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Google Search Console reports ... Starting December 1, 2023, we'll be retiring Search Console's "Mobile Usability" report, the Mobile-Friendly Test tool and Mobile-Friendly Test API.
Read the entire Google Blog article here >>

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Hooray, Hooray, Hooray Why

Because the Search Console's "Mobile Usability" report and Mobile-Friendly Test tool have always been bugged, unreliable and quite often plain wrong.

(1) In the Google Search Console under Experience, the Mobile Usability would often report "pages aren’t usable on mobile". Issues like "Content wider than screen" and "Clickable elements too close together".

(2) Go to the Google Mobile Friendly Test tool, test the URL in question and guess what? It would pass as Mobile Friendly!

(3) Go back to the Google Mobile Usability report, click the "Validate Fix" button and guess what? You would get an email to say the issue has been fixed! What had you done? Nothing at all! Go figure

(4) In cases where the Google Mobile Friendly Test reported a page as not mobile friendly:
> click VIEW TESTED PAGE,
> then at right of screen click MORE INFO,
> then Page resources,
> take note that the Test Tool had refused to load critical CSS stylesheets! Please tell me why?

There are occasions when (I think) Google get things wrong. But when questioned on their Google Search Central Help Community Forum, don't like to admit it.

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... in the nearly ten years since we initially launched this report, many other robust resources for evaluating mobile usability have emerged, including Lighthouse from Chrome.

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So the good news is that, in future, Google are recommending that webmasters use Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools to test for mobile usability.

The Chrome Developers article explaining how to use Lighthouse is here >>

Gary

As usual Gary, a great post with useful info.
Thanks for sharing.

David