Plank blocks global keybindings when given focus

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff]

Plank sometimes grabs focus on closing the focused window, blocking even Compiz key combos. Also observed in Mutter, not sure about keybindings there, though.

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Need:

1) version of plank (output of plank -d would contain this information)
2) is it our build, or a custom fork (like elementary os)?
3) steps to reliably reproduce this issue
4) how do you know plank is 'focused'? a focused window doesnt 'grab' the keyboard, fyi.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Happens for a long while now, both on versions from Rico's PPA and elementary builds. I believe it happens on closing fullscreen window, when Plank shows up in intellihide mode. I can't reproduce it right now though, I'm using Gala with elementary hide mode and it's been reported as a bug in Gala previously, see bug 1008234

Plank is shown and every other window has unfocused theming... I'm not sure what made me think it was Plank and not some other desktop component, probably because Plank shows up just before it happens... I'll try to do some more testing.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I have steps to reproduce this, at least in elementary hide mode under Gala WM (Mutter derivative).
1) Open and maximize a window (e.g. Totem)
2) Bring up a dialog (e.g. press Ctrl+S or select the appropriate item in the menu)
3) Close the dialog
The dock will not hide and the maximized window will not be focused until I click it.
I have Plank version 0.2.0~bzr651+dnd354-0elementary1~precise1 but this bug seems to have occured for ages now, even in vanilla builds.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Instead of opening a dialog, one can open Slingshot app launcher. Plank will not hide and the window beneath it will not gain focus.

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

I'm fairly certain this is by no fault of Plank. You need to file a bug against your specific window manager, which is focusing a window marked as a DOCK (which should never happen).

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

If the same bug happens in mutter and not just compiz, then it's probably not a compiz issue.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Okay, Gala was patched to always give focus to a normal window, if there's one. However, when all normal and dialog windows on a workspace are closed, Plank is given focus, and somehow it blocks all desktop-wide keybindings - both those provided by WM and by gnome-settings-daemon. This should not happen.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Still happens to me. Version dumps:

precise@precise-beta-portable ~> plank -d
[INFO 15:09:30.719314] [AbstractMain:176] Plank version: 0.2.0.661
[INFO 15:09:30.719405] [AbstractMain:177] Kernel version: 3.2.0-26-generic
[INFO 15:09:30.719461] [AbstractMain:178] GLib version: 2.32.3
[INFO 15:09:30.719511] [AbstractMain:179] GTK version: 3.4.2
[INFO 15:09:30.719560] [AbstractMain:180] Wnck version: 3.4.0
[INFO 15:09:30.719614] [AbstractMain:181] Cairo version: 1.10.2
[INFO 15:09:30.719668] [AbstractMain:182] Pango version: 1.30.0

precise@precise-beta-portable:~$ LC_ALL=C apt-cache policy plank
plank:
  Installed: 0.2.0~bzr660+dnd357-0elementary1~precise1
  Candidate: 0.2.0~bzr660+dnd357-0elementary1~precise1
  Version table:
 *** 0.2.0~bzr660+dnd357-0elementary1~precise1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/elementary-os/daily/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.2.0~bzr659+dnd357-0ubuntu1~12.04~ricotz1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ricotz/docky/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages

[Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz)]

trunk 684 might fix this partly

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

So the problem is that your WM is focusing Plank? Because it should never do that - docks don't gain focus.

[Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz)]

Probably related to https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=676310

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

The problem is still there as of Gala 0.1-0~r266+pkg15~precise1 and Plank 0.2.0~bzr719+dnd373-0elementary1~precise1
I have no idea whose fault it really is and I don't really care by now, so marking elementaryos affected just to make sure this bug doesn't get lost.

[un liyim (a10279)]

I'm not using Plank. I use Docky instead and I have the same problem too. So I'm not sure if this is related to Plank.

[bwat47 (bwat47)]

I think its something with gala. I was experiencing the issue when I was using gala with XFCE.

[bwat47 (bwat47)]

I don't have this problem at all when using plank under cinnamon (muffin, a mutter fork).

