Autofill broke in Safari

By PaulMartz, 24 April, 2021

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Autofill seems to have broke in Safari on Big Sur. I'm current with all updates and running on a 2018 Mac Mini.

I have some remaining eyesight, so I can describe what's happening.

I land on a log in page, such as that for AppleVis.com. I put VoiceOver focus in the user name field. VoiceOver tells me autofill is an option. I press down arrow, the autofill option menu opens, my user name is highlighted, and I hear VoiceOver read my user name. I press enter. This correctly populates the user name field, but does not populate the password as it has always done previously.

If I then move focus to the password field, again VoiceOver tells me autofill is available. Again I press down arrow and hear VoiceOver read my user name. Again I press enter. But the password field does not populate. I must manually enter my password to log in.

The problem isn't always limited to the password field. On another site (the local Colorado talking book library website),I can't get autofill to populate the user name field.

This is particularly painful with Wordpress, as I must now manually log in to administer the several websites I'm responsible for.

I guess I'll go back to the days when I had to use my brain to remember user names and passwords. I'm old enough to recall the days when I had memorized dozens of phone numbers, so I imagine I can make this work. But I'd really rather have autofill back.

Is anyone else seeing any behavior like this? Any recommended workarounds? Thanks.

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Comments

By PaulMartz on Thursday, April 29, 2021 - 23:33

I've also noticed problems with some web pages not loading, or loading only partially, while other pages load without issue.

When I encounter a problem loading a page in Safari, I try loading the same page in Google Chrome and it loads without issue, so this is not a problem with my internet connection.

By Tyler on Thursday, April 29, 2021 - 23:33

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

What happens if you press Command-Shift-A to autofill the form? I have not experienced either of these issues, but I typically use Touch ID on my MacBook Air to fill webforms.

With regard to webpages loading only partially, my first suggestion is to clear your browser cache. To do this from within the browser:

1. Choose Safari > Preferences (or press Command-Comma) and click the advanced button in the toolbar.
2. Select the, "Show develop menu in menu bar," checkbox and close the window.
3. Choose Develop > empty caches (or press Command-Option-E) and then quit and reopen the browser.

HTH

By Bruce Harrell on Thursday, April 29, 2021 - 23:33

Hi. For me, command shift a doesn't work on some websites. Never has, so far as I know. I have no idea why. It works fine on other websites, though.

By PaulMartz on Thursday, April 29, 2021 - 23:33

Thanks for the help and ideas. They didn't work. But it's good to have some camaraderie.

The more I use Safari, the more issues I notice. I've got the autofill issue and the pages loading only partially, as already mentioned. Now I also notice that clicking a Zoom link in an email takes me to a blank Safari page rather than the prompt to open my Zoom app. Finally, with Google as my search engine, the results page looks much different in Safari compared to Google Chrome.

I guess I'll look into removing this virus or hijacking software or whatever it is. Yuck.

By PaulMartz on Thursday, April 29, 2021 - 23:33

I feel pretty stupid right now, and will publicly share my stupidity in the hopes it helps others.

While visiting Amazon.com a couple days ago, I disabled JavaScript as I always do on that site. Then I forgot to re-enable it. I stumbled over this while checking every possible setting and menu option. After enabling it, all the issues I've described here have gone away. All is back to normal.

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions.