Fixing the echo word issue with Orca in Mozilla Thunderbird
As a blind Linux user relying on Orca, I’ve encountered a frustrating issue with Mozilla applications packaged as Snaps, particularly Thunderbird. While Orca often works seamlessly in other applications, the Snap versions of Mozilla software present a significant accessibility hurdle. The problem? Word echo frequently fails, rendering the experience frustrating, at best.
Let me illustrate with a common scenario: I’m in Thunderbird, trying to compose an email. I have word echo enabled in Orca, expecting to hear each word spoken as I type each word followed by the spacebar. However, instead of the expected feedback, silence. Orca seems completely unresponsive, despite being correctly configured within its settings. It’s as if the keystrokes are disappearing into a void.
The root of the issue, as far as I can determine, lies in how Orca interacts with these Snap-packaged applications. Orca word echo relies on receiving specific events, such as word delimiter events, to understand the text being entered. In the case of Thunderbird (and other Snap-packaged Mozilla apps), these events often fail to reach Orca. The result is that Orca doesn’t “see” the key input, and therefore cannot provide the necessary feedback.
My current theory, though not definitively proven, points to Snap’s sandboxing as a potential culprit. Snaps are designed to run in a confined environment, isolated from the rest of the system. This sandboxing might be interfering with Orca’s ability to communicate with the Snap version of Thunderbird, preventing the necessary events from being passed along. It’s important to emphasize that this is a working theory, and further investigation is needed to confirm the exact cause. However, until a better explanation arises, this seems to be the most likely reason.
The problem is, on most modern Debian based systems like Ubuntu, Mozilla, by default, installs the Snap version of Thunderbird, even if you use apt to get the package. If you don’t have snap installed, well, tough! It will install it as a dependency.
Below, I will include the steps on a Debian-based system such as Debian, Ubuntu, etcetera to properly remove the Snap version of Thunderbird and install the version from the official Mozilla PPA. This should resolve the Orca issues. Please be aware that this process will revert any custom settings you have made to Thunderbird. It is crucial to back up your Thunderbird profiles before proceeding if you wish to preserve these settings. I wouldn’t normally advise doing this, but in this case, it’s the only way so far I’ve been able to hack around this problem. Note that this bug has been reported to Joni on the Github page, so she is definitely aware of it. There isn’t however much she can do at this given time given the unique criteria causing this problem in the first place.
You can follow these steps if you want to try fixing this problem. Note that while this worked on my end, I can’t be held responsible for any data loss or strange behavior on your system, if something goes awri. I’m giving you these instructions with the understanding that they worked for me, but you do this at your own risk.
First, add the PPA by Mozilla Team.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
Then, copy and paste the following code in a terminal in one go (don’t copy-paste line by line) to prioritize the apt version of thunderbird over the snap version.
echo ‘
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001
Package: thunderbird
Pin: version 2:1snap*
Pin-Priority: -1
‘ | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/thunderbird
Next, remove the snap version of thunderbird.
sudo snap remove thunderbird
Install Thunderbird with apt.
sudo apt install thunderbird
To ensure that unattended upgrades do not reinstall the snap version of Thunderbird, enter the following command.
echo ‘Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins:: “LP-PPA-mozillateam:${distro_codename}”;’ | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/51unattended-upgrades-thunderbird
To undo these changes
Remove the PPA.
sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:mozillateam/ppa
Remove the apt pin.
sudo rm -rf /etc/apt/preferences.d/thunderbird
Remove the apt version and reinstall the snap one.
sudo apt remove thunderbird && sudo snap install thunderbird
Again, I want to re-emphesize that you soly do this at your own disgression/risk.