I've also had difficulty with the quote function at times. But directional dragging doesn't seem to be the issue in my case. Or at least both directions are currently working fine with my Win 10, Chrome v71 system.

When you select text, where does the 'Quote' button appear?

I ask because I have a new observation. On one of my computers (Linux Mint), on both Firefox and Chromium, the 'Quote' button appears next to the selected text, and it doesn't matter in which direction the text was selected.

On another one (different version of Linux Mint), the same happens for Chromium but, on Firefox, the Quote button appears at top right of the window and the direction of selection matters. It appears that Chrome/Chromium are the most reliable browsers in this regard. But not everybody has or is able to get them on their computer (eg if the use doesn't have admin permissions).

So here is my latest theory:

• For some combinations of browsers and OSs the Quote button appears next to the selected text and for others it appears at top right of window. When it appears next to the selected text, both directions of text selection work. But when it appears at top right, only selection from top to bottom works.

I think on my work computer, where Quote most often fails, the button appears at top right. I'll test that tomorrow.

If the theory is right then the simple rule might be that, whenever the Quote function fails, try it again with the text selected from top to bottom and see if that fixes it.

If the theory is right then the simple rule might be that, whenever the Quote function fails, try it again with the text selected from top to bottom and see if that fixes it. — andrewk

I'll try it. Willing it to fail now, so I can potentially eliminate that possibility. :nerd:

The quote button btw appears wherever I release the mouse button after highlighting text as long as I don't release it in the text box or on the main menu at the top of the page in which case it seems to appear as near as possible to the release point outside those two areas.

I have always had intermittent problems with the Quote function on this forum, with the button sometimes just not working, no matter how carefully, firmly and repeatedly I press it. — andrewk

I have had the same problem with my Windows 10 using Firefox on and of since about a year ago. I have no idea why it started, no new installations or updates made at that time nor any change to the problem with later updates. But it works fine with the touch screen

I found, by accident, that if I right click on the button then left click in the Reply Box it works OK.

Never had any problems on any of the other machine I have, including one that has multi-boot various versions of Linux.

I tried it today on IE on Windows 10. The Quote button is always at top right. When I select from top to bottom, the Quote works and when I select from Bottom to Top it doesn't.

So I'm pretty confident this is solved now: if a Quote doesn't work, try it again making sure you select the text from top to bottom.

I tried @Sir2us approach. I found that if I right-clicked on the Quote button after selecting text from bottom to top, the quote worked. One or two times early on that didn't work for me, but I've been unable to reproduce those failures and I don't know what was different about them.