Deepl with macOS

[moehzhaw]

A lecturer has reported to us that he has allowed access to Deepl in the config file, a student cannot perform a translation with her MacBook. She can open the website and make entries in the field, but the translation is not carried out. Users with Windows had no problems. I have checked and it is exactly as described, see Screenshot and logfiles bellow.
The problem only occurs when using macOS.

macOS 3.4.1

org.safeexambrowser.SafeExamBrowser 2025-02-02--16-55-26-152.log
org.safeexambrowser.SafeExamBrowser 2025-02-02--16-46-18-378.log

[moehzhaw]

Is there a piece of advice as far as this issue with deepl is concerned?

[danschlet]

Hmm, now it suddenly works, at least when testing on the latest macOS 15.4. I will try it on an older macOS version too. Maybe the folks at deepl fixed it server-side.

[danschlet]

Unfortunately deepl seems to be incompatible with the modern WebView (WKWebView), the WebKit browser engine embedded in macOS which SEB is using. When I tested this initially last month, I just saw the web application errors in WebInspector:

I can't find any useful information with an internet search about this error, although CORS issues already affected other web applications, that time with the SEB Windows version. Maybe some web developer can comment on why CORS seems to be the current annoying browser compatibility issue. I assume these are some new security policies for web applications or web browsers.

Interestingly it works on iOS/iPadOS (which uses the generally same WKWebView browser engine).

It also works when you use the classic WebView on macOS (Settings / Browser / Select Browser Engine Policy / Force Classic. But this might create other issues for example in Moodle, as the classic browser engine is very old and is not getting updates anymore.

We will investigate this further when we have time. I don't think there is a simple, documented solution in SEB for macOS, maybe Apple will provide some instructions.

I suggest to contact Deepl and ask them to provide compatibility with Safe Exam Browser, as this is the most used free assessment browser and they should be interested in their product being compatible with it.

[danschlet]

Yes, Deepl.com now works for me on macOS 15 Sequoia and also macOS Sonoma 14.7.5. They seem to have improved compatibility with non-Standard Web Browsers.