Typing in search acting strange

Let's say I type "Kannowsky" into the search field.

After a second or two, a drop-down list opens, with "Lea Kannowsky" highlighted.

I press enter. The drop-down list closes, but the field still reads only "Kannowsky".

I press enter again. A search is committed for "Kannowsky" and it returns zero results.

For reference, I select the URL and search again for "Kannowsky", effectively reloading the page. Still zero results. I thought it used to be possible to search for any part of a name, but now it seems limited to first names.

Maybe this is a browser bug in Firefox that the first item in the drop-down looks selected even though it isn't. With Kannowsky you only get one person suggested. I tried "Sarah" and the drop-down contained multiple results, first one highlighted, but pressing enter closed the drop-down and the field still contained only "Sarah", not "Christin Sarah (christin_chicafit)", which was the highlighted first item.

You need to use the arrow keys to "really" select the first Sarah, but then it moved the highlight to the second Sarah and you need to move back to the first Sarah if that was your intention.

With "Kannowsky" it's acting even more strange. Initially the "Lea Kannowsky", the only item in the drop-down, is highlighted but is not actually selected. Moving up or down with arrow key removes the highlight. Then, moving up or down the second time highlights and selects it. Now you need to press Enter twice. Once to close the drop-down and a second time to actually do the search.

The problem seems to be that the code that opens the drop-down highlights an item without selecting it. Only moving the highlight first deselects the previously highlighted item and then selects the newly highlighted item, that is now actually and truly selected. With a drop-down with only one item, you first need to move away from the highlighted phantom selection and then come back to truly highlight and select the only item.

You have to press the Tab key to select the name from the generated list, and then Enter once the desired name has been selected.

This was a change implemented by Chainer a few months back. I don't remember the reason(s) for it.

I typed "Sarah", waited for the drop-down menu to appear, then pressed Tab. Only once. The result was that the drop-down menu closed, the field contained the first item, namely "Christin Sarah (christin_chicafit)", and the Search button was selected.

So actually whatever logic interprets the Tab keypress considers the field and the drop-down as one item and the Search button as the next item. I expected it to consider the search field one item and the drop-down the next item and activate the drop-down.

I understand that Chainer needs to work with (and around) the features and bugs there are in browsers and web standards and the current solution might be the best one in this situation. But I'll still try and see if I can figure out more about the actual logic.

I noticed that if you move into the drop-down using the arrow keys and ignore the initial phantom step, you can then choose the desired name and press Tab to close the drop-down with the chosen name in the text field and select the Search button, which you then operate by pressing Enter.

So once you're inside the drop-down menu, it's easy to properly exit it. There's only extra confusion when you enter it, which at least I can't do with Tab.