Replacing all with a search of '^'

When using '^' on a global single buffer search and
replace all occurances the jedit program version
3.2pre2 hangs. Could it recursively be rematching ^ on
the first line in an infinite loop? You have to search
for '^' with out quotes and nothing else. Searching
for ^$ will work. But I just want to put something at
the beginning of every line.