2002958 - The keyboard focus is lost when accessing a settings subpage

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Alin Ilea, Desktop Test Engineering]

Found in

• 147.0a1

Affected versions

• 147.0a1

Tested platforms

• Affected platforms: Windows 11, macOS 15, Ubuntu 22.04
• Unaffected platforms: none

Preconditions

• Set pref browser.settings-redesign.enabled = true
• Set pref browser.search.region = US

Steps to reproduce

1. Open Settings → Privacy & Security → Payment methods.
2. Using the keyboard, access the Manage payment methods.

Expected result

• When the Manage payment methods subpage is opened using the keyboard, the first element of the subpage should be focused.

Actual result

• When the Manage payment methods subpage is opened using the keyboard, the keyboard focus is lost. If the user press TAB, the back button is focused, as it should be from the start when the subpage is opened.

Regression range

• Not a regression.

Notes

• This behavior is present for all the settings subpages.
• Chrome behavior is as described in the expected result here, the first element of the subpage is automatically focused.

Comment 1

[James Teh [:Jamie] (away returning 14 Apr)]

(In reply to Alin Ilea, Desktop Test Engineering from comment #0)

• When the Manage payment methods subpage is opened using the keyboard, the keyboard focus is lost.

Hi Alin. If you do this with a screen reader, is anything at all reported when the subpage opens? As it stands, I'm triaging this as an access s3 because there is a workaround: press tab. However, if a screen reader user hears absolutely nothing, this might be an s2 because they might not be aware that anything has happened at all and thus might not try to press the tab key.

Comment 2

[Alin Ilea, Desktop Test Engineering]

Hi James,
Just tried your scenario and "Settings document list grouping general" is read by the screen reader(NVDA) when opening the Manage payment methods subpage is using the keyboard.
Just let me know if any other investigation is needed.

Comment 3

[Mark Kennedy [:mark]]

Attachment: Bug 2002958 - Fix initial focusing when accessing a sub page from keyboard or mouse click r=#recomp-reviewers,#reusable-components-reviewers-rotation

Comment 4

[Mark Kennedy [:mark]]

Just a few notes regarding our resolution for this.

We've updated so that navigating to any subpage will now automatically focus the first focusable element on the page with a couple of differences depending on how you get to the page. The following describes how this resolves the original issue based on this new behavior.

1. When accessing the Manage Payments subpage by keyboard tabbing to "Manage payment methods" and pressing spacebar (or any key to open the page) the first focusable element ("Add new payment method" button) will be automatically focused with a visible focus ring.
2. But when accessing the Manage Payments subpage by clicking on "Manage payment methods" (or accessing the page directly in a new tab), although the first focusable element ("Add new payment method" button) will be automatically focused, it won't have a visible focus ring.

We thought this was the best approach given the circumstances, but please let us know if there are any issues and we'll revisit. Thank you for the detail and for filing!

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/471dcac98cce
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/bd3d1932e415
Fix initial focusing when accessing a sub page from keyboard or mouse click r=akulyk

Comment 6

[Cosmin Sabou [:CosminS]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/bd3d1932e415

Comment 7

[Alin Ilea, Desktop Test Engineering]

Verified - Fixed in Nightly 148.0a1 (2025-12-11).
The Add new payment method button is automatically focused with a visible focus ring when access the manage payment methods subpage using the keyboard.
The Add new payment method button is also focused(without blue focus ring) when access the manage payment methods subpage using the mouse(click), and it automatically read by the screen reader.