Need help confirming IE bug

[widgewunner]

I'm developing a new javascript web application (RegexTidy) and I've run into some strange behavior on IE10. When certain text is pasted into an HTML TEXTAREA textbox, IE (when running in compatibility mode) mysteriously and randomly - (about half the time) changes the text by making a lowercase "i" to be uppercase. I've boiled the problem down to a simple test case which reproduces the problem. Here's the simple code:

Code

<html>
<head><title>Test IE10 paste bug 20140616</title></head>
<body><h1>Test IE10 paste bug 20140616</h1>
<h2>How to reproduce the bug:</h2>
<ol>	<li>Turn on compatibility mode.</li>
	<li>Select the full contents of the textbox below (two lines).</li>
	<li>Copy the contents of the textbox below into the Windows clipboard.</li>
	<li>Delete the contents of the textbox.</li>
	<li>Paste the clipboard contents back into the textbox.</li>
	<li>The lowercase "i" at the end will mysteriously (and randomly) be
	capitalized to "I" (about half the time).</li>
</ol>
<p><textarea>/*#!!#*/
i;</textarea></p>
</body></html>

I've posted this page to my personal website here: Test IE10 paste bug 20140616.

Can any of you guys reproduce this bug?

Note that I'm running Win7Pro and get this under IE 10.0.17 IE 10.0.9200.16921. Note also that I rarely run IE, (I'm mostly an Opera man) - but my new app must work well in all browsers, thus I must walk bravely through the valley of EYE-EEE.  

Would you guys be so kind as to report your results (along with your specific Windows and IE version)?

I'm curious if this happens in IE7, 8 or 11 as well (I currently only have access to IE5.5, 6, 9 and 10).

Thanks for any help with this!

p.s. I've opened a new question on MS's website - See: IE10 BUG: clipboard data modified when pasted into TEXTAREA but don't hold out much hope of getting a good answer there.

Edit: 2014-06-16 12pm MDT Corrected the IE version number - (upon closer inspection, IE's About page shows the Update Versions to be 10.0.17).

[mouser]

I tested it here.

Without compatibility mode, no trouble.
With compatibility mode enabled for the site (I added the page to the compatibility view dialog), it did indeed change the "i" to "I".

Win7, IE v 11.0.9600

[skwire]

I'm curious if this happens in IE7, 8 or 11 as well (I currently only have access to IE5.5, 6, 9 and 10).

It does NOT happen for me using IE 11.0.9600.17126 under W7/64 Ultimate.

[mouser]

So here's a clue to what's happening for me when it occurs:

First, the lowercase i is correct in the text copied TO the clipboard.
The problem occurs during paste.

Furthermore, the undo buffer shows that the pasted contents are going in correct initially (with lowercase i) and then being CHANGED, AFTER an undo point is saved, to the uppercase I.

So for example if you copy the contents, then go to the edit box and type "hello world"
and then select, all and Paste,
you see the uppercase I,
now undo, and you'll see the lowercase i,
now undo again and you'll see your "hello world".

[Ath]

Tried with IE 10.0.16 (10.0.9200.16899) on Windows 7 x64 (I try to avoid using IE), and have not seen what you report even once. Used with compatibility mode enabled and disabled. It just was copied correctly without any modification for all ~50 times I tried.

[widgewunner]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I am thinking that maybe this is some sort of I-know-how-to-spell-this-word-better-than-you-and-here-let-me-fix-it-for-you-automatically-and-without-telling-you Windows under-the-covers thing. I tried playing with the various auto-complete features but that didn't help. I know next to zero about all the features of the recent IE versions so this was mystifying to me when I uncovered it last night. I'm still running XP32Pro on my main box and have a lot of catching up to do getting used to the new "streamlined" look and feel of the recent MS products.

When my little app ran fine under IE6 and FF2 I just naturally assumed (whistling in the dark), that it would work ok in the faster, more modern browsers. NOT! (But luckily, this was not the fault of my app, but that of IE - not sure how to deal with a workaround).

Good to know that it happens with IE11 as well - thanks mouser!

BTW - This problem is critical for my app because it takes in a (very precise) regex string such as: "var myre = /regex/i;" and attempts to decode it - and this doesn't work too well when that (very important) lowercase "i" gets changed to uppercase!

Edit 2014-06-16 12pm MDT Turns out I'm running IE 10.0.9200.16921 and not 10.0.17 as originally reported (have corrected the original post, too).

[mouser]

I am thinking that maybe this is some sort of I-know-how-to-spell-this-word-better-than-you-and-here-let-me-fix-it-for-you-automatically-and-without-telling-you Windows under-the-covers thing.

That was my gut feeling too.. However the fact that it doesn't happen with other lowercase letters i tested, only "i" makes that explanation harder to swallow...

[Stoic Joker]

Windows 8.1 x64 and IE11

No compatibility mode: Works fine, but did notice that the i got underlined in red when pasted.
With compatibility mode: As mentioned I gets capitalized.

Might this help any?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/hh920763(v=vs.85).aspx

Edit: Oddly enough the i above just got capitalized when I hit post here just now.

[Ath]

other lowercase letters i tested,

Maybe you would need to switch to that IE install...

[mouser]

Stoic's lead looks very promising..
See if spellcheck="false" fixes things?

[widgewunner]

... However the fact that it doesn't happen with other lowercase letters i tested, only "i" makes that explanation harder to swallow...

But "I" is a whole word in itself and is always capitalized in a sentence (unlike other single letters). I'm thinking some sort of spell checker thingy is goin' on here...

Edit: thanks for the spell check link. However, the original page where I found the error was XHTML 1.0 Strict - not HTML5. My app will remain XHTML which does not (I believe) include any sort of spell check property for the TEXTAREA element. I'm going to put together another minimal test page that is XHTML 1.0 Strict and run it up the flagpole. Standby...

[widgewunner]

I've added a new test page that is valid XHTML 1.0 Strict and updated the other page to be valid HTML5 (it was missing a DOCTYPE and char encoding META tag). Here they are:

Test IE10 paste bug (HTML5) 20140616_1400
Test IE10 paste bug (XHTML 1.0 Strict) 20140616_1400

Both exhibit the same pasty-i2I behavior on my Win7Pro64 IE10 box.

[mouser]

Have you confirmed that adding spellcheck="false" to the textarea has no effect on fixing the bug?

[widgewunner]

I've added two more test pages in HTML5 with spellcheck=true and spellcheck=false:

Test IE10 paste bug (HTML5) 20140616_1400
Test IE10 paste bug (XHTML 1.0 Strict) 20140616_1400
Test IE10 paste bug (HTML5 - spellcheck="false") 20140616_1400
Test IE10 paste bug (HTML5 - spellcheck="true") 20140616_1400

It appears that the problem occurs when the "spellcheck=true" property on the TEXTAREA is set (or not present as this is the default), and compatibility mode is on. It does not occur if compatibility mode is off or if spellcheck=false.

However, the auto-spell correction occurs with the XHTML 1.0 Strict page when compatibility mode is on and this cannot be turned off by the page markup because spellcheck is not a valid XHTML TEXTAREA property.

I'd call that a bug.

And could someone else please verify this? - I'm at my wits end right now (other stressful things going on in real life at the moment...)

Additional: The auto-spellchecking/correction feature can be disabled entirely. Under Win7, uncheck the following checkbox:
IE Menu -> Tools -> Manage add-ons -> Spelling correction -> Enable spelling correction.