1363936 - Can't select text on NYTimes articles

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: DOM: Selection, defect)

Description

[Paul]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/53.0
Build ID: 20170418122848

Steps to reproduce:

Load an NYTimes article such as https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/science/trappist-earth-size-planets-orbits-music.html and attempt to select some text, either via click-and-drag or double/triple click.


Actual results:

Click-and-drag scrolls some links to other articles in from the sides, while double click resizes the article text. Caret Browsing also doesn't work, as the arrow keys are overridden. Only <Ctrl>+<A> still works as expected.

There doesn't seem to be an invisible layer above the text, since the mouse cursor changes between a pointer, finger, and text cursor, and since clicking on links works.

This inconsistency violates the Law of Least Astonishment.


Expected results:

The user should be able to select text at will.

Comment 1

[Mats Palmgren (inactive)]

Selection works fine for me, using FF53 on Linux64.

Can you reproduce the problem also with all add-ons disabled? (if you have them)
Can you reproduce the problem also with an official Mozilla build? (it appears
you are using an Ubuntu distro build)
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

Comment 2

[Paul]

Good idea. I've retested, results are as follows:

Ubuntu Firefox 53.0+build6 with clean profile, Ubuntu Modifications add-on only: same bug as reported above
Ubuntu Firefox 53.0+build6 with clean profile and no add-ons: same bug as reported above
Ubuntu Chromium 58.0.3029.96: same bug as reported above

Linux 64bit Official Mozilla Firefox 53.0.2 with clean profile: no problem
Windows 32bit Mozilla 52.0.2: no problem

This implies it's an Ubuntu-specific issue. Didn't realise they made any substantive changes. Shall I file a bug in Canonical Launchpad?

Comment 3

[Paul]

All the above Linux tests were on Ubuntu 17.04. Surprisingly:

Ubuntu Firefox 53.0+build6 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS: no problem

Comment 4

[Mats Palmgren (inactive)]

Thanks for testing!

> Shall I file a bug in Canonical Launchpad?

Yes, please.

Comment 5

[Paul]

Done: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/1690254

I wonder if Ubuntu's push for desktop/handheld unification led them to make some changes related to touch, because the failure mode somewhat resembles the way the site may be expected to work on a mobile phone. Except those have mechanisms to select text, such as tap-and-hold, which also don't work here.