HTF Text Editor randomly changes text in real time while typing on iPad or iOS (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Blocks of text randomly change, delete, rearrange, and restore while typing. I see this on my iPad. I think others like @Ronald Epstein have experienced this too. I don’t think it‘s an iOS autocorrect behavior because I don’t see this only in HTF’s text editor. I’ve experienced this the past year, I think? I finally was able to get two screenshots representative.

Here’s the text as it’s randomly changing and moving blocks of text around. Look at the third sentence and how it’s brought the second sentence to the beginning, garbled a word (four words in) and then continues what I was trying to type. The second screen shot shows the finished text and after some more typing caused the text block to revert back to actual typed text. I did no manual editing of that third sentence to make the final result come out.

If you’ve not experienced it’s hard to explain, but as I’m typing, the text is changing with blocks jumping in and out in real time as I type. It’s very weird. And I think it’s unique to HTF’s editor.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Blocks of text randomly change, delete, rearrange, and restore while typing. I see this on my iPad. I think others like @Ronald Epstein have experienced this too. I don’t think it‘s an iOS autocorrect behavior because I don’t see this only in HTF’s text editor. I’ve experienced this the past year, I think? I finally was able to get two screenshots representative.

Here’s the text as it’s randomly changing and moving blocks of text around. Look at the third sentence and how it’s brought the second sentence to the beginning, garbled a word (four words in) and then continues what I was trying to type. The second screen shot shows the finished text and after some more typing caused the text block to revert back to actual typed text. I did no manual editing of that third sentence to make the final result come out.

If you’ve not experienced it’s hard to explain, but as I’m typing, the text is changing with blocks jumping in and out in real time as I type. It’s very weird. And I think it’s unique to HTF’s editor.

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Dave mentioned iPad. I am using Mac OS. So, we are on two different platforms.

I will talk about Mac OS...

This was a major issue. So much so, that I switched from Safari to Chrome browser for my HTF usage.

However, I don't quite know where to place the blame.

It was originally a mess under Safari. No issues with Chrome. So for that reason, it seemed to be a Safari issue.

Then, there was an update to Mac OS 14.2.1

I am now typing on Safari under the new upgrade and no longer see any of those issues.


@dave, did you upgrade to the latest iPad OS?

 

[DaveF]

@Ronald Epstein Yes, I’m the current / latest iPadOS 17.2. I don‘t recall if this issue started with the most recent update or if it goes back earlier. I was thinking it predated the new autocorrect system but I guess I’m not positive.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’ve experienced this on my iPhone and it’s much more aggressive/quick to change text than my phone’s autocorrect normally is in other contexts.

 

[andrew]

Guys, sorry about the delay here, for some reason I was not getting notifications. @DaveF and @Ronald Epstein you guys said it's been ongoing, do you have any rough estimate of when you first saw it? I had seen reported issues of some weird replay interactions after our new ads were implemented but this seems like it's been around since well before those happened and is likely not related to that change. I want to make sure my ducks are in a row and then I'll see what I can research and find out.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Andrew,

For me, about 5 months ago but lately everything has been fine.

Not speaking for Dave's issue though. he is on a different platform.

 

[DaveF]

Guys, sorry about the delay here, for some reason I was not getting notifications. @DaveF and @Ronald Epstein you guys said it's been ongoing, do you have any rough estimate of when you first saw it? I had seen reported issues of some weird replay interactions after our new ads were implemented but this seems like it's been around since well before those happened and is likely not related to that change. I want to make sure my ducks are in a row and then I'll see what I can research and find out.

Andrew,

For me, about 5 months ago but lately everything has been fine.

Not speaking for Dave's issue though. he is on a different platform.

I think it’s been a few months, like Ron says, but I’m not sure. I think it predates the latest ios and iPadOS versions, but again, not positive.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I was just typing the word “presentation” and the forum software changed that to “present Sybok”. It was in a thread about preordering the sci-fi series The Expanse.

(Just in typing that sentence, the forum software changed “sci-fi” to “sl if”)

“Sybok” is an obscure Star Trek character from the fifth movie.

Is there some sort of background processing trying to match typing to what it thinks the topics of the threads are? It just seemed odd that it took a perfectly normal word spelled properly and turned it into the proper spelling of a fictional character who happens to have a made-up/non-English name.

 

[andrew]

I was just typing the word “presentation” and the forum software changed that to “present Sybok”. It was in a thread about preordering the sci-fi series The Expanse.

(Just in typing that sentence, the forum software changed “sci-fi” to “sl if”)

“Sybok” is an obscure Star Trek character from the fifth movie.

Is there some sort of background processing trying to match typing to what it thinks the topics of the threads are? It just seemed odd that it took a perfectly normal word spelled properly and turned it into the proper spelling of a fictional character who happens to have a made-up/non-English name.

This as well as this...

I’ve experienced this on my iPhone and it’s much more aggressive/quick to change text than my phone’s autocorrect normally is in other contexts.

...are especially intriguing because Xenforo does not have any native autocorrect functionality - it only allows the software from the device to operate in it's text fields. I can't find any open or closed bug reports related to Xenforo and autocorrect either.

For most of these very strange scenarios with no documented history we're going to mostly hope that when we upgrade Xenforo and all related components to their current versions in the near future that we'll see these oddities disappear. If we don't see improvements in some areas then we can revisit them or at least have the option to open support tickets.

 

[DaveF]

Apple’s iOS and iPadOS autocorrect isn’t perfect — even the improved version with last year’s updates have quirks. But this behavior of randomly changing and rearranging and deleting text, I see in no other text editor or messages app.

If I can figure out how to do screen capturing, I’ll try to record it sometime. But it’s unpredictable. This post, no problems typing. But posting last night, I lost a paragraph and had to start all over.

 

[EricSchulz]

This also happens to me when using my iPad! I see there’s an update to “correct minor issues“ so hopefully tomorrow it’s fixed!
()

 

[andrew]

Apple’s iOS and iPadOS autocorrect isn’t perfect — even the improved version with last year’s updates have quirks. But this behavior of randomly changing and rearranging and deleting text, I see in no other text editor or messages app.

If I can figure out how to do screen capturing, I’ll try to record it sometime. But it’s unpredictable. This post, no problems typing. But posting last night, I lost a paragraph and had to start all over.

Given the incredibly weird quirks and issues I've seen on Xenforo since I got here I have no problem believing there is a negative interaction between some of the forum software and Apple products. It does seem to be exclusively Apple for these types of issues which is interesting. I've not had any issues on two different Macbook Pros, an older Pre-M chip model and a brand new M3 Pro. However, I'm never on anything handheld and it seems like it's also mainly iPhones and iPads.

We're on a reasonably antiquated version as well that does not still have support from Xenforo, it's also not the most current version of PHP so there's a lot of opportunity for unusual issues and quite a few plugins that are unable to update to their current versions due to that. We do have it planned to upgrade everything, ideally in this first quarter of 2024 if we can, it's just a massive undertaking (Xenforo, PHP, and Wordpress all need to be updated simultaneously)