[Tom Beckmann (tombeckmann)]

In cinammon, you got a desktop window, nautilus, so mutter/muffin has no problem to figure where to move focus to.

[Cassidy James Blaede (cassidyjames)]

So what I'm gathering is that the issue exists because we don't have a window to give focus to when there are no windows open. How does GNOME Shell handle this when Nautilus isn't drawing the desktop? I imagine it's a similar situation.

[Tom Beckmann (tombeckmann)]

GNOME shell has no Plank. If you run it, it should cause the same issue.

[bwat47 (bwat47)]

Any progress on this? Definitely one of the most annoying bugs in luna... Couldn't we just have something draw a desktop window in luna? I know you guys don't want desktop icons, but you don't need to enable desktop icon functionality for it.

[Cody Garver (codygarver)]

We have something that does, lp:pantheon-wallpaper but it has memory leaks.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

More like "Won't Fix" than "Invalid". Plank does completely grab keyboard after all.

[blitux (dev-pabloquiroga)]

This affects all people who use drop down terminals like guake, tilda, terra, etc. and other kind of aps (like synapse). The only workaround, if there are no windows on desktop, is to open an app and focus it, and then pressing the key/keys binded to the app.

[Tom Beckmann (tombeckmann)]

Apparently mutter feels the need to always focus a window, if nothing's left it will even go for a dock window, see https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/tree/src/core/stack.c#n1558 (the "else return topmost_dock" part).

However, removing the line in src/Widgets/DockWindow.vala telling the DE that plank will not accept focus seems to make the blocking on plank go away, at least it did here as far as I tested, thus practically solving the issue. I don't know if there are any unwanted consequences though, but looks like wingpanel can live without that flag.

[Allen Lowe (lallenlowe)]

This bug is painfully present in Luna Final Release. It is a real showstopper when your keyboard suddenly seems to stop responding. We should push a fix out to Luna for this, not just for isis.

[Cameron Norman (cameronnemo)]

@Tom Beckmann, where is that line?

[Cameron Norman (cameronnemo)]

Nevermind, I found it in plank. But you said it was src/Widgets/DockWindow.vala. It is *lib*/Widgets/DockWindow.vala (line 69 right now).

So how has that been going for you, Tom? Is it working, or no?

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the fact Plank's window says it does not accept focus and Gala gives Plank's window focus... seems to imply there is a bug in Gala. Removing that line from Plank might fix the symptom, but not the actual bug. It's a hack.

[Cameron Norman (cameronnemo)]

I totally agree. Be assured that you will never get a merge request from me removing that line. Pantheon dock, however, might. Simply for the sake of this bug has >100 fire balls.

It seems that it is a bug in libmutter by the looks of Tom Beckmann's link (comment 24). At the top of the block of code with the

else
    return topmost_dock;

there is a comment that says

Find the topmost, focusable, mapped, window.

so it is probably a libmutter/Gala bug.

[Thomas Kalka (thomas-kalka-googlemail)]

I have the same problem, either using mutter oder gala as window manager and independent of plank running or not.

Actually the behaviour is quite weird: the keypress event is routed to the focused window, but without the <super> modifier.

If a terminal is focussed and I press "<super>+t", the terminal gets a "t".

If I press "<super>+t" again without releasing "<super" an other terminal window opens.
I then can open any amount of terminals without releasing <super>.

If I release <super> the next "<super>+t" is shown in the last opened terminal window as "t".

[Alessio Di Michelangeli (alessiodimichelangeli)]

Same problem here guys, in different computers. I'm using Luna and i am a keyboard addicted user. It is very annoying that sometimes i have to stop my activity to click on plank or wingpanel. Please fix this bug.
However it happens often after closing Chromium, Synaptic or "not included by default" app.
For example, if you open and close Files no issue, but if you open and close Files as administrator the bug appears.

[Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz)]

This bug is fixed in "mutter - 3.4.1-0ubuntu99~elementary7" and will also be included in mutter 3.10.1

[Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz)]

Keep tracking this as gala bug