1178347 - search bar selecting text bug

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[martin84a]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
Build ID: 20150525141253

Steps to reproduce:

Hi, I don't know how to reproduce this bug. It's just there sometimes. I made a recording of the problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUmQLO7pU-I&feature=youtu.be


Actual results:

I wasn't able to highlight the text, using 
****+<left or right arrow> 
or for instance 
ctrl+shift+<left or right arrow>
Instead nothing happened. 


Expected results:

I should be able to select/highlight the text :)

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Thanks for the screencast, that's really helpful.

How frequently does this happen? I'm asking because I've never seen it, and normally the first thing to check is if it happens if you try a clean profile / disabling your add-ons. If it happens quite rarely, it might be hard to diagnose in this way...

I guess something that will help anyway: when it next happens, can you open the browser console (ctrl-shift-j) and see if there are any errors that appear when you press key( combination)s that don't seem to have any effect?

Comment 2

[martin84a]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0la1iurqin1779h/Sk%C3%A6rmbillede%202015-07-01%2014.17.41.png?dl=0

Translated from Danish it says:

"The key press occurrence is not available on some keyboard layouts: key="h" modifiers="control alt"

Comment 3

[martin84a]

I can't seem to find where I edit my post, but I just wanted to add, that I've recently done a clean profile/reset of Firefox :)

Comment 4

[martin84a]

I just tried without all my addons. Unless the console error means nothing to you, I'd like to wait before doing another reset :)

Comment 5

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to martin84a from comment #2)
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/0la1iurqin1779h/Sk%C3%A6rmbillede%202015-07-
> 01%2014.17.41.png?dl=0
> 
> Translated from Danish it says:
> 
> "The key press occurrence is not available on some keyboard layouts: key="h"
> modifiers="control alt"

OK, but this will show up on startup, and not repeatedly when you are pressing keys that should be selecting text, but aren't. I am 99.99% sure it is not related to what you are seeing.


(In reply to martin84a from comment #4)
> I just tried without all my addons. Unless the console error means nothing
> to you, I'd like to wait before doing another reset :)

Right. I mean, while you did a reset, you then installed a number of add-ons again. :-)

I wouldn't want you to do another reset and live without the add-ons permanently. You can create a separate, new, clean profile and test with that (assuming this happens regularly enough) without giving up your main profile. You could sync in bookmarks/history to make it a bit more livable, if it takes a long time to reproduce... See: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

Florian, in the meantime, do you have any ideas or have you heard/seen this before?

Comment 6

[martin84a]

Okay, I just created a new profile, and checked that it was without any addons. The problem still exists, however it doesn't exist i Firefox Developer version. 

For me to replicate the error is very easy though. I just go to the search bar, then if I write "how to" and select one of the suggested search results, I get the error immediately. 

I'm very sure I've suffered from this issue, for a few Firefox versions. I was just waiting for it to get fixed, but seeing it didn't, I decided to report it :)

Comment 7

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to martin84a from comment #6)
> Okay, I just created a new profile, and checked that it was without any
> addons. The problem still exists, however it doesn't exist i Firefox
> Developer version. 

This is interesting. Can you download a build from here:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/tinderbox-builds/mozilla-beta-win32/1435678604/

(either firefox-40.0.en-US.win32.zip or firefox-40.0.en-US.win32.installer.exe )

and check if that also works? This is the currently-latest build off our beta branch, which is going to be very similar (code-wise) to the version of devedition you have (assuming it's up-to-date). That merged 2 days ago.

Also, are you using devedition in Danish or in English? These builds are in English, though I could maybe/hopefully find Danish builds if this only happens on Danish ones and not English ones... Though if you're using "regular" Firefox in Danish and Developer Edition in English, it could also be a localization problem with the Danish locale (which might be fixable by the locale, or by code fixes in Firefox... not sure)

It could be that whatever it is got fixed in Firefox 40 (currently devedition, will be beta by the end of this week, and release is due in about 6 weeks from now).


