New bugs/glitches with the UI

[#1]

Yesterday I decided to apply for a job and I opened the dialog for creating a proposal - the text fields had no borders.

I reported the bug (it's a bug, is not it - does it make sense to write text in the void?) and the answer was "this is by design".

99% of forms on the web either have bordered text fields or at least a bottom border (if they follow Google Material design principles) - and here we suddenly have no borders at all. Because someone (I have no clue whether this decision comes from a manager or from a designer) decided that text fields will be better without borders.

Then I decided to make a tiny update to my overview. I opened my profile and the characters counter below the text field suddenly shows a negative number. How is this possible? This overview has already been created 4 months ago - and back then Upwork happily accepted it.

I reported the bug and the reply was "This field has a limit of 5000 symbols". I counted the symbols in two different text editors and the number is 4170 symbols. Obviously there is something wrong here as 5000 minus 4170 is certainly not -1119 ...

[#2]

After some investigation on my own, it appears that the POST request to https://www.upwork.com/ab/proposals/api/v3/invitation/accept is protected by the CloudFlare WAF (web-application firewall) which seems to be triggered by the presence of example SQL queries in my proposal. This WAF returns a plain HTML content to the JavaScript code running on the page for sending proposals - and this code probably expects some JSON rather than HTML.

The HTML requires filling a CAPTCHA:

However, I am unable to solve the CAPTCHA because it is never shown to me. Actually, no error message or any other signal/clue that something wrong happens is being shown on the screen - so if you don't look at the browser's console you will never realize what is the problem.

I am a developer and I know by first hand how easy it is to check the "Content-Type" HTTP header of the AJAX response - and if it is not JSON, then show the HTML response in a popup (eventually inside an IFRAME). I have already implemented this for a couple of my projects on Upwork - works like a charm.

And honestly - I really do not understand what is the problem with writing some SQL in my proposal (or in the chat messages). It would make sense to disable `<script>` tags as an attempt to protect against XSS (even though a clever protection is to simply sanitize all input) - but then I and everyone else will expect to see some warning from Upwork. Something like "You are not allowed to type SQL here" (and whatever else is forbidden) near the text fields.

[#3]

There is something else that bugs me for quite some time but I did not have time to report it. Every time I start my browser (with completely clean cache, cookies, history, etc - and obviously not logged in) and try to navigate to the URL of my public profile - it shows the search page for freelancers instead (without any results).

Notice the URL below:

This happens every time - unless I login, in which case it shows my profile.

But when I send the link for my profile to other people - they actually do not see my profile but something completely irrelevant.

Just by pure accident I found that the following URL works - showing my profile when I am not logged in:

https://www.upwork.com/search/profiles/?q=ivaylo%20g.&user_pref=1&profile=~01c1b5a7e541eab2d7

Obviously, it is a nasty workaround and the profile is shown in a popup.

So, I have a question - why can't I show my profile to other people who are not members of the Upwork platform but could potentially hire me, if they were able to see the profile?

[#4]

Another glitch I noticed a few days ago - the selector for 12/24 hour format in Diary is not persisted between logins.

[#5]

Hi Ivaylo,

Thank you for reaching out to us. Currently, this is how it is designed and it isn't a bug. But I'll share your feedback with our team. 

[#6]

Ah, so you're saying that it is intentionally made not to persist my choice? Most people would call it "a wrong design" or "wrong behavior". It was the same with the "UTC/My timezone" selector - my choice was not persisted and I (and all the other freelancers) always started with UTC on each login. After 3 years of living with the UTC bug Upwork finally realized that no sane person wants to log his/her hours in UTC. Is Upwork going to wait another couple of years before fixing the 12/24hr "intentionally designed" behavior?

[#7]

Today I noticed another glitch - suddenly I stopped receiving e-mail notifications for chat messages that have been sent while I'm offline. I have not changed my e-mail address or anything else in my Upwork profile - e-mail notifications just stopped arriving (not even in the SPAM folder - I checked) and I have to login on Upwork Chat in order to see whether I have new messages or not.

[#8]

Hi Ivaylo,

Thank you for reaching out to us. I shared your report with our team and one of our agents will reach out to you via a support ticket to assist you further. You can access your support tickets here.

[#9]

There is another glitch which is there for more than 3 years.

When the Upwork Chat is not currently open - I can see a badge with the unread messages in the main menu at the top of the page. In the past (circa 2016-2017) the same badge was present on the favicon that is shown in the browser's tab. After the glitch started to manifest itself at 2017 or 2018 (I can't remember exactly) - this second badge on the favicon sometimes shows and sometimes is missing. And by "missing" I mean that the first badge in the main menu is there - while the second badge on the favicon is not there.

