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   Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:50 JST Jamie Teh

   in reply to

   • Amir
   • NV Access
   • Nikola Jović

   @NikJov @amir @NVAccess Right, so equivalent to my try build in this respect, freezes and inconsistent suggestion reading aside?

   • Embed this notice
     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:50 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access
     • Nikola Jović

     @jcsteh Exactly so. Your build really fixes the virtual navigation issue there.
     @NikJov @NVAccess

   • Embed this notice
     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:51 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access
     • Nikola Jović

     @jcsteh JAWS 2025 enters Virtual navigation mode only if Up arrow is pressed in the highlighted results, or if we press the Down arrow to move past the last result. Virtual navigation doesn't appear randomly/ unexpectedly at all.
     @NikJov @NVAccess

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     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:52 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access
     • Nikola Jović

     @amir @NikJov @NVAccess Do you know if JAWS ever enters virtual PC cursor (roughly equivalent to browse mode) in the Start Menu? Or does it rely entirely on Start menu keyboard navigation?

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     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:53 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access
     • Nikola Jović

     @amir @NikJov @NVAccess Wow. The accessibility tree in the Start Menu is really screwed up. It'd be nice if Microsoft could use their own APIs properly for a change. Makes this even harder to investigate.

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:53 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access
     • Nikola Jović

     @jcsteh Thanks for taking a closer look at this. I just tested the experimental build, and provided feedback and a log file on Github. Basically the try build also produces the issues, and the freeze is also there. My log captures both.
     @NikJov @NVAccess

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     Nikola Jović (nikjov@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:55 JST Nikola Jović

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @amir @jcsteh @NVAccess With Jaws, if I go to the start menu, make some search, and press Escape, the start menu doesn't close. I have to escape once more to close it, so maybe it is a hack after all? I admit though that I use Jaws only for testing, so it's entirely possible I missed something, and would be happy to be corrected.

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:55 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access
     • Nikola Jović

     @NikJov Exactly. With JAWS 2025, the first Press of Escape clears the edit box, and the second Escape closes the Start menu. It's far more tolerable than the NVDA status quo where either the Browse mode gets activated, no highlighted result is read, or worse, a freeze might occur if Tab is pressed rapidly.
     @jcsteh @NVAccess

   • Embed this notice
     Nikola Jović (nikjov@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:56 JST Nikola Jović

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @amir @jcsteh @NVAccess Yeah, this issue is highly random for me. 3 days ago I tried more than 10 times and couldn't reproduce it, today it happened on the first try. The thing is that even though I reproduce it, I don't get any freezes, just NVDA going into browse mode, which it shouldn't do. Exiting the start menu and repeating the same steps, the issue doesn't reproduce anymore. Very odd.

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:56 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access
     • Nikola Jović

     @NikJov And apart from going into Browse mode - which happens quite frequently for me, here NVDA frequently fails to read the highlighted item as I keep typing into the Search box - issues not affecting JAWS 2025 at all.
     @jcsteh @NVAccess

   • Embed this notice
     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:58 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @NVAccess @amir To make matters even more interesting, going back to your original issue, I can't even reproduce it, and I tried pretty hard. If that's true for any other dev, that's going to make diagnosing and working around this near impossible.

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:58 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access

     @jcsteh Interesting. I can consistently duplicate it on more than 3 Windows 11 machines, and I know a very good number of people who have the very same issue. And if it has been fixed by JFW devs it means that it can be chased.
     @NVAccess

   • Embed this notice
     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:39:59 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @NVAccess @amir Yes, it has. Limited resources will always result in something taking a back seat, especially where there are contractual obligations involved. Something always has to give. There's no other way to slice this.

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     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:00 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @NVAccess @amir We'd all probably agree more full time devs would be a good thing. We have worked very hard to make our current level of funding more sustainable, as well as securing additional funds. Hiring full time devs means being able to guarantee employment, which is a very serious commitment, and also training those devs. What you're saying isn't untrue, but the way you're saying it suggests that you perhaps underestimate our awareness of the need for more resources or the constant work that goes into exactly that problem behind the scenes.

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:00 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access

     @jcsteh Not at all. I've never intended to underestimate your awareness of the need for more resources. However, I've been meaning to say that your resource allocation given the limited full-time dev availability, no matter what is behind it, has resulted in some areas taking a back-seat position.
     @NVAccess

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:01 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access

     @jcsteh Ah, no, it wasn't about priorities, but the topic shifted to that. I meant the original topic, and the issue being discussed, was clear enough. I meant like many P2 to P5 issues, this one is also being sort of dumped by NVAccess. And whatever the legal or financial hurdle is, it's negatively affecting NVDA in today's environment where attention to a whole host of apps and environments cannot, and should not, be handled by just a couple of full-time employed devs.
     @NVAccess

   • Embed this notice
     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:02 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @NVAccess @amir I did look at your original message multiple times and I still see nothing about priority, just about history repeating itself and effectively beingtold to live with it. Maybe there's a separate post that I can't see for some reason. At any rate, even putting aside legal concerns, hiring more devs would require significant additional funding, which takes us back to the challenges of managing additional funding obligations.

