1733051 - Can't type Facebook comments

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: Web Compatibility, defect)

Description

[Tristan Miller]

As of last week, it's no longer possible to use SeaMonkey to type into the comments field under a Facebook post. Changing the browser's user agent string (e.g., to report as Firefox) has no effect.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Log into Facebook and visit any post that your account has permission to comment on (e.g., https://www.facebook.com/ofai.at/posts/1842624699263160)
2. Click on the input field at the bottom of the post. The input field gets focus and a flashing I bar appears.
3. Start typing.

Observed behaviour:
4. Nothing happens.

Expected behaviour:
4. The typed text should appear in the input field.

Note: I understand from the discussion at Bug 1655478 that unspecific Web compatibility bugs like this are not likely to be useful or be acted upon. However, in this case the website affected is in the Alexa top 10 and there are already SeaMonkey-specific problem reports circulating online (e.g., on Mozillazine). Perhaps someone else who is affected by this bug and who has more time/knowledge than I do can pinpoint the cause enough to help the developers arrive at a fix.

Comment 1

[Tristan Miller]

For those seeking a temporary workaround: It's still possible to paste text from the clipboard into a comment field, after which the field becomes fully editable by typing.

Comment 2

[Rainer Bielefeld]

REPRODUCIBLE with installation of official De SeaMonkey 2.53.9 Mozilla/5.0 (NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0 Build 20210808162125 (Newly created User Profile, Default Classic Theme) on German WIN7 64bit.

Same problem with 2.53.8

Error Console shows nothing.

Comment 3

[Frank-Rainer Grahl (:frg)]

To do something about bugs like this one I at least need to know what the missing feature is. Not getting a facebook account in this life. Just dross to me. While this affects probably lots of users facebook don't care about us anyway and may break us a minute after we fix it with another new requirement. I suggest using a different Chromium based browser for facebook now. Privacy is not an option with facebook anyway.
There are a few key areas in the code which need to be updated. I am working on some of them but it will not happen tomorrow. Sorry but can't be helped that it is slow. Rest assured that we care but there are only so many hours in a day and not enough devs around.

Comment 4

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

I'm also seeing this on SeaMonkey 2.53b10pre on Linux-86_64.
I had independently found the workaound mentioned in comment #1, which IMO is better than having to launch a different browser just for Facebook.

Comment 5

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Oops: I meant 2.53.10b1pre

Comment 6

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

I don't know the reporter's platform, but the problem has been seen on both Windows (comment #2) and Linux (comment #4).

Comment 9

[Sweeties]

(In reply to Frank-Rainer Grahl (:frg) from comment #3)

To do something about bugs like this one I at least need to know what the missing feature is. Not getting a facebook account in this life. Just dross to me. While this affects probably lots of users facebook don't care about us anyway and may break us a minute after we fix it with another new requirement. I suggest using a different Chromium based browser for facebook now. Privacy is not an option with facebook anyway.
There are a few key areas in the code which need to be updated. I am working on some of them but it will not happen tomorrow. Sorry but can't be helped that it is slow. Rest assured that we care but there are only so many hours in a day and not enough devs around.

This is a weak argument.
May as well add that, as of today, you can no longer cut and paste images into Facebook, or load images from your drives.
Yes, Facebook is making these things happen by changing their code. Presumably, to enhance tracking at some level. But if SeaMonkey cannot allow interaction with one of the world's most popular websites, it's a sad response that "if you don't like, try Chrome", or is Mosaic more your style?

Comment 10

[romko.b.m]

Can add to that Twitter, YouTube and several sites as
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/
https://www.duolingo.com/learn
https://slovotvir.org.ua/catalog
— quite a few, isn't it ?