Thunderbird: Quick filter (Ctrl+Shift+K) results in embedded webview are not navigable with arrow keys / browse mode

[ahicks92]

Steps to reproduce:

Open Thunderbird. Get some e-mails. press ctrl+shift+k and type in a filter. Press down arrow. If you donm't have the filter bar enabled you need to switch it on, as mentioned in the comments below.

alternatively press n, which is move to next unread message. This repro is easier but less useful because you can recover with the arrow keys, so it's easy to un-repro it.

Note that this looks a lot like #17461 but for a different, more critical, list view.

The attached log below (requested in the comments) is for this sequence of actions:

• ctrl+shift+k linkedin
• We can get as far as seeing the e-mail from Kelby.
• Down arrow a bunch of times, which is silent.
• Tab over to the message pane and we can see that it moved to the e-mail about Mat's connections.

Actual behavior:

NVDA just says "list". We can see that the message panel updates and the focused item moves but NVDA doesn't read them out.

When pressing n this recovers at the first arrow but when using ctrl++shift+k it does not until the filter is cleared.

Sometimes when at either end of the list view (e.g. at the beginning, pressing up aerrow), it will decide to read that one only.

My hypothesis is that it's any jump between items that's not just moving by 1, or something like that.

I tried alternate views in the view menu e.g. threaded etc to no effect, neither helping nor breaking it more.

Expected behavior:

It reads the messages.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

Ctrl+f kelby to find the beginning of the most relevant portion:

nvda_thunderbird.log

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed, also tested portable.

NVDA version:

2024.4.2

Windows version:

10

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Thunderbird 128.6.0esr (64-bit)

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

Yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

no

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

yes

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

yes

[SaschaCowley]

Hi @ahicks92, we are unable to reproduce this issue. Can you please provide a debug log of this behaviour?

[ahicks92]

I have edited the description to include the log and the below. I did:

• ctrl+k linkedin
• We can get as far as seeing the e-mail from Kelby.
• Down arrow a bunch of times, which is silent.
• Tab over to the message pane and we can see that it moved to the e-mail about Mat's connections.

[SaschaCowley]

@ahicks92 when I hit ctrl+k in a message list in Thunderbird, I am taken to a search field. When I type, suggestions are shown. Using the up and down arrow keys navigates me through these suggestions, not in the message list. If I hit enter, a search results tab opens that does not have the typical message list, but where I have to tab around. I am unsure what is different between our set-ups. I'm also on Thunderbird 128.6.0esr.

[ahicks92]

I'm very very very sorry. Ctrl+shift+k, not ctrl+k. They moved it a few versions back and my reflexes caught up but me writing it down apparently did not.

Does this help? Please say yes...

[SaschaCowley]

Once I turned on the quick filter bar (which I turn off as I find it just clutters navigation) I was able to use ctrl+shift+k to filter messages. However, NVDA had no problem reading the message list. Would you mind trying an alpha version of NVDA (running from the launcher should be fine if you don't want to create a portable copy or install) and see if the problem persists?

[ABuffEr]

Hi, there is a more simple steps-to-reproduce:

1. go to a folder with some unread messages;
2. move to last message;
3. press space or n. Previous (correct) behavior: focus move to first unread message in the folder. Current behavior: focus move to first unread message, but NVDA says list. There are anyway other ways to get this issue, like pressing end key afther having done above steps. Tested with Thunderbird 135.0b2 (64-bit) and NVDA 2024.4.2 and alpha-35103,8ec1116d (latest).

[ahicks92]

@SaschaCowley The problem is that the other search is inaccessible as far as I know. If there's some other way to filter messages out I haven't found it. F6 lets one skip past it with whatever settings I've got however. For my part some workaround would lower the priority as far as I'm concerned. I may just be missing something but the bvest I can seem to get out of ctrl+k search is a searchj against the wrong account that can only somewhat be navigated with object navigation.

I do still see the behavior in latest NVDA alpha.

I'm fixing the description again. For what it's worth they changed those keys around after something like a decade so hopefully the mistake is understandable.

Is there any chance that it's Windows 10 versus Windows 11? Or Thunderbird ESR versus not ESR?

@ABuffEr I think that was in my original description but, when it occurs, you can kind of recover with the arrow keys so it's not the case I focused on. While it's simpler to repro with that, it's almost immediately self-fixing if you will and you can "fall off" the repro unless you're careful about it.

[SaschaCowley]

@ABuffEr I use that method of navigation multiple times daily and am having no problems navigating.

@ahicks92 Thanks for testing with alpha. FWIW I tend to use the Search Messages dialog accessible by ctrl+shift+f but I absolutely see how the quick filter bar is more convenient.

[ahicks92]

Gees, so ctrl+k is a different search than ctrl+shift+f. That's fun. But at least ctrl+shift+f is accessible and does work.