> For me to replicate the error is very easy though. I just go to the search
> bar, then if I write "how to" and select one of the suggested search
> results, I get the error immediately.

Hrm. How do you select the suggested result? Mouse or keyboard? Which key? And is this a suggested result or a history one? (the history ones have a clock icon next to them, they are things you searched for before)

Also, your screencast showed you getting it to work again - is that also always the same? How do you do that, exactly?

> I'm very sure I've suffered from this issue, for a few Firefox versions. I
> was just waiting for it to get fixed, but seeing it didn't, I decided to
> report it :)

Thank you for doing that! I'm sure we'll figure it out in the end... sorry for the many questions, but narrowing down where and when and how this happens will help us fix it in the end.

Comment 8

[martin84a]

1) I've downloaded firefox-40.0.en-US.win32. When I start it I have the same start page and add-ons - I guess it loads my profile from a standard location. Anyway, it also has the bug. The console is completely empty of any info though.  

2) I'm using English Firefox Developer, and Danish Firefox.

3) I usually use the short cut (ctrl+e) and then I select a search result with the keys. 

4) The error happens with both suggested results I've previously visited, and results that are new to me, without the clock icon :)

5) Getting it to work seems to be a mere case of either clicking on the search result with the mouse cursor (as in the video), or performing an action somewhere else than the search bar. If I for instance go to the address bar, or switch tabs, and then go back to the search bar, then it works.

Comment 9

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #5)

> Florian, in the meantime, do you have any ideas or have you heard/seen this
> before?

I tried a few things but haven't found a way to reproduce or explain this behavior.

Comment 10

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to martin84a from comment #8)
> 1) I've downloaded firefox-40.0.en-US.win32. When I start it I have the same
> start page and add-ons - I guess it loads my profile from a standard
> location. Anyway, it also has the bug. The console is completely empty of
> any info though.  

This is quite strange though. So just so I get this straight, with the steps you use to verify if it happens, it:

1) doesn't happen on your copy of devedition (en-US)
2) *does* happen on your normal Firefox (release, Danish)
3) *does* happen on Firefox 40 beta, which is basically almost the same as devedition, and is en-US (did it load as en-US or do you have a language pack in your profile which caused it to be in Danish?), but which loads the same profile you use for normal Firefox
4) *does* happen in a clean profile on your normal firefox (Danish)

This is confusing to me because:
1) it seems it can't be the language that is making the difference (there are both en-US and Danish builds that don't work)
2) it seems it's unlikely to be Firefox code per se without other interference (because it doesn't happen in devedition, but it does happen in almost-the-same-code in firefox beta)
3) it doesn't happen in a clean profile without add-ons, which mostly rules out third-party interference.

So if the problem isn't Firefox code, isn't the locale, and isn't your profile... what is it? I/we must be missing something. :-\

Is your copy of devedition up-to-date? Can you post the UA string here? Do you remember if it's always worked in devedition or only started working recently?

Can you go to "about:support" in both devedition and the clean profile you created on "normal" Firefox that does have the problem, and copy the raw data using the button for that purpose, then go here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?bugid=1178347&action=enter, click "paste text as attachment", paste in there, and create an attachment with it (one for each browser) ?

You casually mentioned your homepage. Can you tell us what that is? (Note that this is a public bugtracker, so if you'd prefer to keep this to yourself, I would understand. You may likewise want to check the data that comes from about:support, but please tell us if/how you change it... ("I removed the value of preference xyz because it had my username for website abc" or whatever - Firefox doesn't store this kind of data in prefs, but add-ons might.)


> 3) I usually use the short cut (ctrl+e) and then I select a search result
> with the keys. 

Sorry, but which keys? Both Florian and I were hunching that there was a shortcut key conflict somewhere - do you mean the arrow keys, or <tab> or something else? (there are several key combinations that do different things in the searchbox)

> 5) Getting it to work seems to be a mere case of either clicking on the
> search result with the mouse cursor (as in the video), or performing an
> action somewhere else than the search bar. If I for instance go to the
> address bar, or switch tabs, and then go back to the search bar, then it
> works.

