Keystrokes are hijacked by inactive window
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mozilla Firefox |
Invalid
|
Medium
|
|||
firefox (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
Starting in a release from February, I've found that the front-most, active window often will occasionally not receive keystrokes. Instead they are being sent to the background, inactive window. The front-most window is shown as selected in the pager, while a non-selected window receives the keystrokes.
I can alt-tab or click between windows, but cannot seem to type into one (or more) windows. Otherwise, clicking does all you expect it to. You can select menus of the window; you can even select text (although it's the "background window" grey instead of the "foreground window" blue).
I tried to make sure that it was not an issue with X/KDE by testing to see what the reported active window was. First I found window IDs with
xwininfo | grep -i 'window id'
Then, when the bug occurred, I attempted to see if keystrokes were being passed to the active (but non-responsive) window with
xev -id 0x123456 | grep Key
I also did the same for the background window that was actually responding to the keystrokes. It seems that the active (but non-responsive) window was indeed receiving keystrokes, and the other one was not, although it was responding to them.. I presume that it's Firefox hijacking the active window internally.
I don't see this in any other application, except much more frequently in Thunderbird.
I've filed a bug for Thunderbird too.
https:/
Here is a troubleshooting thread for this issue.
http://
Here is the related thread for Thunderbird.
https:/
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: firefox 24.0+build1-
Uname: Linux 3.9.4-030904-
AddonCompatChec
ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.3
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/
BuildID: 20130911155223
Channel: Unavailable
Date: Thu Oct 3 11:14:42 2013
ForcedLayersAccel: False
IfupdownConfig:
# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-12-16 (290 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.1)
IpRoute:
default via 192.168.2.1 dev wlan0 proto static
169.254.0.0/16 dev wlan0 scope link metric 1000
192.168.2.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.2.2 metric 9
MarkForUpload: True
MostRecentCrashID: bp-5270b043-
PrefSources:
prefs.js
[Profile]
[Profile]/<email address hidden>
[Profile]/<email address hidden>
[Profile]/<email address hidden>
Profiles: Profile0 (Default) - LastVersion=
RelatedPackageV
google-talkplugin 4.7.0.0-1
adobe-flashplugin 11.2.202.
kopete 4:4.10.
rhythmbox-mozilla 2.98-0ubuntu5
RunningIncompat
SourcePackage: firefox
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to raring on 2013-04-26 (159 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 09/07/2012
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A19
dmi.board.
dmi.board.name: 0XN71K
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: FAB1
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.
dmi.product.name: Dell System XPS L702X
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
summary: |
- Active window cannot receive keystrokes + Keystrokes are hijacked by inactive window |
Changed in firefox: | |
importance: | Unknown → Medium |
status: | Unknown → New |
Changed in firefox: | |
status: | New → Invalid |
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130911155223
Steps to reproduce:
Recently, probably in the upgrade to Thunderbird 24.0, I've found that the front-most, active window often will not receive keystrokes. Instead they are being sent to the background, inactive window. For example, I attempt to reply to an email, and start typing. I see text in the body as expected, then a second after beginning, the text is sent to the main "mail index" window. The front-most window is shown as selected in the pager, while a non-selected window receives the keystrokes. This means that for long periods, I am unable to send and compose emails. In addition, I'm also often mid-sentence when I realise that the characters aren't appearing, and I've done some weird filing/labelling in the mail index window.
I can alt-tab or click between windows, but cannot seem to type into the compose window. Otherwise, clicking does all you expect it to. You can select menus of the window; you can even select text (although it's the "background window" grey instead of the "foreground window" blue).
I tried to make sure that it was not an issue with X/KDE by testing to see what the reported active window was.
$ xwininfo | grep -i 'window id' ACTIVE_ WINDOW' WINDOW( WINDOW) : window id # 0x3c001f6 ACTIVE_ WINDOW' WINDOW( WINDOW) : window id # 0x3c0670c
xwininfo: Window id: 0x3c001f6 "Inbox - Uni - Mozilla Thunderbird"
$ xwininfo | grep -i 'window id'
xwininfo: Window id: 0x3c0670c "Write: Re: Foo Bar - Unicode (UTF-8)"
$ sleep 1 && xprop -root | grep -E '^_NET_
_NET_ACTIVE_
$ sleep 1 && xprop -root | grep -E '^_NET_
_NET_ACTIVE_
It seems that even when the active window is reported to be the compose window by X, it will still not receive input. I presume that it's Thunderbird hijacking the active window internally.
I've tried starting in safe mode and manually downloading and running Thunderbird from the website (64-bit version), instead of using the version in the repositories. In both cases, I still hit this bug.
I don't see this in any other application, except for Firefox occasionally. It used to be fairly frequent in Firefox starting in a release around February, but appears to have diminished in frequency since then.
I did similar troubleshooting in Firefox for active window using xev, but this is now buggy and doesn't work. First I found window IDs with
xwininfo | grep -i 'window id'
Then, when the bug occurred, I attempted to see if keystrokes were being passed to the active (but non-responsive) window with
xev -id 0x123456 | grep Key
I also did the same for the background window that was actually responding to the keystrokes. It seems that the active (but non-responsive) window was indeed receiving keystrokes, and the other one was not, although it was responding to them. I presume that again, it's Firefox hijacking the active window internally. It's probably easier for me to do more troubleshooting in Thunderbird, since it's more frequent.
I checked bugzilla to see this had already been filed, but found nothing. However, I'm unsure if this is related: https:/ /bugzilla. mozilla. org/s...