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Cannot copy expanded comments on stackexchange type webpages.

  • 6 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 17 views
  • Last reply by 1of7

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Cannot copy expanded comments on stackexchange type webpages. To repeat the condtions: open firefox ( also happens with --safe-mode in either reset or no addons mode) open example site: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/2501/how-can-i-set-default-font-in-emacs search for "show 6 more comments" expand the 6 comments select the 6 comments and copy ( using Ctl-c, Edit-Copy, or mouse-right-click-Copy) open a text editor A paste of copied text into text editor will not show any text. NOTE: Removing page style (View, Page Style, No Style) makes the text available for copying. It appears that firefox cannot pick up some elements in a webpage basic style, effectively excluding the associated text.

Cannot copy expanded comments on stackexchange type webpages. To repeat the condtions: open firefox ( also happens with --safe-mode in either reset or no addons mode) open example site: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/2501/how-can-i-set-default-font-in-emacs search for "show 6 more comments" expand the 6 comments select the 6 comments and copy ( using Ctl-c, Edit-Copy, or mouse-right-click-Copy) open a text editor A paste of copied text into text editor will not show any text. NOTE: Removing page style (View, Page Style, No Style) makes the text available for copying. It appears that firefox cannot pick up some elements in a webpage basic style, effectively excluding the associated text.

Chosen solution

I don't have ESR, so I can't replicate that.

Is this problem limited to the dynamically inserted comments? When I look at the page inspector (attached), they look identical in structure to the static comments, so it's hard to understand why they would be uncopyable if the others are copyable.

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Have no issue with the link provided and the comments are expanded already. Did drag copy and pasted to notepad without issue.

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Congrats! What version of Firefox and Linux were you using to get this result? If you're using Linux, were you using xfce?

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Chosen Solution

I don't have ESR, so I can't replicate that.

Is this problem limited to the dynamically inserted comments? When I look at the page inspector (attached), they look identical in structure to the static comments, so it's hard to understand why they would be uncopyable if the others are copyable.

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Apparently this is an issue with the mozilla-firefox-60.6.1esr-x86_64-1 version, provided with Slackware current updates. Removing this version and installing to mozilla-firefox-66.0.2-x86_64-1 resolved the issue. My take-away with this is that distro term 'current' is not what was expected. Apparently 'current' is what the maintainers currently have available. Your good perception in noting that your version was not an 'esr' triggered the path to resolving the issue. Thanks. Many times the responses are simply 'it works for me' which do not help very much at all. Just a little more info can make a world of difference.

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Thanks for the update.

Customized distributions may also have extra extensions and settings tweaks, so it could be difficult to track down exactly what was causing the problem.

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Agreed. Resolving these issues can take qutie a bit of effort, especially without intimate knowledge of the nuances of that version. This issue could have been how the esr version handled style sheets, but like so many guesses, this could have led to many hours of 'learning' only to find out it is something else. I'll hit the 'easy' button this time.