It also happens with the Twitter Bootstrap modal demos.

I encountered this issue using Chrome 49.0.2623.87 (Official Build) m (32-bit). I spent some time testing it, and it seems to come down to the role="dialog" ARIA attribute on the parent modal element. If present, enter/space won't trigger a click event on buttons or links, and moves focus back to the modal parent. But when the role attribute is removed, clickable items work as expected.

+1

The URL http://itstiredinhere.com/accessibility/ no longer seems to be active.
@smashuu @smithwib Could you please share a direct URL to a webpage with a modal dialog where you are able to consistently and successfully reproduce the above described behaviour with recent versions of Chrome, NVDA and Windows 10?
CC @jcsteh and @feerrenrut (for Webfix relevance)

The Twitter Bootstrap modal demos are still available, I was not able to reproduce this with Chrome Version 59.0.3071.115 however, I'm not actually that confident that I know what I am looking for. @smashuu Could you please add steps to reproduce the problematic behaviour that you were seeing with the bootstrap examples?

I can reproduce this issue with chrome 71 and with Firefox 64.0.2.
STR:

1. Open the Twitter Bootstrap modal demos above
2. Press o to land on the modal dialog
3. Press enter on it
4. Navigate with arrow keys to "close" and press enter or space
5. Go to focus mode with NVDA+space bar and tab to close button and press enter or space

Actual: when pressing enter or space on "close button, the modal dialog still remains focused. You can only get out of it by tabbing multiple times.

Expected: the modal should be closed when pressing enter or space bar on the close button.
cc: @feerrenrut, @jcsteh

I can't get that Bootstrap dialog to close at all. Pressing enter on it in focus mode, clicking the buttons, nothing works. My feeling is that this is a bug in the example. It's also confusing because there are two close buttons, one at the top and one near the bottom.

In this case, should we close this issue as invalid? We do not have any updates from the initial author since years.

I am closing this issue as abandoned due to missing updates from the initial author.