I'll try a few things this weekend e.g. a fresh install of Thunderbird but don't have time at the moment.

[ahicks92]

My inbox had 25k messages. Out of, call it curiosity, I decided to archive most of it. This got next unread (n) to work most of the time but still breaks the quick filter bar. Also emphasis most of the time.

Is it feasible that there is a counter that overflows or something?

If nothing else I guess this at least maybe explains why the repro is hard.

[ahicks92]

Sorry for the double comment. Didn't expect to find the other half this morning. The filter bar difference/lack of repro is view->density->compact. Set that to default and it seems to fix it for now.

Unfortunately in general I suspect that the view settings are set because I am a long time user across many updates and it was preserving old behavior or something; I have not touched these ever, I didn't even know they were there. So quite possibly the "practical repro" is "use Thunderbird for a decade".

I'll report back in a week or so (or if pinged, should I forget) to say whether or not the issues came back.

[SaschaCowley]

Thanks for the additional info.

If I set View -> Density -> Compact, I am still able to use the filter bar, and down arrowing correctly lands me in the message list and NVDA speaks correctly. I do only have 32 messages in my inbox, though.

[gerald-hartig]

Closing as cannot reproduce.

[ahicks92]

I guess. But you have two users here and another issue that looks almost the same.

But yeah I mean I really think it is going to turn out to be number of messages and thus I guess there's nothing realistic to be done.

[Adriani90]

I think this is still reproducible in Thunderbird 139.0.1 as follows:

1. Open NVDA
2. Open Thunderbird with an email account already set up
3. Focus the message list
4. Press ctrl+shift+k
5. Type in a name of a person you had soem emails exchanges with
6. Press down arrow
7. Choose a filter with arrow keys and press enter
8. Press tab multiple times until you land on a list where NVDA reports something like "list bullet x messages with submenu
9. Press up and down arrow
10. Press shift+tab multiple times until you land on a link with the suubject of a message in the list of results
11. press up and down arrow

Actual: In steps 9 and 11 NVDA does not navigate the objects one by one in the list, they can be navigated by using object navigation "nvda+shift+left and right arrow) or by pressing tab and shift+tab.

Expected: NVDA should navigate the objects one by one when pressing up and down arrow.

Background: In step 7, after you press enter, a chromium webview rendered engine is used to display the list of additional filters and the list of results. NVDA is not able to use browse mode on this chromium webview region for whatever reason. i am not sure whether this is bad implementation by Thunderbird or rather an NVDA issue.

• The list of additional filters (you land on after step 8) contains list items with submenus. These allow you to set further filters on the search results.
• The list of results appears afterwards, you can press multiple times tab until you pass the list of additional filters. However, only the subject of the emails is read, with the role of link. Further details such as the preview of the message can be read only by using object navigation.
• After passing the list of additional filters, there is a button called "show results as a list in a new tab" or something similar. Pressing enter on this button opens the filtered messages in a new tab and they are listed in a native thunderbird message list without chromium rendered engine. This one is accessible with up and down arrow as expected.

I think Thunderbird set a tabindex on each of the list items in both lists (additional filters and list of results). Thus, up and down arrow key does not work. Moreover, probably there is role:application instead of role:document on the chromium rendered engine, which prevents NVDA from using browse mode in this area.

This needs a fix from thunderbird side I guess.

cc: @thgcode, @emitche,

[emitche]

Hi. I'm no longer on staff and haven't had capacity recently to volunteer.

[ABuffEr]

Hi, have you still this issue with Thunderbird 140? At least in the form reported in my previous comment, it seems finally solved! (141.0b2 indeed, but I have clues that it's 140 the first affected version)

[Adriani90]

The chrome web view is still not accessible with browse mode, browse mode cannot be activated. Tested with NVDA 2025.3 and Thunderbird 144.

STR:

1. Open NVDA
2. Open Thunderbird with an email account already set up
3. Focus the message list
4. Press ctrl+shift+k
5. Type in a name of a person you had soem emails exchanges with
6. Press enter
7. Press tab multiple times

Actual: you will reach to the subjects of the filtered messages which are semantically displayed as links, and you can enable additional filters here:

• To me
• From me
• With attachments However,

1. Browse mode cannot be enabled in the chrome webview with nvda+spacebar
2. The additional filters are only accessible by using object navigation.

Expected:

1. When landing to chrome webview with tab, nvda+spacebar should allow switching between browse and focus mode
2. Additional filters on the webview should be accessible in browse mode and by pressing tab or shift+tab in focus mode.

[ahicks92]

I think that's a different issue than this one, but I can still get this to happen as well, so shrug. Something is definitely weird with this in general. Try going to view->layout->vertical view, that's what fixed it for me the other day. Maybe it'll help you even though yours are different.