1844258 - Messages are not read when launching JAWS after Thunderbird

Status: ASSIGNED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect, P2)

Description

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1844256 +++

Thunderbird user Amir on social media reported some problems navigating the message list with NVDA and JAWS. (Link to initial report).

Amir's description:

With JAWS, if Thunderbird is running and JAWS is launched later, we can no longer read messages. That is, as Enter is pressed on a message and it opens, JAWS fails to capture it in its virtual buffer. Using JAWS key+Z doesn't help either.

Testing was done with JAWS June 2023 and NVDA Alpha 28685 on Windows 11 22H2 (OS Build 22621.1992).

@aleca responded:

I have a feeling some of those issues are up to the a11y tools to update themselves since our message list is not a XUL tree anymore, but a plane HTML table, with native semantics that shouldn’t require any strange workaround like the old UI.
We’ll get to the bottom of these!

Amir also shared:

It also seems to me that a couple of them, namely the issue affecting NVDA key+Up, needs to be addressed by NVAccess as JAWS works well in that area. Looking forward to future Thunderbird releases with more accessibility fixes.

Comment 1

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

I have tested Thunderbird 115 in Windows 11 with JAWS July 2023 (40 minute demo professional version). I was able to hear the message subject, but was not able to hear the message contents. JAWS doesn't read them.

I have reached out to Freedom Scientific to find out if this is an issue that needs to be resolved on their end.

I will reach out to the original reported to gather more details. Are they able to hear the subject but not the contents? Or were they not able to hear the subject either?

I followed the instructions to open JAWS after opening Thunderbird as per the reporter's instructions.

Comment 2

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

Working with Amir and Freedom Scientific to address this. Amir's update: "I've tested the latest NVDA Alpha 29111, JAWS 2024 Public Beta 1, and Thunderbird 118 Beta 2. All issues remain."

Workaround:
Launch JAWS before launching Thunderbird