Mac app: Crashes in editor

Ridwan-lane

Hi team! App constantly crashes during typing. This bug is observed when pressing up/down/left/right arrow keys or switching between windows on the Mac app. Using Macbook M1 device, Mac Ventura 13.4.

John

Ridwan-lane We are aware of this issue. This is a Mac OS bug. We have contacted Apple related to this issue. The bug is currently identified and analysed by Apple. In the meantime, we are monitoring the progress of the bug fix.

Ridwan-lane

Okay thanks for the update. What is the ETA of the bug fix?

John

We've filed this bug to the Apple Feedback Assistant. Feedback number: FB12113295. If there is any new progress, we will let update this forum thread.

John

Reply from Apple on 2 June 2023:

All those bugs are still understand analysing and no fix is made so far.

Silicon9376

Hello, is this STILL not fixed after 4 months?

John

Silicon9376 This is the latest update on this issue.

Case-ID: 4246671
Hello,
Thanks for your patience while I investigated this issue.

The behavior you describe is not a crash, but a deadlock between UIWebView and UIKit in handling keystrokes. The deadlock is timing-related, so it’s not easy to predict if or when you will encounter it. However, as you said in “Steps to Reproduce”, it’s pretty easy to reproduce in a basic Xcode test project.

According to engineering, this is a known issue with MacCatalyst with no simple fix (and no known workaround). Engineering is working to resolve the issue eventually, but I cannot make any prediction about when a resolution might be available.

The only alternative approach I can suggest, for now, is to avoid the use of MacCatalyst, and to use a regular macOS target instead. SwiftUI is an excellent choice for making a macOS target without having to write AppKit code, and you can embed your WKWebView within a SwiftUI view hierarchy using NSViewControllerRepresentable or NSViewController.

LowSpeedEndos

Since it's been many months since this was reported to Apple, it seems clear that Apple doesn't place much value on fixing the bug in Catalyst. Waiting for Apple seems unlikely to ever see this issue resolved.

Are there any efforts being made in order to provide a reliable editor to Mac users? Or is the plan to wait for Apple to fix their issue?

John

LowSpeedEndos Our plan is to await Apple's resolution of this bug. Building a Mac app from scratch would incur substantial costs and also result in numerous missing functionalities. Moreover, we aim to avoid passing these expenses onto our users.

Currently, we are focused on providing greater value to our users by unlocking additional features in Journey Cloud Sync including end-to-end encryption, shared journals, on-demand sync, video streaming, and more. Additionally, we are actively developing a self-hosted version of Journey Cloud Sync.

If Apple does not fix this bug by early next year, we intend to push for a PWA version of the Journey web app.

JourneyDev

Update: In macOS Sonoma 14.3, the bug appears to be fixed. However, it seems that Apple engineers may have fixed it by conveniently turning off the spell checker and text substitution. Please let us know if you are experiencing the same thing as us.

Silicon9376

The issue is back again. Please take a look if possible.

Journey 5.3.1, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

admin

Silicon9376 We're looking into now. Thanks for letting us know.

admin

Silicon9376 Yes, we have confirmed that this issue is back in Sonoma 14.4.1. We will be filing this bug to Apple again. In the meantime, you can also file this bug to Apple using via Apple bug reporting.

JourneyDev

Update: We received reply from Apple Feedback inferring that it has been fixed on iOS 18 beta 4 or Catalyst 18 running on MacOS 15 beta 4.