Text Selection Bug in HTML Messages on Android

[sheldonbob]

Text Selection Bug in HTML Messages on Android

Description

Text selection functionality in HTML messages is broken on the TUTA Mobile Android client. When attempting to select text (such as phone numbers, links, or confirmation codes), the text selection handles appear briefly but immediately disappear, making it impossible to copy text from messages.

Environment

• Platform: Android
• App: TUTA Mobile Client
• Affected Devices:
  • Motorola (Moto line)
  • Samsung Galaxy
• Message Type: HTML messages

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open TUTA Mobile app on Android
2. Open an HTML message containing copyable text (e.g., phone numbers, links, or plain text)
3. Long press on any text to initiate text selection
4. Attempt to select specific text

Current Behavior

• Text selection handles appear momentarily
• Selection handles immediately disappear, seemingly programmatically dismissed
• Unable to complete text selection
• Cannot copy text from messages

Expected Behavior

• Text selection handles should appear and remain visible
• User should be able to adjust selection handles to select desired text
• Copy/paste menu should appear and remain functional
• Selected text should be copyable to clipboard

Impact

This bug significantly impacts user experience and workflow:

• Unable to copy important information (phone numbers, links, confirmation codes, etc.)
• Forces users to resort to workarounds:
  • Taking screenshots and manually retyping information
  • Taking screenshots and using AI tools to extract text
  • These workarounds are time-consuming and potentially error-prone

Frequency

• Does not occur 100% of the time
• Happens in most attempts to select text in HTML messages

Additional Notes

• Issue appears to be specific to HTML messages
• Bug manifests consistently across different Android device manufacturers
• Normal Android text selection functionality works in other apps, suggesting this is specific to the TUTA Mobile client

Workarounds

Currently, users must:

1. Take screenshots of needed information
2. Either manually retype the information or
3. Use external tools to extract text from screenshots

[brookzee]

As another workaround sometimes when other apps do this, or simply block C&P functionality, you can go to the expanded recent apps view and sometimes copy and paste the text from there with varying degrees of accuracy. NOTE: Have not experienced this on Android 14 latest build.