Investigation report · Ticket z94amct34x · 6 November 2026

Card search: typing stops after picking a card

Why the search box stops accepting input on iPhone, whether it can be improved, and how to test it.

What the client's recording shows

The recording is 18 seconds long, on an iPhone, version v1.9.0. The user types か and taps a card, over and over.

The ticket says "card number", but this recording shows kana being typed. Number entry may behave differently, because the workaround is skipped when plain digits are typed. It is included in the test steps below.

What we measured

We tapped the real on-screen Japanese keyboard in an iOS 27 simulator. The test page used the real search box code with sample data, not the full live site.

Run	After first pick	Later picks measured
1	Stopped	6 of 6 worked
2	Stopped	6 of 6 worked
3	Stopped	6 of 6 worked

While frozen, the page still reported the search box as focused, yet three key presses produced no input at all. Tapping the box again fixed it every time.

Limits of this test

• The search box version running on iPhone was not measured. These runs used CardSelectLegacy. Production very likely uses CardSelectIOS (see the technical notes). All three runs on that version failed because our test tool could not complete a pick, so they say nothing about the product. Both versions share the same workaround.
• The pattern differs. The simulator stopped on pick 1. The client's phone stopped on picks 3 and 5. So we reproduced the failure, but not when it happens.
• Results come from one iOS 27 simulator and three runs. They do not give a real-world failure rate.

Why it happens

1. Japanese text is unconfirmed while it is being typed. iOS keeps a private connection between the keyboard and the box during that time.
2. Picking a card clears the box while that connection is still open.
3. To recover, our code moves the cursor to a hidden box and back. This keeps the keyboard open, which the client asked for in July.
4. That usually works. When it doesn't, the page has no way of knowing: the box looks fine, and the keyboard is up but feeding nothing.
5. A real finger tap rebuilds the connection. Code cannot do this by refocusing a box that already has focus.

Why it may feel worse

None of these is proven.

Options

Results below come from the June to August work on real iPhones. Nothing here was retested for this report.

Recommended next step: test option 1 in the simulator, including the iOS search box version, then on a real iPhone. If it fails, the remaining paths are all trade-offs: accept the current behaviour, or ask the client to reconsider option 2 or 3, or choose option 6. The earlier rejections were made before the client reported this as getting worse, so they may be worth asking about again.

How to test

Before you start

• A real iPhone with the Japanese Kana keyboard, logged in to an account that can use the card search.
• Choose a game and 弾, on the カード名検索 screen.

Steps

1. Tap the search box. Expected: the keyboard opens and the card list appears.
2. Type か. Do not press 確定. Expected: the list narrows to matching cards.
3. Tap a card. Expected: a chip appears, the box empties and the keyboard stays open.
4. Without tapping the box, type か again. Expected: the text appears. If it does not, input has stopped.
5. If input stopped, write down the pick number. Close the keyboard, tap the box and continue. Expected: typing works again.
6. Repeat until you have made 10 picks.
7. Do three rounds. Reload the page between rounds.
8. Repeat with card numbers typed on the number keys.

Please record

The same phone on production, beta and staging would be the most useful comparison. A failing pick number that always adds a new chip row would support the "box moves down" explanation.

Questions for the client

1. Which iPhone model and iOS version do you use, and did either change recently?
2. Do you use Safari or the home screen app?
3. Does it also stop when typing numbers only?
4. If the freeze cannot be removed any other way, which is more acceptable: the keyboard closing after each pick, or typed text staying in the box after a pick?

Technical notes

click        target=option   chips 0 → 1
focusout     search box
focusin      hidden box
focusout     hidden box      (next frame, 25–33 ms)
focusin      search box      activeElement = search box
key × 3      no beforeinput, compositionstart or input on any element