Gutenberg: White Screen When Editing Page on Safari

[sdixon194]

Describe the bug

A user who is testing Gutenberg found that when selecting posts or pages within wp-admin would frequently result in a white screen only when using Safari.

I was unable to reproduce on a test site, but when SSP'd as user I could reproduce sporadically. Sometimes clicking on the same page would load the editor properly, other times it would never load.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to wp-admin in Safari. Select Posts or Pages
2. Click on any post or page
3. See a white screen

Expected behavior The editor to open as usual.

Screenshots Here's a gif of the issue. You can see it works properly the first four or five times, then all of a sudden I get a white screen:

https://cld.wthms.co/GRSo7h

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: High Sierra
• Browser: Safari
• Version: 11.1.1

Site: https://smrllc.com SA: https://wordpress.com/wp-admin/network/admin.php?page=store-admin&action=search&username=luciddigitaldesigns Ticket: #1416133-zen

[eurello]

Same exact thing reported here, except it's a "post not found" issue in Preview. Also only in Safari, and also we can only reproduce sporadically. Clearing cookies temporarily fixes it, but then it recurs again.

The user includes a video: https://cloudup.com/cY39bBlv0Qm

Site: https://photographworks.me/ Ticket: https://woothemes.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/1455169

[mkaz]

I've not been able to duplicate, but that's the problem with intermittent issues. I'll transfer it over to wp-calypso in case it continues to appear.

[AMcGrady]

Same thing is happening here and here: Sites: teekaysite.com teekaysite.com

Without the Classic Editor enabled the Page/Post editor will only load a white screen. This is true for both Calypso and wp-admin in Safari.

[yashitamittal11]

This issue is reported by another user. They see a white screen on editing post on the Safari but everything works fine on Chrome browser.

Site: brittanyknows.com Ticket- https://woothemes.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/2039353

[sophiegyo]

To add to @AMcGrady's comment above, the user confirmed their version of Safari and macOS: Safari is Version 12.1.1 (14607.2.6.1.1), macOS 10.14.5

I have the same and wasn't able to replicate the issue, but that could be due to my being proxied.

[kcswong]

Another report in 13136535-hc. Site: allcomplianceservices.com

Safari is updated to 11.1.2

Screenshot: https://snag.gy/QEdvzX.jpg

[galakhyati]

To add to @AMcGrady's comment above user has sought for an update as it has been 3 weeks and there has been no progress on the issue.

They have now started to think to move to some other platform as they aren't getting any service for the price paid (Business plan on 2 sites av-profi.com and teekaysite.com)

I have asked them to give us a couple of more days to investigate on this and share an update soon.

Also, they aren't able to use block editor on Chrome which they were able to use for a few days. They have already tried clearing cache a lot of times already.

Chat: 13061646-hc

[julsyd]

Another report of this in 2101760-zen.

[Robertght]

Another report in 14082805-hc.

[thesacredpath]

Report here as well, that was originally P2'd. 2281592-zen

[nagpai]

I suggest asking users to send us their browser details via

https://whatismybrowser.com >> Click the 'Copy to clipboard' link and share with us.

This will help us the browser version and if cookies are blocked.

In at least four cases i found either the browser was not updated, or third party cookies were disabled. @yashitamittal11 pointed out that this happens when the option - Prevent cross-site tracking is enabled in Safari as well. I was able to replicate the cookies showing as blocked when i enable that.

[happychait]

4815020-hc

[KristinaKay]

Another report: #15581599-hc

Gutenberg loads in WP-Admin but not in Calypso in Safari.

[tanjoymor]

Another report: #17700796-hc (ongoing interaction spread over several chats - this was the last one)

Gutenberg loads in WP-Admin but not in Calypso in Safari.

[happychait]

Another report in 8475726-hc

Browser info: https://whatsmybrowser.org/b/7QUGJCL

[ktyfuller604]

Another report - #17752347-hc

User Agent:Safari 13.0 on Mac OS X 10.13.6

Worked in Chrome.

[charliescheer]

2618778-zen

"I’m using Safari 13.0.4 on Mac OS Catalina 10.15.2."

Worked in Chrome

[kcswong]

17701946-hc

Using Safari 13.0.4, they're going to work in WP Admin as they're able to open editor there

[mrfoxtalbot]

16980631-hc

Using Safari/605.1.15

[pauljacobson]

I have this issue in 14968812-hc where the user shared this screenshot:

The user is using Safari 13.0.3 on macOS 10.14.6

[alaczek]

Customer with the same issue. We tried starting the editor through "Write" button, "Add new Post" from Posts page in Calypso, and wp-admin. Nothing worked.

18440329-hc and 2691747-zen follow up.