So sometimes there are 2 badges and sometimes there is just the badge in the main menu. It happens randomly, unpredictably and inconsistently.

I am pretty sure everyone else has noticed this "effect" but just did not bother to report the glitch.

[#10]

On the mobile app, I click on any job and under the Job Details I get a completely blank screen. My phone is up to date, the app is up to date.

[#11]

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for reaching out to us. One of our team members will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further. You can access your tickets on this page.

[#12]

Today I noticed another small bug - when I switch between my saved searches the page number is not reset to "1" but stays the same. For example, if I am on page "14" in "Non US" search and then using the drop-down switch to "US only" the page number at the bottom remains "14' instead of going to "1".

[#13]

Today a new release has been deployed which is missing a lot of CSS variables - main menu is unreadable (white color over white background), borders are missing, popup menus have transparent background, etc:

[#14]

Hi Ivaylo,

Thank you for reaching out to us. I checked but I could not replicate the issue you experience. Could you please clear your cache and cookies or log in with another browser?

If the issue persists, could you please share which browser and what version you are using? 

[#15]

Hi Nikola

I found the cause of my problem - these CSS variables are only applied when a certain theme is active on the HTML tag ("air-2-76" in this particular case). Apparently my browser removes this attribute from the `<html>` tag and this results in the screenshot above. I tried with another browser and it works fine there. 
So, the bug "is in my own TV" if I may use a metaphore.

However, today I noticed something else - wrong ordering of the active proposals:

[#16]

Another bug:
when submitting bid on a job it fails with:

failed to fetch url: https://www.upwork.com/ab/proposals/api/v2/application/new, body: {"version":3,"jobReference":"1603172156785848320","agency":null,"chargedAmount":36,"coverLetter":" Hello dear sir/madam  \n Nice to see your job post.","earnedAmount":null,"estimatedDuration":null,"occupationUID":"996364627857502209","portfolioItemUids":[],"attachments":[],"questions":[{"uid":"1603172157105496064","question":"Can you share apps you've personally built or worked on and exactly what you did during the development process?\nEspecially important is a B to C mobile meditation app 

[#17]

Hi Sebastian,

Thank you for reaching out to us. Do you have the link to the job post?

[#18]

Hi AJ

It is not the job post itself but some special characters in my bid because the client wanted to see experience so I included Dart command examples with paths which have special chars.

I used an online special char removing tool then the bid worked.

It was crashing the Js somehow.

Happy Holidays!

[#19]

Hi Sebastian,

Thank you for responding and for clarifying. I shared it with the team for review.

[#20]

On the ARCHIVED tab in MY PROPOSALS the section ARCHIVED INTERVIEWS is sorting in the wrong direction - it shows the oldest interviews first, the newest last. But the right sorting is the opposite:

[#21]

Hi Ivaylo,

Thank you for reaching out to us and bringing this to our attention. I shared your report with our team and one of our agents already reached out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further. You can access your ticket on this page.

[#22]

Today I noticed that the invitations for interview are now suddenly sorted in the wrong order:

[#23]

After more than 12 months - the sorting is still wrong. Not fixing trivial bugs continues to ruin the company and platform reputation.

[#24]

Hi Ivaylo,

Thank you for reaching out to us. I shared your report with our team and one of our agents will reach out to you using a support ticket to assist you further. You can access your support tickets here.

- Pradeep 

[#25]

Support said that this inconsistency (one sorting order for archived items and another sorting order for non-archived items) and inconvenience is by design and will not be changed. And the UI will not be modified to offer ability for changing the sorting order by the user - or to remember the preferred sorting order for your account.

If you are a freelancer - imagine the feelings of a client of you if he points out a bug (or inconvenience or even just an inconsistency) in your product and instead of improving the product you reply "your inconvenience is by my design, deal with it". And not just the feelings - but also his further behavior and reaction. Do you see where it all goes?

[#26]

As of today I am no longer able to easily/quickly recall my saved job searches. Until yesterday, when you click inside the searchbox - it used to show a drop-down list with my saved searches, so I could just choose one of them with a single click.

Now I have to click on the three dots, choose "Edit saved searches" from the popup menu, then in the new modal dialog click on the desired saved search in order to actually invoke it and see the corresponding list of jobs.

Why do you remove existing functionality and break the UX ?

Please restore the old behavior of the searchbox on the FindWork page - the same way it still works when you edit a saved search: