dequelabs / dequelabs/axe-core

Misleading issue text when a section element has an aria-labelledby attribute that references an empty element

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#4,140 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
fix rule metadata
Dominant language
JavaScript
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Description

### Product

axe-core

### Product Version

4.7.2

### Latest Version

- [X] I have tested the issue with the latest version of the product

### Issue Description

Given this HTML

```


content in section

```

axe returns a needs-review issue "Elements must only use allowed ARIA attributes." That issue states:

```
This potential issue needs your review...
aria-labelledby attribute is not well supported on a section with no valid role attribute.
```

And

```
To solve this problem, you need to fix the following:
aria-labelledby attribute is not well supported on a section with no valid role attribute.
```

However, this HTML does not return any issues:

```

Test heading


content in section

```

The only difference is that the second example's `aria-labelledby` reference has text content, while the first example does not. Thus, the issue appears to have more to do with the fact that the element referenced by `aria-labelledby` does not have any text. Something that is not obvious from the text of the issue that was raised.

Example can be found here: https://codepen.io/mfairchild365/pen/KKbdQov

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