Reading mode doesn't work

[kazerniel]

OS/Platform

Windows

Installed

Other (please use 'Additional context' field below to mention how exactly)

Version

129.0.6668.58

Have you tested that this is not an upstream issue or an issue with your configuration?

• I have tried reproducing this issue in Chrome and it could not be reproduced there
• I have tried reproducing this issue in vanilla Chromium and it could not be reproduced there
• I have tried reproducing this issue in ungoogled-chromium with a new and empty profile using --user-data-dir command line argument and it could not be reproduced there

Description

I click the Reading mode menu button and nothing happens.

How to Reproduce?

1. Go to a website with articles that browser reading modes generally support. (I used this URL.)
2. Follow the instructions to use Reading mode by clicking the three-dots menu > More tools > Reading mode.
3. See error (nothing happens).

Actual behaviour

Nothing happens. (Tried on multiple sites with articles that Firefox's reading mode supports.)

Expected behaviour

Reading mode opens.

Relevant log output

No response

Additional context

Updated via Chromium Update Notifier extension

[sanel]

Can confirm the same behavior on 129.0.6668.70 version, Linux, Slackware 15 64bit.

[PF4Public]

Did it work before? At which version did it stop working?

[rany2]

I'm sure it worked on 106.0.5249.119, but that's a very long time ago :')

[kazerniel]

Did it work before? At which version did it stop working?

This was the first time I've tried reading mode in Unloogled Chromium, so no clue sorry 😅

[sanel]

On 126.0.6478.61 version would open Reading Mode window, but will not display anything. On 128.x and 129.x won't even open Reading Mode window.

[PF4Public]

I think it is being removed here:

ungoogled-chromium/patches/core/ungoogled-chromium/fix-building-with-prunned-binaries.patch

Lines 695 to 702 in 477f402

	- // Install ReadAnythingAppController on render frames with the Read Anything
	- // url, which is chrome-untrusted. ReadAnythingAppController installs v8
	- // bindings in the chrome.readingMode namespace which are consumed by
	- // read_anything/app.ts, the resource of the Read Anything WebUI.
	- if (render_frame()->GetWebFrame()->GetDocument().Url() ==
	- chrome::kChromeUIUntrustedReadAnythingSidePanelURL) {
	- ReadAnythingAppController::Install(render_frame());
	- }

as it was depending on some of the pruned binaries from screen-ai.

Unfortunately I'm very limited with Internet access and computing power right now, so cannot tell if/when I could investigate further :(

[kazerniel]

I just realised that there's a separate Windows repository, where someone also opened a ticket: ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-windows#373

[Ahrimdon]

I just realised that there's a separate Windows repository, where someone also opened a ticket: ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-windows#373

Author of the ticket here. Randomly stumbled upon this ticket seeing if there has been any more mention of it, and it's a breath of fresh air to see I'm not the only one disappointed about this broken feature. It appears we are the only two issues across all Chromium repositories that even acknowledge Reading Mode doesn't work. If I recount correctly, it worked just fine up until after release chromium_117.0.5930.0_win32_x64_with_hevc_hw_sw_decode_encode_support or ungoogled-chromium_120.0.6099.71-1.1_installer_x64. I went through and tested each version to see when the feature was "deprecated".

The old reader mode by the flag #enable-reader-mode was much better than Firefox's native reading mode in my humble opinion, especially when combined with the #enable-force-dark flag. It's a shame they (seemingly) intentionally removed it.