Login to Express Embed not working on Safari

Thank you Jason. I'm very sad about how much this issue has been ignored and not replied to, given how incredibly serious it is. It's such a huge flaw in Express Embed for creative users, so many of whom are on Mac.

And given the validation and research already posted. 

I raised it in February - almost 9 months ago now - and kept chasing over many months here, with one reply in April (7 months ago today) to say there was a related topic being worked on.

Please can somebody reply to say that there is plan to fix this, and that it's actively being worked on, not just in the backlog - and give us some hope that there's a day in the future when Express Embed will work on Safari again? And also, as Jason warned, not be imminently totally killed off by an update to Chrome?

Pretty sure at the moment the login session will actually die pretty quickly in Chrome and Edge due to their own implementation of tracking prevention.

Using this API to request storage access will ensure it remains logged in for a much longer of time.

So it seems like this is fundamentally required for a good user experience.

It looks like the Embed SDK is not using the requestStorageAccess API and is assuming access to cookie storage for third-parties. ITP (which is blocking this) was implemented in 2016/2017 and then it was 1 year later a permission prompt was implemented:

https://webkit.org/blog/8124/introducing-storage-access-api/

It just looks like Embed SDK is using 10 year old assumptions. This storage access API is now available across all browsers and eventually Chrome IS going to do the same third-party blocking (and already does in some cases) and so using this API is almost a full requirement.

This would fix the issue. When you login you'd get a simple browser prompt asking for access and that "this site may be able to track you" but you accept it for that site and all done.

"Do you want to allow adobe.com to use cookies and website data while browsing yourwebsite.com? This will allow adobe.com to track your activity"

Another update on this - a cuatomer reported this same thing in Edge. Their colleague could use Edge OK. We advised using Chrome and suggested she look at turning her tracking security down to a lower setting since that's the workaround for Safari.

Two weeks, no reply

Hi - we have an answer to the problem of Express Embed not working in Safari. I reported this on February 28, 3 and a half months ago. In April @ErinF said that "there's a bug about slow/infitite loading in Safari in v.3 and v.4 that's being fixed currently, CCXSDK-6179"
But it's still not fixed, so I'm guessing the engineering team haven't got to the bottom of what's causing it.
We have found the issue. The problem is with the default Apple setting "Prevent cross-site tracking" in Safari > Settings > Privacy.
If you turn off "Prevent cross-site tracking", then you are able to log in to Express Embed in Safari.

We have had to include a warning to users on our Express Embed UI saying "You are using Safari – we recommend using Chrome. To log into Adobe Express here using Safari you may need to turn off "Prevent cross-site tracking" in Safari > Settings > Privacy."

I see from the recent Developer emails that you have been working with Miro on Express Embed @Marichae5CDF (hi!) and so I would expect this affects their users too, just as it affects other users here using both v3 and v4.

Turning off "Prevent cross-site tracking" will enable login on Safari, so hopefully that gives the engineering team something to work with to solve this issue without asking users to do this.

I suspect that this is related to how the upfront authentication or delayed authentication works - as it used to work OK in Safari when we first started using Express Embed almost 2 years ago. Delayed login is the only major change I'm aware of to this part of the app since then - although I couldn't see when it was introduced in the Changelog.

Please could you check it out and let us know that you see the same thing, and keep us informed of work on fixing it? It's been a long time that it's affecting a really large proporition of our creative users, who tend to prefer Mac and Safari. 

Thanks,

Ru

Hi @ErinF and team,

Following up on this. We have regular customers complaining to us that our Express Embed won't log in -- because they are using Safari.  

Is there work in process to fix Express Embed not working at all on Safari? And if so, how is it going and do you have an estimated time for a fix?

I know I've said it before here, but it's the browser used by the majority of Mac users, and it's not usable at all by them, so it's a huge bug.

Here is a video of what happens when Express Embed opens in Safari - it loops. Below that is the Safari dev tools console log. This user is logged into their Express account in another tab, and is able to do this fine in Chrome.




It would be good to know if there's a fix on the way, otherwise we're going to have to add a panel to inform all our users saying that Adobe Express doesn't work in Safari.
Ru

Thanks Erin. That sounds related. When was it logged, and how long has it been being fixed for, and do the engineering team have any idea how difficult it is and so how long it might take? I'm trying to get a sense of how to manage people's expectations here.

I checked and there's a bug about slow/infitite loading in Safari in v.3 and v.4 that's being fixed currently, CCXSDK-6179 (for any Adobe employees reading this) but I'm not sure if this is related 🤔 🤔

Hello Express Embed support team,

Our team are worried not to have received a reply to this since February 28. This is an extremely urgent bug with Express Embed. 

Overall, Safari makes up 10% all desktop browser use. Which is significant.

But in creative and media industries, the vast majority of users use Mac, and the majority of those use Safari.

In other words, the majority of our users use Safari and so cannot use Express Embed because of this bug.

So for people using our creative application (and for most other companies using Express Embed), it is a giant problem that you cannot login to Express Embed on Safari at the moment.

The fact that you haven't acknowledged or replied to the post (upvoted by Freked) makes me think that you haven't appreciated how much of a problem this is, or possibly haven't even registered it as an urgent bug?

If this is not a problem seen by you and others, that would be good to know asap. We are using v3 - Freked reports seeing it on v3 and on v4.

Any confirmation or update or advice would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks,

Ru