1878859 - Window positioning via accessibility API broken on MacOS Sonoma (14.3)

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Disability Access APIs, defect)

Description

[Till Backhaus]

Attachment: Screen Recording 2024-02-06 at 12.11.26.mp4

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:122.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/122.0

Steps to reproduce:

I use the window manager mosaic (https://www.lightpillar.com/mosaic.html) on MacOS Sonoma (14.3). It allows to move windows to predefined positions on macos. It works fine with all other applications I tested - yet, firefox windows are resized to the correct dimensions, but not placed on the correct location.
Other users are experiencing this issue too https://lightpillar.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/5103. There is another screen recording displaying related but not identical symptoms.
These window managers work through the accessibility APIs of macos and I'd be surprised if this was the only setting where Firefox just doesn't work.

Actual results:

Intended to move and resize window. Window resized only. At second attempt, a correctly sized window gets moved to desired location.

Expected results:

Window should be resized and moved to desired location and dimensions.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Disability Access APIs' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Till Backhaus]

Link to lightpillar support forum was wrong: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1878859

Comment 3

[Till Backhaus]

Sorry again. Feel free to remove previous comment. This is the public post: https://lightpillar.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/15873450395677

Comment 4

[Nathan LaPré]

Thanks for reporting. First impression: possibly a bug with Firefox's conception of the coordinates / bounds of the accessible defining the window. cc-ing Morgan who will know more. Marking this as an S3 since there is a workaround (attempting twice), albeit an annoying one.

Comment 5

[bullllub]

I am on macOS Catalina and have the same problem with Mosaic Pro. Only difference: I need to hit my keyboard shortcut three times (not two times as mentioned by the OP).

My setup:
macOS 10.15.7 Catalina
Firefox 122.0.1
Mosaic Pro v1.2.6

I noticed something, that might be of interest:
– As long as the Firefox window is NOT to be resized, it is moved to the target position with a single hit of the keyboard shortcut.
– Only if the current window has to be resized, multiple hits of keyboard shortcut are neccessary.

Comment 6

[bullllub]

…and something else:
Let's say I want to resize and move the FF window. Currently, it is positioned to the right half of the screen, like this:

---xxx
---xxx
---xxx

and I want to change it to the bottom third, like this:

---

---

-----x

Then the steps are like this:
1st hit of the keyboard shortcut:

-----x
-----x
-----x

2nd hit of the keyboard shortcut:

-----x

---

3rd hit of the keyboard shortcut:

---

---

-----x

So, at first Firefox / Mosaic just moves the current window in its current dimensions to the LEFT edge of target window position (= no resizing so far).
Then, FF/M resizes it to the correct dimensions.
Lastly, FF/M moves the window to the correct position.

Comment 7

[bullllub]

Sorry, but the forum editor messed up my scribbles. Here again another try:

…and something else:
Let's say I want to resize and move the FF window. Currently, it is positioned to the right half of the screen, like this:

• • • x x x
• • • x x x
• • • x x x

and I want to change it to the bottom third, like this:

---

---

• • • • • x

Then the steps are like this:
1st hit of the keyboard shortcut:

• • • • • x
• • • • • x
• • • • • x

2nd hit of the keyboard shortcut:

• • • • • x

---

---

3rd hit of the keyboard shortcut:

---

---

• • • • • x

So, at first Firefox / Mosaic just moves the current window in its current dimensions to the LEFT edge of target window position (= no resizing so far).
Then, FF/M resizes it to the correct dimensions.
Lastly, FF/M moves the window to the correct position.

Comment 8

[bullllub]

Sorry, but the forum editor messed up my scribbles, again. Here is a link to a screen shot:
https://www.imagebam.com/view/MERX9QH

Comment 9

[bullllub]

I finally quit Mosaic. I tried Rectangle Pro and it works fine.