Mr Papa said:
do you have firefox set to open some links in external windows or tabs? Is this PC or mac or other?
It should just open in the viewport area like the top links do…
kind of lost as to what could be going on… any addons for FF that you think might could interfere? do you have any other browser you could try?
I don’t have FF set to open links in external windows or tabs at all. It is a PC. And I have tried in IE, Chrome, and FF and they all do the same.
a bit mystified really… none of us can duplicate it…
are you running any other wp plugins?
can you try switching to the default wp theme and see what happens?
and I assume you have svn up to latest? on themes, plugins and core…
It does seem odd, I will start changing things around and see if I can stop it, I will msg here with any progress I make.
And yes I am using the lastest SVN etc.
Ok so I have tried changing themes etc, As it stands WP is on default theme, no plugins but simple press is installed, SP is on default theme and overlay etc. And it is still doing it. I did find something interesting, the first time I click one of the links it does its ajax circle animation and loads the content, the next time I click the link it loads as a new page. It does this constantly, every single time I do it.
have spent the night trying it on five different computers with slightly diff setups tonight… and on FF, IE, Chrom, Safari and Opera on all of them… no issue… and Andy has no issue on the Mac…
after the first time loading, is the content complete? by that, I mean all there?
In firefox, with firebug, and the console open, after clicking on that the first time, are any errors shown? If there is an error in the page, and yes, the ajax load is considered a page, then clicking on a link will cause a new page…
So I suspect you are getting some kind of error… we just need to run it down what it is… after doing it the first time please check your php error log and see if any info is reported…
Additionaly, sheesh, have to remember this is 5.0 now, please go to forum – toolbox – error log and see if any errors are reported… it may be easier to clear the log (link at bottom) and then go back to profile and redo and then check the log…
how much php memory do you have?
First I have 512mb for memory set, but I did check the error logs, the SP error log had nothing, but firebug threw this error when I did the second click, the one that loads the odd page:
jQuery is not defined
http://127.0.0.1/index.php?sp_ahah=profile&sfnonce=e79baf0dce&tab=profile&menu=edit-profile&user=37&rand=25205
Line 18
There appears to be no errors in the php log file either. So only the above. As for jquery I made sure the files for it were in wordpress like they should be. And it does work at least the first click. I am not the best when it comes to jquery so any hints on things I might change to try to fix that error?
sorry if its back a few pages in this thread 
but
is this with the default wp theme? and no other wp plugins?
and just to verify… in wp – settings – general, for the wp url and blog url, you are consistent with use (or not use) of www in both?
it certainly looks like an error is getting generated on the page and thus the new link would load in new page… since this is your localhost machine, are you sure you have php error logging turned on in your php.ini file? no errors is most odd since we know we have some notices and other things being generated that should get logged until we fix them up…
another thing to try would be to turn on wp debug in your wp-config.php file and see if any more data is output… add this line
define(‘WP_DEBUG’, true);
whew… happy to report that we finally sorted this one out (thanks to Lee H!)… should be working now…