527771 - An extra linebreak often appears one word before the actual linebreak in Facebook comments

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[mr]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

In Facebook when I comment on somebody's status (etc) and include a linebreak, my comment often ends up including an additional linebreak exactly one word before my linebreak. It's always one word before, and it's not because the line wouldn't fit in. Very strange behaviour.

As far as I can see in the HTML code, there's nothing obvious that would cause these breaks in the displayed text. In the picture example attached, the HTML code is
"Låter våghalsigt...<br />Är det du som är giljotinens huvudakt?"
with a <br/> tag only after the second word but ending up with a line break also after the first word. I'll attach a longer HTML excerpt as well, since the actual Facebook code is quite complex.

It happens in Firefox (safe mode) but not in MSIE. See attached picture for an example. If I use more than one linebreak, the error turns up once for each one. This happens somewhere around 50% of the times and is very annoying, since
1) my linebreak was only included because I wanted a certain text disposition to enhance readability, and this disposition was destroyed much worse than if I wouldn't have included any linebreak,
2) it gets impossible for me to know that others see the same as I do, since it's displayed differently across platforms,
3) it happens so often, but still not consistently.

It might have to do with some wrongly counted characters, as I have non-A-Z characters in both the comment text and in my name preceding it, but the error definitely appears also with short comments in plain English without any strange characters.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run Firefox and log in to Facebook.
2. Comment on people's status updates, and see your entered text show up.
Actual Results:  
There is an additional linebreak one word earlier than my own linebreak.

Expected Results:  
Only break the text at my own linebreaks and, if applicable, when the lines can't fit more text.

Comment 1

[mr]

Attachment: The linebreak error shows up in Firefox, but not in MSIE.

Comment 2

[mr]

Attachment: The long HTML line where the linebreak error appears. (The whole page is much much longer.)

Comment 3

[mr]

Attachment: Here is a typical example of another person's comment where the error arises. Note that no "strange characters" are used either in name or comment in this example!

Comment 4

[mr]

In the last attachment example above, the linebreak that the user made was already after the first word. The additional linebreak then appears TWO words before the actual linebreak instead of one, in the middle of the person's name. This is most probably because no whitespace exists between the name text and the comment text in the HTML code. The line break still ends up "one whitespace too early", just like in the bug description.

Comment 5

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.13 or later in safe mode? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

You can also try to reproduce in Firefox 4 Beta 8 or later, there are many improvements in the new version, http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Comment 6

[mr]

True, I don't think I have seen it at all for some months.