[German]It is reported, that Mozilla had to stop the rollout of the newly released Firefox 66 browser. The reason is an incompatibility with Microsoft PowerPoint Online.
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Firefox 66 was released on March 19, 2019 as a maintenance update which adds new features like the Auto-Play-Stopper for videos. An update is also recommended, since this version closes 20 vulnerabilities – partly classified as critical,.
Rollout stopped due to PowerPoint bug
Now the Mozilla developers had to halt the rollout. There is a bug report on Bugzilla that deals with a major issue with Microsoft Power Point Online. Any computer (Mac or PC) that has been updated to the latest Firefox 66 can no longer be used with Microsoft Power Point Online. If you log in to Office 365 or Office Online, you can access PowerPoint Online.
But if you type a text in the fields of a slide, the text in the fields disappears automatically after pressing the input key. You cannot add text to text fields. I tested it with PowerPoint Online. As soon as I press the Enter key to complete the text entered in the image above, an empty field is displayed. It's even enough to resize the browser window to make the text disappear. In addition, the content is not included in the slide overview on the left.
A fix and a workaround
Mozilla is currently testing a fix in its Firefox Nightly Builds. Until this fix is released, the developers have stopped the rollout. Once the fix has been properly tested, Mozilla will distribute it via Auto-Update.
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Mozilla already released Firefox 66.0.1 on March 22, 2019 – but this doesn't fix this issue.
Anyone who has already updated Firefox to version 66 or installed the new browser, but dependents on PowerPoint Online, can use a workaround. Enter about:config in the address bar of your browser and confirm the Firefox notification, that you are aware of the risks. Then search for:
dom.keyboardevent.keypress.hack.use_legacy_keycode_and_charcode
and select the entry by double-clicking it. Then enter the value powerpoint.officeapps.live.com in the displayed text box.
Techdows write 'You can then reload the PowerPoint tab for change take effect.' But it didn't work in my test – I had to restart Firefox completely. Maybe it will help you.
