1902757 - When a New tab is opened TalkBack focus is locked within the search field until the keyboard is dismissed

Status: NEW

(Firefox for Android :: Homepage, defect)

Description

[Anna Yeddi [:ayeddi]]

Steps to reproduce

1. Ensure a TalkBack is running and its Explore by touch feature is enabled in Settings
2. Open Firefox and confirm the New tab is opened
3. Try to tap on one of tiles on the New tab and observe the TalkBack behavior
4. Using a general navigation gesture for TalkBack (swiping left-to-right with one finger), try to move the TB focus to tiles
5. Dismiss the keyboard and repeat step 3.

Expected behavior

1. On both steps 3 and 5, tapping on a tile would focus it with TalkBack allowing for a double-tap to activate it
2. It is possible to navigate with TalkBack to tiles with logical navigation gestures on step 4.

Actual behavior

1. The keyboard remains open even when trying to swipe with TalkBack, the TB focus is locked in the search/input mode and tapping anywhere else, incl. on the tiles does nothing.
2. Only after the keyboard is dismissed (and for new installations an OMC notification is also dismissed), tapping on a tile would focus it with TalkBack allowing for a double-tap to activate it.
3. Using logical navigation gestures, the TalkBack is locked within a few elements of the search input, until the keyboard is dismissed.

Device information

• Firefox version: Nightly 129.0a1 (build #2016026447)
• Android device model: Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
• Android OS version: 13

Any additional information?

Another major browser on the same device does allow tap on the tiles while a search input is focused with TB.

Comment 1

[Rahul Sainani [:rsainani]]

Thanks for the detailed STR and the report [:ayeddi]. Unfortunately, the way Fenix currently has implemented search functionality is by showing a dialog on top of the home screen. So we talkback cannot traverse to home screen elements as there is a window on top. This is one of the many other reasons for Search and home screen to be implemented differently. We're blocked on that till that happens.

Comment 2

[Diego Ramírez [:BlindMoon38]]

Possibly a duplicate of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1811596 though this one has more information about the causes, so that one should perhaps be closed in favour of this bug.