Hey all, I was working with Serif on this issue, when they mentioned something about dictionaries that made me think of grammarly. For those not aware, grammarly is a service that helps with spelling/grammar on all sites, and they have a desktop app that sort of displays an overlay over every input text field. I uninstalled grammarly's desktop app and it seems to have solved the problem. So check if you have any apps that are functioning as a sort of overlay or dictionary that may be trying to access the find/replace text field.
Unsure what the conflict is, Serif's customer support has said they will connect with Grammarly as well. I suspect some sort of fatal conflict with the two programs trying to access the same field (although no other program seems to have this issue other than Publisher at this time). HTH