This does seem like a focus/key capture problem... can you reproduce no matter which webpage is loaded while you're using the search box? (try "about:blank", please!)

Comment 11

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Oh, and, after you fix it, if you clear the box and type "how to" again, does that break it again? Do you need to do something else for that, like opening a new tab?

Comment 12

[martin84a]

1) doesn't happen on your copy of devedition (en-US)
2) *does* happen on your normal Firefox (release, Danish)
3) *does* happen on Firefox 40 beta, which is basically almost the same as devedition, and is en-US (did it load as en-US or do you have a language pack in your profile which caused it to be in Danish?), but which loads the same profile you use for normal Firefox
4) *does* happen in a clean profile on your normal firefox (Danish)


------------------------------
1) Correct
2) Correct
3) Correct - however it does load with Danish and not English. 
Developer version says it's up to date, UA string here. http://i.imgur.com/Bmv0Thi.png
4) It's still there after a refresh of Firefox yes.

Comment 13

[martin84a]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEoN8mJAHMg

Video of me resetting firefox (and also firefox dev). It's still encoding though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0yl-mm08o&feature=youtu.be

Comment 14

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to martin84a from comment #12)
> 3) Correct - however it does load with Danish and not English. 

OK. Just making sure... did you close your Danish "normal" Firefox instance before starting the downloaded Firefox 40 beta build? ie are you sure you were running the new thing and not the "normal" Firefox you were already running?

Comment 15

[martin84a]

Ah! No I did not, but now I tried and the nightly loaded. And now the issue is gone in the nightly version! :)

Comment 16

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to martin84a from comment #15)
> Ah! No I did not, but now I tried and the nightly loaded. And now the issue
> is gone in the nightly version! :)

Ah! This makes more sense now. But this is in English, right? Does: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora-l10n/firefox-40.0a2.da.win32.zip *** work? (This is Danish Firefox 40 / devedition)

Also, because I expect we might have to go digging on this direction soon if it's not fixed in the Danish Firefox 40: what type of keyboard do you use? Does it have a Danish layout, or en-US, or something else?

(again, sorry for all the questions... but we're getting closer!)

Comment 17

[martin84a]

Danish nightly works too :)

I had Japanese, Danish and US-English keyboards installed, but not more than a week ago I removed Japanese and US-English. Since the issue was there afterwards, I guess they aren't related to the issue. If it comes again at some point, I'll make sure to let you know :)

Just a quick question. Is it possible to get more feedback from Firefox in the future, if one runs across an issue, and the console is just blank and provides no feedback?

Comment 18

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to martin84a from comment #17)
> Danish nightly works too :)

Yay! That sounds like it should be fixed in 40... If you switch your "regular" Firefox for beta here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/beta/all/ (Danish is in that list) then you should get updated sometime in the coming week, and it should Just Work. Or you can stick with regular release, which means it should be fixed in the update coming in about 6 weeks.

> I had Japanese, Danish and US-English keyboards installed, but not more than
> a week ago I removed Japanese and US-English. Since the issue was there
> afterwards, I guess they aren't related to the issue. If it comes again at
> some point, I'll make sure to let you know :)

OK. Let's mark this "works for me", and please do reopen if you get to Firefox beta/release 40 and it still happens.

> Just a quick question. Is it possible to get more feedback from Firefox in
> the future, if one runs across an issue, and the console is just blank and
> provides no feedback?

Hm, not really. You can look at stderr output by starting with the /console (or -console) flag on the commandline. Or you can toggle "chrome and add-on debugging" and "remote debugging" in the developer tools options, and then use Tools > Web Developer > Browser Toolbox, which gives you a JS debugger, profiler, inspector - the normal devtools (you run devedition, so I'm assuming you're reasonably comfortable with tools like this; obviously, be careful because everything you do has app privileges and so you can do just about anything in there - but for the browser window from which you open the toolbox. So you can see what the browser-side JS is doing.

The other thing we have is NSPR debug logging, for how the core C++ components behave, but that wasn't really in play here, it seems.