I found the culprit: an extension called Download from Youtube 1.0. I installed that fairly recently because my favourite downloader (Video Downloader Pro) did not work with some Youtube videos - a friend had asked me for help on those. When I installed the extension on his PC, the same problem started.

As it turned out, Download from Youtube did not download those videos either. I have now removed it from both PCs and the problem has gone away.

Well, it's been a week since I disabled Video Downloader Pro and China Eastern hasn't popped up again. I'll re-enable it to see if it's a coincidence. I hope it is as VDP is my favourite video downloader.

Another week, and still no pop-up from CEA. VDP is enabled, and I've had no problems.

I'll file it in the mystery box. If it occurs again, I'll try to note what I did just before it happens. Thanks to those people who gave suggestions.

It just happened again, even though the anti-keylogger is disabled. I tried Chrome and Edge, and both are working fine - as are all other apps; it seems to be unique to Opera. I had to type this in Notepad.

Edit:
But, after restarting Opera it's working fine again. This is weird!

@blackbird71 said in Random characters when typing:

blackbird71

Thanks @blackbird71 you've confirmed my suspicions

I recently found that Opera sporadically generates random characters when typing. This can happen when typing in the address line, or in any other field.

This started happening at about the same time as an upgrade of ZoneAlarm to the latest version. It seems to have stopped after I disabled ZoneAlarm's anti-keylogging feature. However, as the problem does not always happen, I cannot be certain that it is fixed.

I am running Opera 112.0.5197.53 and ZoneAlarm Extreme Security NextGen 4.3.260.19915 on a PC with Windows 10 Home 19045.4651.

Another week, and still no pop-up from CEA. VDP is enabled, and I've had no problems.

I'll file it in the mystery box. If it occurs again, I'll try to note what I did just before it happens. Thanks to those people who gave suggestions.

Well, it's been a week since I disabled Video Downloader Pro and China Eastern hasn't popped up again. I'll re-enable it to see if it's a coincidence. I hope it is as VDP is my favourite video downloader.

Both ZoneAlarm and Malwarebytes are installed and run regular scans. No malware has been found for the last several months.

Apart from Opera's ad blocker I only use one extension (a video downloader). I' disable it and see.

I always start with a number of tabs open, but it happens regardless of which sites I visit. But, as I said, it's not regular. It happens most but not all sessions, and when it does happen, it's usually in the middle of a session, when I'm looking at something entirely unrelated.

From time to time (about once per session), a new foreground tab pops up for China Eastern Airlines' website (https://oa.ceair.com/au/en/). While I have flown with CEA, I have certainly never given them permission for this, and I do not have any account with them.

This started happening recently, some time after I upgraded to Version 64.0.3417.92. I looked through settings but cannot find any way to block this.

Can anyone tell me what the problem is, and how I can fix it?

Thanks

@sgunhouse
You were correct. Opera now lives in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable. Once I copied the dictionaries in there Opera saw them immediately.

Thanks for your help!

@sgunhouse
As you can see from my directory listing I can access it with PowerShell.

I'm at home now and will check the Profile path on the PCs when I'm next on site, next Monday. I'll let you know.

But this PC is weird: even if I type the path to appdata into File Explorer, it refuses to go there. Yet both PowerShell and %appdata% get me there. Something just clicked: %appdata% actually takes me to appdata\roaming. That may imply that, on the weird PC, Opera is not in the usual location. I'll check Monday.

The IT department (1 guy, off site) obviously did something very strange here. I won't worry about that though, as long as I can get the dictionary right.