Safari 12.1 on Mac OS X 10.14.6

[SiobhyB]

Another report of this in 18540700-hc. They're using Safari 13.0.5 and are able to access the editor if they uncheck the "prevent cross-site tracking" option. This is also only an issue on a site with a custom domain. They're able to access the editor on their other site, without a custom domain.

[joweber123]

Another report here 2718900-zen. The user is able to access pages/posts normally in Safari via wp-admin.

[andreabadgley]

Another report in 18776479-hc. They switched to Chrome instead.

[krutidugade]

Another report here #19697113-hc Browser: Safari Device: iPad

[kcswong]

Another report in 13840409-hc. Using 13.1, having the issue in Calypso and WP Admin. They turned off "prevent cross-site tracking" in Preferences > Privacy and that helped.

[happychait]

Another report in 20328601-hc

[donalirl]

20486241-hc

[happychait]

21297109-hc

[sarahcada]

3018829-zen

Having the issue in Calypso but okay in WP Admin. They turned off "prevent cross-site tracking" in Preferences > Privacy and that helped.

[sophiegyo]

Another issue in 21531520-hc, using Safari on iPad.

From what I could see in that instance, it kicked in when the site went AT. I asked the user to switch off prevent cross-site tracking, but it's not clear if they did so or not. Either way, they reported issues with even loading wp-admin while I think cross-site tracking prevention was an issue, there may be something else up with their iPad.

[simison]

Having the issue in Calypso but okay in WP Admin. They turned off "prevent cross-site tracking" in Preferences > Privacy and that helped.

cc @lsl @josephscott @jsnajdr @gravityrail The original issue description is quite generic so this probably captures a variety of bugs, but otherwise this all sounds like cookie issues. Would you like to track this issue or is it better to close it?

[gravityrail]

@jsnajdr could you take a look at this?

[simison]

Could be the same: https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/49374 because of:

Prereq. on FIrefox, enable Enhanced Tracking Protection.

[JoshuaGoode]

Encountered on 29659925-hc (Simple site)

Other recent reports (last 3 days) that reported this exactly or experienced issues related to accessing the editor while cross-site tracking is enabled: 13415647-hc (Simple) 29592393-hc (Simple) 4756533-hc (Atomic) 4809641-hc (Simple) 29643305-hc (Simple) 24473371-hc (Simple) 29192003-hc (Atomic)

[donalirl]

Encountered in #3994074-zen on a simple site. macOS Big Sur and Safari 14.1.

[kwight]

@niranjan-uma-shankar Would your pod be able to take a look and see if this is third-party cookies related?

[JoshuaGoode]

👋 @kwight We've got it on our radar. https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/projects/111#card-61239424

[donalirl]

8238506-hc

[happychait]

29896666-hc

Disabling "Prevent cross-site tracking" helped as a workaround.

[tanjoymor]

Another case: 4640124-hc

Disabling "Prevent cross-site tracking" helped as a workaround.

[jsnajdr]

For @JoshuaGoode and other reporters sharing customer chats: I wasn't able to reproduce the white screen issue. And the known information is very vague: basically it can happen on any site at any time. Especially on Simple sites, there shouldn't be any 3rd party cookie issue, as everything is loaded from a wordpress.com domain or subdomain.

One thing that would help tremendously would be looking at the browser console when this happens. There is going to be some fatal error reported there. Gathering that info and reporting it would move us forward very quickly on this issue.

[metabreakr]

4080334-zen

Suggested that the user disable cross-site tracking.

[donalirl]

4097016-zen

[lsl]

This original issue and many of the reports are most likely a dupe of another issue and have already been fixed by one of the following:

• https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/pull/36977
• https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/pull/43248
• https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/pull/44086
• https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/pull/16167

From the more recent reports its clear there is still an ongoing issue but without screenshots its hard to classify the many reports between this issue and #53100, so I'm closing this issue and directing further reports to that issue instead:

• https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/53100.

Please also attempt to either gather screenshots or at least discern what "blank / white screen" means in more detail as there are a number of reports in both these issues that are experiencing different failure modes.

• Blank white screen with nothing whatsoever
• Blank white screen with the placeholder for the editor that shows while it is loading
• Blank white screen with pulsating dot in the middle at the top of the page

Url's and console logs would also be useful if you have them.

[simison]

Safari versions might be important as well to add if possible. Safari 13.x, 14.0, and 14.1 can behave quite differently.

[lsl]

Browser info is always useful, there was a significant bug in Safari < 13, anything >= 13 should be ok in relation to the third party cookies and the samesite setting bug.

Whether the user has "Prevent cross-site tracking" enabled is also a useful datapoint. I've seen one report where the user already had this setting disabled and still got hit with a whitescreen.