Signal not respecting iOS keyboard settings (Stickers)

[therealstrizzi]

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• [x] I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• [x] This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

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Bug description

Signal doesn't respect the iOS setting regarding the stickers tab on the native iOS emoji keyboard. The sticker tabs can't be deactivated. This only happens in Signal; all other apps respect the iOS setting.

Steps to reproduce

• Deactivate the "Stickers" setting in the iOS keyboard settings
• Open the emoji keyboard in Signal

Actual result: The memoji stickers and recent stickers tabs are still showing in the bottom left corner of the iOS keyboard in Signal.

Expected result: The memoji stickers and recent stickers tabs should no longer appear on the iOS emoji keyboard.

Screenshots

Device info

Device: iPhone 14 Pro

iOS version: 18.3

Signal version: 7.44 (587)

Link to debug log

https://debuglogs.org/ios/7.44.0/219d1f17b359f09d1a728975b5764e8c48ebfc209af15af2006c2fce7cd63946.zip

[mathilde-cryptpad]

Same issue on iPhone SE (2nd gen) and iOS 18.2.1 and Signal version 7.44.

[ovlb]

There’s a probably related bug where you can’t actually use these stickers anymore. You can tap them on the keyboard (and they change their order in the favourite emoji section, so for the OS they seem to be used), but they aren’t sent to the chat. Could reproduce on my and a friend’s device, both running Signal 7.44.

[mathilde-cryptpad]

Not fixed by Signal 7.45.1.

[paulBrndt]

Had the Same Problem with stickers I haven't used in years, I deleted them and reseted the emoji keyboard, then it worked for a while. I think it's probably an IOS 18.2 error like in the apple forums already discussed. Let's hope for a fix in the next iOS update!

[mathilde-cryptpad]

Had the Same Problem with stickers I haven't used in years, I deleted them and reseted the emoji keyboard, then it worked for a while. I think it's probably an IOS 18.2 error like in the apple forums already discussed. Let's hope for a fix in the next iOS update!

Not relevant to the original issue.

Reported bug is still present on 7.46.

[Tazi0]

I think this is an iOS issue, I tested it on Signal, Messages (Apple's own messenger) and WhatsApp. And the only one who respects the sticker setting is WhatsApp. I also think you can't change/hide anything in the default keyboard, which is why I suspect WhatsApp has a custom keyboard which is almost identical to the standard to fix this issue.

[afa93001d48a]

I think this is an iOS issue, I tested it on Signal, Messages (Apple's own messenger) and WhatsApp. And the only one who respects the sticker setting is WhatsApp. I also think you can't change/hide anything in the default keyboard, which is why I suspect WhatsApp has a custom keyboard which is almost identical to the standard to fix this issue.

Safari and Snapchat also seem to respect this setting (showing stickers when enabled; not when disabled), as well as a few other less common third-party apps I checked. I doubt many of these smaller apps roll custom keyboards (the problem seems to be the emoji keyboard specifically).

ChatGPT is another example of an app that no longer respects this setting. The bug is definitely not unique to Signal and could therefore very well be an iOS bug, but it seems at least some apps still are able to respect the setting.

[squio]

Seems to be a known iOS issue, see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255921892?sortBy=rank

[mathilde-cryptpad]

Seems to be a known iOS issue, see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255921892?sortBy=rank

Not relevant.

As a reminder of the original issue: it’s about Signal not respecting the iOS setting disabling Memoji. Not sending big “regular” emojis or I don’t know what.

[therealstrizzi]

Seems to be a known iOS issue, see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255921892?sortBy=rank

Not relevant.

As a reminder of the original issue: it’s about Signal not respecting the iOS setting disabling Memoji. Not sending big “regular” emojis or I don’t know what.

It does happen for me as well, so it might be related. Wouldn't even be an issue if Signal respected the setting to disable keyboard stickers altogether though.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[greatestview]

Still an issue

[ospfranco]

I have created a small reproducible example. This behavior is not related to Signal's code, but it's rather just weird iOS keyboard handling. I've also created a StackOverflow question as hopefully some iOS expert has handled this case before. However, it seems the is no public API one can use to correctly enable stickers on the keyboard. Maybe WhatsApp is using a private API to correctly monitor the setting, or not using a UITextView but this definitely looks broken on the iOS side.

[ospfranco]

I've found the solution. Has to do with an iOS 18 only property supportsAdaptiveImageGlyph.

[sashaweiss-signal]

This was addressed in https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/pull/6082! Thanks to everyone for reporting, and @ospfranco for looking into it.