Can no longer drop tabs onto tabs area in Chromium

[Jani Uusitalo]

With Chromium 17, I can no longer drag 'n' drop tabs to reorganize them in an existing window: the tabs area no longer lets me drop tabs onto it, so each tab I pick up gets a new window when dropped. Dragging the tab from the new window into the old won't work either (cannot drop the tab into where the tabs area should be).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: chromium-browser 17.0.963.56~r121963-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-16.25-generic-pae 3.2.6
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-16-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 1.91-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Feb 18 21:50:01 2012
Desktop-Session:
 DESKTOP_SESSION = ubuntu-2d
 XDG_CONFIG_DIRS = /etc/xdg/xdg-ubuntu-2d:/etc/xdg
 XDG_DATA_DIRS = /usr/share/ubuntu-2d:/usr/share/gnome:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
Env:
 MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH = None
 LD_LIBRARY_PATH = None
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=fi_FI.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2011-12-09 (71 days ago)
chromium-default: CHROMIUM_FLAGS=""

[Jani Uusitalo (uusijani)]

This is apparently caused by something not in Chromium itself: it's not reproducible in a VM running Oneiric, with 17.0.963.26 from ppa:chromium-daily/dev nor with Chrome 17.0.96356. It *is* reproducible in Precise with the latter too, but not reproducible with Firefox nor Epiphany. In Precise with Chromium 17, it's reproducible with a temporary profile and a guest login also.

[Jani Uusitalo (uusijani)]

Not reproducible under Unity 3D.

[Michał Sawicz (saviq)]

This is most probably the result of Unity-2D being a fullscreen, XShaped window since 5.4. We already found and fixed a drag'n'drop bug in Qt that didn't take XShaping into account, someone will have to take a look into chromium as well.

But the bug is indeed in chromium, not in Unity-2d, so reassigning back.

[Jani Uusitalo (uusijani)]

Strangely, with Chromium 18 I could no longer reproduce this with new profiles, but with my old profile it was still there.

[René Lara (rlla-personal)]

I found in wikipedia in a WM comparison that metacity does not support tabbed windows, I think there is the problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_window_managers

[Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)]

@René: That's unrelated, because Chromium has never used Metacity to draw its tabs.

[Buck Evan (bukzor)]

I see three un-merged bugs in the chromium tracker on this topic:

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=114985
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=124761
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=122789

The first seems most canonical, while the second one is the most-starred, and has gotten a (small) amount of dev attention.

As a note, the current workaround is to use the hotkeys for this operation (ctrl+shift+pgup), or switch to Unity 3D desktop.

[Francewhoa (francewhoa)]

Confirming this issue
* Chrome 23.0.1271.97
* Chromium 25.0.1364.160
* Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 32 Bit
* Unity 2D

[Francewhoa (francewhoa)]

Steps to reproduce the issue
1. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS final beta x32 Desktop
2. Install latest stable Chromium or Chrome from repo
3. Open a new Chrome/ium window
4. Open another new new window
5. Try to drag merge the second tab/window into first, it doesn't 'hook'.
6. Also, open a single window with multiple tabs, then drag one tab out into its own window, then back into its 'parent' window. It won't hook here either. You can drag it out, release, and re-drag it back, or never release your drag, either way it won't merge back into parent window. Once separated from parent window, can't merge it back.

Expected result: Tabs should unmerge and remerge when dragged individually. What happens instead?
Won't hook and remerge, remains a separate window no matter where you drag the tab over the parent window.

[Hristo Erinin (zorlem)]

Two workarounds for this:
To move tabs left or right in a single window you can use Ctrl+Shift+PgUp and Ctrl+Shift+PgDown.

To move tabs between two Chromium windows you need to set the destination window to be "Always on top". Then dragging a tab from the source window to the destination would actually allow the tab to be inserted in the destination window, as expected.

[Ulf Renman (ulf-renman)]

Just a note about workaround nr1: Ctrl+Shift+PgUp/PgDown works great except for tabs with GoogleDrive-spreadsheets with multiple sheets. In such docs the selected sheet is switched instead. This behavior is probably present on more pages which I don't know of.

[Ulf Renman (ulf-renman)]

A third workaround:
If you pin (rightclick the tab and select Pin Tab) and then unpin a tab it is moved to the leftmost position of the unpinned tabs. It does not solve the issue but it could help you stay organized until the bug is fixed. The Pin Tab feature (which I just learned about) could just as well make you don't need the move tab functionality any more.

[Jeffrey van Pelt (jeffreyvanpelt)]

One thing that I noticed that this behaviour is the worst in Unity 2D, but only occurs when the Auto-Hide Launcher (in Systems settings -> Appearance -> Behaviour) is active. In Unity 3D the mechanism is just a little awkward (some time it is working, some times it isn't).

[Elias Tsolis (estatistics)]

In ubuntu 21.04, using chromium Version 98.0.4727.0 (Developer Build) (64-bit) with kwin x window manager, i am unable to move tabs around (before or after others). Instead new window is opening.
Short keys is working nut not mouse movement drag and drop.

[Yash Kumar Verma (yashkumarverma)]

Ubuntu 20.04.3,
Google Chrome 96.0.4664.45 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Still facing this issue

[Justin Pine (drexlock)]

Having this issue as well, started today on an existing install that had not had this problem previously.

Kubuntu 20.04.3
Chrome 97.0.4692.71

Unable to move tabs without them becoming new windows or adjust bookmarks in the bookmark bar at all.

[Michal (mmichalowicz)]

Same here:
Chrome 97.0.4692.71
Kubuntu 20.04.3
Kernel 5.11.0-44-generic
Intel XE 9a49

[Stuart Denyer (denyer)]

Same issues as drexlock and mmichalowicz. Started a day or two ago.

Kubuntu 21.10
Chrome Version 97.0.4692.71 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Kernel 5.13.0-23-generic
Intel i5-3470T and onboard graphics on a ThinkCentre M92p using X.org

I've just tried installing the latest Chrome build (same version as above) on a current Kubuntu LiveCD session in VirtualBox, and the same with a Mint Xfce 20.2 ISO I'd previously downloaded and an ISO of Fedora from early 2021. Dragging tabs to reorder them worked in the Xfce and Gnome sessions. If it's something to do with a recent Plasma component update that's probably got more chance of being fixed quickly than if it's purely a Chrome bug.

[Gustavo Tajes Genga (gustavo-tajes)]

Same here:
Chrome 97.0.4692.71 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Kubuntu 18.04.6
Kernel 5.4.0-94-generic

[Stuart Denyer (denyer)]

The official bug report seems to be here:
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1279532