Autokey not removing the abbreviation properly on Firefox and Thunderbird

[OrelEagle]

This bug appears in Thunderbird and Firefox, not in Gedit or Gvim. I haven't tried other applications.

I used a test phrase:
abbreviation is :t
substitution is This is a test

Sometimes the abbreviation is correctly replaced, but very often the first character is not removed. In this case, it means I often get ":This is a test" instead of "This is a test".

During the test, I ran autokey-gtk -l, which showed no difference between the ok line and nok line. I'll attach the output (I just edited the username) of this command and some screenshots of the configuration used.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: autokey-gtk 0.90.1-1.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-15.25-generic 3.11.10
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-15-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Feb 1 20:24:01 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-21 (102 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Release amd64 (20131017)
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: autokey
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Michael (moapp)]

In addition (only in Thunderbird, as far as I can see it) it messes up the substitution, white space is wrong and random characters are missplaces.

In other app (e.g. Libre Writer) it works just fine

[OrelEagle (oreleagle)]

The problem is still present in Ubuntu 14.04.

[OrelEagle (oreleagle)]

After upgrading to Ubuntu 14.10, the issue still exists.

[Tom Colley (tcolley)]

This bug may be related to bug 1415203, which also specifies a workaround for Ubuntu 14.10 (but no longer works in Ubuntu 16.10)

[Tom Colley (tcolley)]

I am experiencing the same phenomenon with Autokey across multiple applications, including Libre Writer. I find that quitting and restarting Autokey fixes the problem but it then recurs some time later.