Clippings no longer working with Twitter (X)

[kstev99]

I always relied on clippings to post Hashtags# or comments in twitter. Recently if I try to create a post or comment on an existing one, the text is not recognized and the SUBMIT button never becomes functional. If I type some text before inserting the clipping, then the post can be submitted, but ONLY the typed text is sent and the clipping in ignored.

This began a few weeks ago, and I'm not sure if it is attributed to the most recent FIREFOX version (122.01) with Twitter itself, or the clippings add-on but something has changed. The problem also occurs on Librewolf browser, a fork of Firefox

[aecreations]

I was able to reproduce this issue on Twitter/X using an older version of Firefox (102.15.1 ESR). It appears that, like many websites, they're now blocking mass pasting of text.

I'll look into this further -- but for now, a workaround is to copy the content of the desired clipping from Clippings Manager (select the text and press CTRL+C) and then paste it into the tweet composer. An enhancement is planned in a future version of Clippings to make this workaround a bit easier.

[kstev99]

Thanks, that's what I have been doing, copying the text from the Clippings manager

[aecreations]

I've confirmed that this is due to a change that was made in Clippings 6.5.2.1, where the DOM Range API is used to insert a clipping into an HTML editor. Previously, HTML-formatted clippings were inserted by making a call to document.execCommand("insertHTML", ...), which is considered deprecated (issue #436).

While this was tested on various HTML editors (TinyMCE, Gmail email composer, Yahoo! Mail composer), Twitter/X was missed. A minor update to fix this issue with Twitter is coming shortly.

The good news is that I kept the old code for pasting HTML-formatted clippings. Until the minor update of Clippings is released, do the following to revert to the old document.insertHTML() method:

1. Open a new browser tab and go to about:debugging
2. On the left sidebar, click "This Firefox"
3. Under Extensions, locate Clippings in the list, and click Inspect to open Developer Tools
4. Click the Storage tab, then expand Extension Storage
5. Scroll to the bottom of the list and look for the key useInsertHTMLCmd. Set the value to true
6. Return to the browser tab with the tweet composer, then reload the page and try pasting the clipping again.

[kstev99]

Thank you! Changing useInsertHTMLCmd to true worked for me in FF 122.01. Thanks for the detailed instructions.

[aecreations]

Fixed in 6.5.2.2

[kstev99]

This fixed the problem for a while, but now on Firefox 124.02 it seems to be broken again. The copy and paste method works of course but clippings generates an error in "X". Do I need to change the value of useInsertHTMLCmd back to FALSE ?

[aecreations]

I'm unable to reproduce the problem - no error appears in Twitter/X, and the clipping is successfully inserted into the tweet composer. I'm using Clippings 6.5.3 on Firefox 124.0.2 on macOS 12.7.4 Monterey.

In Clippings 6.5.2.2 and newer, the document.execCommand("insertHTML", ...) API is always used to insert the clipping in the tweet composer on twitter.com (or x.com), regardless of the "useInsertHTMLCmd" setting.

[kstev99]

I should have mentioned that I was on the same, Firefox 124.02, clippings 6.5.3, but Windows 11
I just tried it again and ecery time that I try inserting a clipping on Twitter/X I get the error message:

Something Went Wrong. Try Reloading

[aecreations]

I don't have access to a PC with Windows 11, but I tried to reproduce the issue you described on Windows 10 and the same version of Firefox. Again, I'm unable to.

Do you have other Firefox extensions installed that might be interfering with Clippings?

Another possibility: You could be getting another version of the Twitter/X web UI - perhaps they're doing an A/B test on their users?

[kstev99]

I have too many Firefox extensions to list, I started disabling them one at a time and restarting, but gave up. Then I realized that I also have LibreWolf browser 124.01-1 installed (portable). If you're not familiar, it is a fork of Firefox browser with (supposedly) security and speed improvements. I believe the current is based on FF 124.01. I had a few extensions, and disabled ALL except for clippings. Logged into twiiter/x and same problem. "Something went wrong"
I also backed up my clippings, uninstalled clippings and reinstalled.

That leaves me wondering if it is something with my Windows 11 version. I am on Windows Insider 23H2 (OS Build 22635.3430)

[aecreations]

I've installed LibreWolf 124.0.1-1 on my Windows 10 PC and then added Clippings 6.5.3. Again, I'm unable to reproduce the Twitter/X error you described when the clipping was inserted. The clipping was successfully inserted without any error messages appearing:

I've tried inserting using the Clippings context menu, as well as the keyboard (press the default shortcut ALT+SHIFT+Y, then either press the assigned key or hit TAB and look up the clipping by name). In all cases, I was able to successfully insert the clipping.

One more thing I would suggest for further troubleshooting is to create a brand new Twitter account and see if you get the same error when attempting to paste a clipping into the tweet composer when logged in to that new account.

[kstev99]

That worked ! I have more than one twitter account and the other 2 accounts are not affected.

A couple of weeks ago (about when this problem started) Twitter issued a free upgrade from Basic to Elevated, or whatever it's called, to users with over 5000 followers. My main twitter account was the only one qualified for upgrade and the only one with the problem.

I can't test this because I only have ONE account that was bumped up. Thanks for your help.