Annotation Keyboard Commands Stop Working

Bug Reports
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1

Platform: Windows 10

App version number, if a mobile app issue:

Browser, if a website issue: Firefox 149.0.2

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: Identify. This is the query I’m using:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Cresearch&page=3&verifiable=true&taxon_id=47157&place_id=6744&preferred_place_id=6744&without_term_id=1&created_on=2026-04-09&createdDateType=exact

Screenshots of what you are seeing: Nothing happens, so screenshot may be no help

Description of problem:

Step 1: Since the down-time yesterday I’ve had problems with adding annotations via keyboard. The first couple of pages work, then on page 3, nothing happens when I type. I can do other things with the keyboard - eg typing “i” on the Info tab brings up the add an ID field as normal. But on the Annotation tab, no typing works - I have to use the mouse to add annotations.

I have tried re-starting the browser, but it didn’t help.

Step 2: Further testing shows that the same problem occurs on page 4, but that keyboard commands work on page 5 and 6. Didn’t try going further.

Step 3: (Now that I know the other pages work, I can just avoid working on pages 3 and 4, but it is still an oddity.)

Added: I tried continuing just using pages 1 and 2, but the keyboard stopped working on about the 25th observation of the 1st page. So it is not just page 3 and 4 that aren’t working. The Arrow to move to the next page still works, but no Annotations can be set by keyboard.

2

Keyboard shortcuts in Identify modal.
p + l = flower. But not today.

Website. Windows 11

3

So it’s not just me!

4

Thanks for reporting, there definitely seems to be some wonkiness here. I can’t annotate my own obs. I’ve made a report to our developers.

5

But seems to be working again for me.

6

I’m seeing similar behavior in Chrome Version 146.0.7680.178 on a Mac. Using the Identify modal, the P + L, P + R, V + G, etc shortcuts work on some observations and not on others (from the same underlying page). From what I can tell, the A shortcut for agree seems to work more consistently. And if I use A and then navigate to the Annotations tab the shortcuts there may start working.

Extra info: It appears that I can’t use keyboard shortcuts to add annotations until after I have added an ID, or agreed with the community ID. If I press A to agree and immediately navigate to the annotation tab, I am still unable to use keyboard shortcuts for annotations until a second or two later when the observation is updated with my newly added ID.

7

Perhaps this is resolved now? I’ve just added about 10 pages of annotations by keyboard commands without any problems occurring.

8

I was experiencing the same thing when I tried annotating some obs of mine. It seemed to start working eventually.

9

I see this problem pretty consistently in Chrome, that the keyboard shortcuts stop working intermittently. If I use the mouse to, for example, select the next picture or move to the next observation, the shortcuts start working again.

10

I think the issue I raised is resolved. I’ve just done another 10 pages of annotations without any problems.

Other issues people have mentioned I think are different issues, and perhaps should have their own bug report/s.

11

Yes, the issue has been fixed.