546453 - Firefox 3.6 SSL connections cause Typinator to stop functioning

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Matt Dudziak]

I recently discovered a conflict between Typinator (http://www.ergonis.com/products/typinator/) and Firefox 3.6. It is a bit difficult to explain so let me tell you what I do and what happens:

- Start with Typinator working fine.
- Connect to Mozilla.org’s bugzilla bug tracking system and view a bug when NOT logged in
- Scroll to bottom of bug
- Click the ‘log in’ link (You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.)
- Log in using configured account
- Notice the Typinator icon in the menu bar now shows 2 dots (indicating it is non-functional) 
- Switch to other applications and note that the Typinator icon remains like this and Typinator is non-functional
- Open other bugs in tabs in Firefox and note icon remains as shown and Typinator is non-functional
- Close the original Firefox tab ( the one you logged into)
- Now Typinator works fine.

Seem like Mozilla changed something between Firefox 3.5.7 and Firefox 3.6 that caused this. In Firefox 3.5.7 the Typinator icon _briefly_ flashes the 2 dots when logging in but then continues to work fine. Only on Firefox 3.6 do I see this problem.

Comment 1

[Matt Dudziak]

The friendly folks from Ergonis (the developers of Typinator) responded to this problem as well:


We are aware of such a problem with Firefox. It appears that Firefox turns off the keyboard monitor that Typinator depends on to "see" what you type. When you are typing in a password field, Mac OS X disables the keyboard monitor to prevent malicious programs from stealing your passwords. Other programs can also turn the keyboard monitor off. In both cases, Typinator detects the fact and indicates this situation by the black bullets in the icon.

Unfortunately, some programs disable the keyboard monitor and then seem to "forget" to re-enable it when the focus leaves the password field. It seems that the latest version of Firefox introduced such a bug.

I should also note that this is not a Typinator problem; Typinator just suffers from the Firefox bug because it can then no longer monitor your keyboard input and therefore cannot know when you type an abbreviation that should be expanded.

I hope that this information helps to clarify this issue with the Firefox developers. Feel free to give them our support mail address. We are happy to help them in isolating and fixing the problem.

Comment 2

[[e-mail]]

I was about to report this as a new bug, but then found this report. I've done some fairly comprehensive testing of this issue, with one or two pointers from Günther Blaschek of Ergonis, who produce Typinator. It's clear that, as they say, it's not a Typinator problem, but Typinator is a very handy tool for testing it. I've put a sequence of simple tests on my web site here:

http://www.highway57.co.uk/fftests/

Comment 3

[Martin]

I can confirm the issue. Is there any hope for a solution?