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     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:03 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @NVAccess @amir No insider knowledge. However, at least one other user reports that this same bug occurs with Narrator, even though your own experience seems to disagree with that. If that's the case, it's almost certainly a bug in Windows. Working around a bug in the wrong layer is always going to be hacky and brittle to some extent. For want of a better analogy, it's like arguing about reality: Windows says one thing, the screen reader overrides that with its own definition. It's sometimes necessary, of course - far too often honestly - but best avoided.

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:03 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access

     @jcsteh Very much appreciated. I’d gently say my original comments did address the main issues discussed. That said, I completely understand the challenge of balancing user groups and funder obligations. Still, this current prioritization means NVDA 2025.1 is landing more like a delayed 2025.2, and the heavy focus on Remote has come at the cost of more frequent glitches and lingering unresolved issues. It’s becoming increasingly clear that NVAccess needs a couple more full-time devs. If contributors from around the world can financially support NVDA, there must be a way to work around the employment limitations under Australian law. NVDA is global now, so its development model should reflect that if it’s to thrive.
     @NVAccess

   • Embed this notice
     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:04 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access

     @jcsteh And how can you be sure that Freedom Scientific has fixed the Start menu issue by a hack? Are you sure it's not a full-fledged fix? The way you insist on calling it a "hack" means perhaps you have some insider knowledge.
     @NVAccess

   • Embed this notice
     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:05 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @NVAccess @amir Are you suggesting screen readers should hack around every problem in every piece of software? Honestly, that's how things used to be done decades ago and it caused a heap of problems. Instead, the vast majority of issues now do actually get fixed in the right place, with much better results overall.

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:06 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access

     @jcsteh Sorry James but, with all respect and I do respect what NVAccess has done, this is a so-called blanket statement. Yes, like every fix or new feature, this JAWS fix might cause issues. NVDA fixes or new features also cause issues. But with this one at least, I've seen no issues with JAWS and the way it properly handles the Start menu. Even if issues arise down the road, I'm positive Freedom Scientific will fix them more quickly. Honestly if I were to ask Microsoft to fix each and every Windows bug, I'd rather ask them to enhance Narrator so as to obviate the need for the likes of JAWS or NVDA.
     @NVAccess

   • Embed this notice
     Jamie Teh (jcsteh@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:07 JST Jamie Teh

     in reply to

     • Amir
     • NV Access

     @amir @NVAccess There is almost always a price somewhere, some time for hacking around bugs in the wrong layer, even if that's as simple as months spent figuring out a workaround which means months spent not being able to work on higher priority bugs. Maybe JAWS hacked around this one, but maybe it causes some other bug you hate down the line. You're assuming Microsoft won't address this, but pressure on them from many different angles sometimes does work, albeit less often than we'd all like. Still, it is always worth trying that approach first. Hacking around the bug still remains a last resort if Microsoft absolutely refuse to address it going forward.

   • Embed this notice
     NV Access (nvaccess@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:08 JST NV Access

     in reply to

     • Amir

     @amir Do you mean my encouraging Sarah to share the link to the Microsoft issue when it's their bug? Just because something is noticeable using a screen reader does not make it a screen reader bug... Sometimes we can work around OS bugs, sure, but in the vast majority of cases, it is better - for everyone - if Microsoft fix bugs in Windows and we concentrate on fixing bugs in NVDA (you can't complain we aren't fixing NVDA issues and then complain we're not also fixing WIndows bugs surely?)

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     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:08 JST Amir

     in reply to

     • NV Access

     @NVAccess No, I mean seanbudd's new comment, encouraging users to ask Microsoft for a fix. I understand your mindset, and even grasp it from the perspective of an open-source screen reader dev or manager. However, the reality is far bleaker than that, and OS bugs, like the ones affecting the Start menu now, are sometimes more serious to be handed over to Microsoft's whim. I'm just glad JAWS developers haven't followed this line of thinking.

   • Embed this notice
     Amir (amir@tweesecake.social)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jun-2025 16:40:09 JST Amir

     • NV Access

     Like many access issues affecting NVDA, history repeats itself. NVAccess just told us to essentially live with the freezing and search results reading issues affecting the Start menu on Windows 11 24H2. They requested that we ask Microsoft to fix the issues, which essentially means coming to terms and living with the glitches. FYI JAWS devs fixed them for their users some months ago.
     https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/17951
     @NVAccess