502233 - Webpage reading program(text to speech) stopped working in Firefox environment after upgrade

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Disability Access, defect)

Description

[yaron]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5

I think it has to do with a new way Firefox handles clipboard information,
the way the program works is that you copy a segment text from a website and the program reads it to you using the Microsoft text-to-speech engine.

Program is called TTSReader

Program works as usual in Internet explorer and desktop applications, only in the Firefox environment the functionality of reading from clipboard don't work.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.open TTSReader.
2.Select read from clipboard option( button on the top)
3. Browse to any webpage can try to copy text, listen to see if the program is reading the text.
Actual Results:  
No special steps except the three written above, the functionality of the program is very simple, you copy text to the clipboard, the text gets read.

Expected Results:  
Nothing happened, maybe the text was copied to the clipboard but the program did not read it.

The text would be read aloud through the speakers


-- in testing the problem all add-ons were disable, started in safe mode
result is the same.

Comment 1

[yaron]

Program worked perfectly in previous versions, until this release v3.5

Comment 2

[Mardeg]

I went to http://www.marcozehe.de/2009/07/01/the-wai-aria-windows-screen-reader-shootout/ to see how TTSReader compared but it wasn't mentioned :(

Comment 3

[yaron]

Seeing the link you sent, those programs are for people with different disabilities, different needs.

Am dyslexic, so the functionality of being able to capture large segments of text and have them read to you is a major advantage. 

Because the program reads faster than I reed, makes less mistakes. 

The lost of this functionality is a major problem for me, so much of a problem that I am forced to use Internet Explorer(may God forgive me) to file these bug report

Comment 4

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Confirmed with latest trunk, and Windows Vista.
Regression range: http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?startdate=2008-08-12+22%3A00%3A00&enddate=2008-08-13+02%3A00%3A00

I hear the text after having closed the Firefox browser, but that seems a tiring way to read. Maybe caused by Bug 215719 ?

Comment 5

[yaron]

you're right that text is being read after closing the browser, it's like it's being released.

This and posts I have read developers changed something in the way Firefox handles information past to the clipboard, is may be in the fault here.

Comment 6

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Attachment: backout patch from bug 215719

I'm sorry that I've caused this. I don't know of a better way than to backout the patch for bug 215719. Since a crash shouldn't happen anyway, this bug is worse than that bug.

Comment 7

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

I don't understand how your patch in bug 215719 would cause this unless TTSReader is relying on weird things it shouldn't be relying on.

Comment 8

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

In other words, flushing the clipboard shouldn't break TTSReader.

Comment 9

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

I made tryserver builds with the patch:
https://build.mozilla.org/tryserver-builds/[e-mail]-1247713439/
Yaron or Ria, could you perhaps verify with that build, if it fixes the bug?

Comment 10

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

The windows build is not there yet, it can take a while before they appear.

Comment 11

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Yes, this fixes the issue.

Comment 12

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Ok, thanks for testing. I sent out an e-mail to bugs(at)sphenet.com, asking if they could perhaps fix it from their end. Because Robert seems to think the offending patch shouldn't break TTSReader.
If that doesn't help or I don't get a reply, I'll just back out the patch for now and then ask if I can get the patch in for Firefox3.5.2.

Comment 13

[yaron]

I'm sorry I couldn't test the fix, I don't know exactly how to do that.

Anyway the TTSReader has a standalone version, that doesn't require installation. Could be used to test if the fix works.

I personally already contacted the developers at the sphenet, and he was kind enough to send me a temporary fix, furthermore he said that not granting programs immediate access to the clipboard, could break other programs that uses the clipboard and is not isolated to TTSReader.

Comment 14

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Ok, I contacted sphenet too, and I got this reply:
"
Hello.

The problem has been fixed in the current build of TTSReader ( not released yet ).
The build with the fix is here : sphenet.com/Files/TTSReader_FireFoxFix_1.30+.zip
The problem was that TTSReader failed to obtain ownership of the clipboard when a clipboard notification is received. Other programs may have the same problem.

Regards,
SpheNet.
"

So they seem to acknowledge that the problem is on their side, afaict.
So I'd like to not back out the patch, then. I guess other programs could break, but at this point it's not clear.

Comment 15

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

I got another reply, it seems they think the problem is in Firefox:
"
I think FireFox has the problem. The problem occurs because OpenClipboard fails when WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD is received.
"

To be honest, I don't know what to do anymore. Maybe I should still do the backout?

Comment 16

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

I don't know either. Probably should do the backout.

Comment 17

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Comment on attachment 388785 [details] [diff] [review]
backout patch from bug 215719

This is just a backout from the patch from bug 215719, so there is no risk, apart from reregressing that bug.

Comment 18

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

Pushed on Martijn's behalf in changeset http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0bf3263fba5d

Comment 19

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

Comment on attachment 388785 [details] [diff] [review]
backout patch from bug 215719

Not for 1.9.1.2.

Comment 20

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

Comment on attachment 388785 [details] [diff] [review]
backout patch from bug 215719

Approved for 1.9.1.4, a=dveditz for release-drivers

Comment 21

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

Comment on attachment 388785 [details] [diff] [review]
backout patch from bug 215719

past code-freeze for 1.9.1.4, removing non-blocker approval.

Comment 22

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

Comment on attachment 388785 [details] [diff] [review]
backout patch from bug 215719

Approved for 1.9.1.5, a=dveditz for release-drivers

Comment 23

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-1.9.1/rev/90982b0c3893