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Wondering if anyone's seen the below behaviour with the IE11 F12 developer and if there's a fix?

OS is Windows Server 2008 SP1 with all updates applied.

Screenshot attached

Shows grey area where IE11 dev tools should be

noonand
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4 Answers4

29

I recently discovered this same problem... F12 Developer Tools grayed out.

It turns out I was trying to open the dev tools from a blank tab. IE11 apparently doesn't like that. If I navigate to a page with content (not about:blank), then the dev tools show up again, like normal.

I feel a little sheepish, but only a little. I'm use to Chrome's dev tools, and they open up fine on a blank (about:blank) page.

UPDATE

Okay, about:blank works fine in IE11. It's when I first open IE without navigating anywhere at all (just the original New Tab) that dev tools is disabled.

Steve Henty
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  • Super. Sorted! So essentially "about:blank" is also a pre-defined web page which IE loads from some location best known to IE. I checked its view-source which shows ``. – RBT Jun 15 '17 at 06:57
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In IE11:

Internet Options > Advanced tab > Reset Internet Explorer settings section > Reset... button

I was on live chat with Microsoft Support and they recommended this. After resetting, the F12 tools were no longer grayed out.

webthaumaturge
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7

In IE11, if F12 Developer Tools is missing or grayed out, check this registry setting:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IEDevTools\Disabled

If the value of the Disabled key is 1, set it to 0.

Tawab Wakil
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4

We have seen this issue. Some times the F12 tools will appear undocked when this happens. Do you see that happening for you? At least one bug related to this was fixed in a recent Windows update. Install the latest Windows Update and let me know if you still see the issue.

noonand
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Andy Sterland
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  • Thanks for your answer. I tend to flip between web and desktop development and at the moment am on the latter. That was asked in March and there's a lot of water under the bridge since including Windows 8.1 Update. I will say that I don't see it now so perhaps it's just gone away as a consequence of the updates you mention. – noonand Jun 05 '14 at 09:05