Bug 251622

Summary:	Searching for a regular expression that matches the empty string in the web inspector causes it to hang irrecoverably
Product:	WebKit	Reporter:	Jed Fox <jed>
Component:	Web Inspector	Assignee:	Nobody <webkit-unassigned>
Status:	NEW ---
Severity:	Normal	CC:	inspector-bugzilla-changes, webkit-bug-importer
Priority:	P2	Keywords:	InRadar
Version:	Safari Technology Preview
Hardware:	Mac (Apple Silicon)
OS:	macOS 13

Description Jed Fox 2023-02-02 11:21:50 PST

To reproduce:

1. Open any page (including about:blank)
2. Open the global search panel and enable searching by regular expressions. (I think this is what I did, I’m now unable to verify)
3. Search for `'isapprox' ||` (without the backticks)
4. hit return to start the search

Expected behavior: no results, or a warning that the regex matches the empty string
Actual behavior: web inspector hangs. There is no way to edit the search text since reopening the search tab causes the search to be conducted again. Also, I cannot find a way to put some text into the search field remotely (such as from a context menu somewhere)

[If you know where the setting that persists the search string is stored, please tell me so that I can get back the use of my search feature!]

macOS 13.2 (22D49)
STP Release 162 (Safari 16.4, WebKit 18615.1.18.2)

Comment 1 Radar WebKit Bug Importer 2023-02-09 11:22:19 PST

<rdar://problem/105231661>

Comment 2 Jed Fox 2023-02-22 08:10:15 PST

Finally remembered the workaround for this issue: go to the Settings tab and then choose General if it isn’t open already. Enable “⇧⌘F from selection” if it isn’t already checked. Then select some harmless text (like a variable name) in the Source tab and hit ⇧⌘F. You may need to close and reopen the Web Inspector after doing this to get back to a working state.