Gnome lock screen loses focus if a window opens while screen is locked

[Mike Hicks]

The Gnome lock screen has caused me a lot of frustration over time, since I've often found that is unresponsive to the keyboard when I come back to the system and try to get back in after the screen lock has activated. I finally realized that this is usually due to the "Software Updater" window popping up while I'm away from the computer, though it can be triggered by any window opening while the screen is locked.

To reproduce:

Open a terminal window and type "sleep 15; gnome-terminal", then immediately click on the upper-right notification area and select the "Lock" option in the popup menu.

Observe the screen go into lock. Wait 15 seconds.

Press a key like Ctrl or Alt to wake the screen. Attempt to type in the password (or use a fingerprint reader if you have one). Nothing happens.

Click the screen (or possibly tap/swipe it if you have a touchscreen). The password prompt will now appear, and it should be possible to type in the password (or use the fingerprint reader)

This is a very annoying behavior. It shouldn't be necessary to click/tap the screen to restore focus when the whole desktop has been taken over by the screen locker.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: gnome-shell 42.4-0ubuntu0.22.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.15.0-50.56-generic 5.15.60
Uname: Linux 5.15.0-50-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.1
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Mar 8 08:21:43 2023
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2022-10-13 (146 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20220809.1)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 42.2-0ubuntu1
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

At first I could not reproduce the bug. Then I started trying your nonstandard settings:

  b'org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences' b'auto-raise' b'true'
  b'org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences' b'focus-mode' b"'sloppy'"

and the bug occurs. But now the bug occurs even when I revert those settings so I'm not sure what is triggering it.

[Erkin Alp Güney (erkinalp9035)]

Reason of focus loss is different in mantic&later (GNOME 40 series) than before (GNOME 3 series). For GNOME 40 series, I have temporarily applied a workaround in my personal configuration to disable the lock screen, but wouldn't recommend that in a work or school computer.