​UPDATE: As of 12/8/2022 Click and Pledge has patched its WordPress plugin to avoid the problem. Visitors using Chrome 108 on Click and Pledge donation pages will see the picklists, which look slightly different – they’re truncated, and visitors will have to scroll to the desired value. But they work. Google is also rolling out a new version (109) of the Chromium engine with a fix, so the problem will eventually disappear. BUT for some other web platforms, visitors who still have Chrome 108 may run into the picklist problem if they’re visiting non-Click and Pledge pages which are i-framed on a separate web platform. We can’t say that all payment platforms will be as quick as Click and Pledge to release a patch.

In any case, for Click and Pledge, the problem is resolved and the fix mentioned below is now unnecessary.

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Bad news. The 11/29/2022 update of the Chromium engine no longer works with “select” (picklist) fields on WordPress and Squarespace sites where a Click and Pledge page is embedded (iframed). A bunch of our WaterGrass users fall into this category, and we only noticed the problem while we investigated something else. The result of the problem is that visitors to a donation webpage can’t use the picklists to select their credit card’s month and year of expiration, so they can’t donate. You can test your own site by clicking on those fields while using an updated version of Chrome.

After we alerted our clients, one reported that since the 29th she has seen an unexpected drop in donation rates. But so far only one user has called in to alert any of our clients to the problem, and we’re running this configuration in about 15 client organizations, so this is a stealthy bug that may cost you donations without you ever becoming aware. Especially since the Chromium update rolls out slowly over the whole population of users, so that the effect will be gradual.

The problem clearly goes back to Google’s update of its Chromium engine, which is the basis of multiple browsers, including Edge , Opera and Brave as well as Chrome itself. I was able to verify that I could make a donation on a CnP page on a WordPress site when I used an older Chrome version, but could not donate as soon as I updated the browser to 108.

Google is aware of the problem and is incorporating a fix into Chromium 109. We don’t know how long it’ll take for a patch to come out, or how long it’ll be before your donors update to 109.

Our recommendation is to be safe and follow the lead of the Huron River Watershed and others who have had their webmasters add text to their donation pages like this:

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My preferred wording is “We are experiencing technical difficulties. If you are using the updated Chrome browser (or Edge, Opera or Brave), please click here to donate. The form below will work otherwise.” I would highlight this paragraph because otherwise some people won’t read it.

The link “please click here to donate” should be the link to your naked donation page, which you can get from CnP Connect / Campaigns and Forms / Payment Forms where you first designed your payment page. The Connect page looks like this:

The link will look something like “https://connect.clickandpledge.com/w/Form/b86f9cd9-1f49-4d77-8753-f82b29e85504“.

When users click on this link, it will take them to the “naked” CnP payment page which is not framed within your WordPress website, and therefore won’t have the same Chromium browser issues.

Alternatively, you can want to wait and see how soon Google comes up with a fix. But since it’s now the middle of the end-of-year donation season, that wouldn’t be my choice.

Baird

PS. I’d be surprised if Click and Pledge is the only payment platform affected. I’ve focused on it because it’s the most common platform for our clients.