/Linux
The cursor changes from an arrow to the I-cursor and double clicking to highlight works, as well as holding shift & ctrl, but when I click and drag, the text does not highlight.
Can anyone help?
Solution :
I had this problem in Chromium and Chrome when running in VirtualBox. Disabling mouse integration got it working for me.
There appear to be several related bugs https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=465660
As @Jeremy mentioned in one of the comments, this issue happens when using Chromium inside a virtual machine. One fix that worked for many people is to edit file /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop.
Everywhere you see a line starting with Exec=, add the –touch-devices=123 parameter in the command line. For example:
Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable %U
becomes
Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable –touch-devices=123 %U
Once you have made the changes, make sure you close all instances of chrome processes currently running:
sudo killall chrome
The changes should take effect after Chromium is restarted.
You can also edit /usr/bin/chromium-browser so that this option will be present at default.
Open the file in a text editor and edit the following line:
CHROMIUM_FLAGS=”${CHROMIUM_FLAGS} ${PLUGIN_PARAMETERS}”
to look like this:
CHROMIUM_FLAGS=”–touch-devices=123 ${CHROMIUM_FLAGS} ${PLUGIN_PARAMETERS}”
Now chromium will be launched with the –touch-devices=123 parameters regardless of how it is launched.. thats the way I prefer it anyways 😛