Windows doesn't release focus

General support questions
Post Reply
Erebard
Posts: 1
Joined: 2019/01/15 14:18:06

Windows doesn't release focus

Post by Erebard » 2019/01/15 14:44:23

Hi,

I'm not very advanced user and usually I'm able to find solution to my problem via google, but not this time.

Maybe my title is not very correct, but this is how i understand current issue.

This issue appeared after I have applied latest updates on my Centos 7 system after New Year, i don't update it very often and it's a guest OS on Oracle VirtualBox.

So here's what we got on yum history ( yep without details which packages were affected it's not that in help )

sudo yum history
[sudo] password for myVM:
Loaded plugins: auto-update-debuginfo, fastestmirror, langpacks
ID | Login user | Date and time | Action(s) | Altered
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
74 | System <unset> | 2019-01-15 15:43 | Update | 35
73 | myVM <myVM> | 2019-01-02 15:17 | Reinstall | 3
72 | myVM <myVM> | 2019-01-02 15:16 | Reinstall | 1
71 | myVM <myVM> | 2019-01-02 11:32 | I, U | 7
70 | System <unset> | 2019-01-02 10:03 | E, I, O, U | 790 EE
69 | System <unset> | 2018-12-12 18:42 | E, I, U | 157 ss
68 | System <unset> | 2018-11-26 09:31 | Update | 5 EE
67 | System <unset> | 2018-11-19 11:13 | E, I, U | 103 EE
66 | myVM <myVM> | 2018-11-14 02:05 | Install | 1
65 | System <unset> | 2018-09-27 18:54 | I, U | 219 EE
64 | myVM <myVM> | 2018-07-11 15:24 | Install | 23
63 | myVM <myVM> | 2018-06-07 16:32 | Install | 48
62 | myVM <myVM> | 2018-06-01 13:59 | I, U | 816 EE
61 | myVM <myVM> | 2018-05-03 16:30 | Install | 2
60 | System <unset> | 2018-05-03 16:04 | Update | 2 EE
59 | myVM <myVM> | 2018-05-03 15:43 | Install | 1
58 | myVM <myVM> | 2018-04-19 12:43 | I, O, U | 1081 EE

So after update with ID 70 i started to encounter issue which were appearing after i do like:
-open new application
-click somewhere inside

after this my mouse clicks on other areas don't do anything and if i move my mouse on minimize, maximize or close button it doesn't even change it's appearance ( some button animation upon mouse on it )

For terminal case works such solution - to take window under the bar with close button - then i can move it and other windows starts to feel mouse upon move and clicks.

First i thought it was problem with guest addition, but i have installed latest version and problem wasn't solved.

Tried to reinstall/update current gui ( gnome 3 ), as well as switching to another cinnamon , but it didn't solved my issue.

Then i thought about rolling back, but as it was new kernel and actions were performed by system - i couldn't do it.

But at that time i didn't know it and tried to execute sudo yum undo 70 ( it of course failed to do it ). But still it was doing some stuff with installed packages.

And after that or i don't know what magic happened - issue gone, before today. It appeared once again and i don't know what caused it.

Only thing i was doing is changing perl version + XML::Twig and Templates-Toolkit modules via perlbrew and cpanm.

Note: ID 74 was applied in order to try fix the issue and it's not one that caused it again.

ericreiss
Posts: 2
Joined: 2019/01/16 01:26:09

Re: Windows doesn't release focus

Post by ericreiss » 2019/01/16 01:46:38

Hi Erebard and anyone else reading.

I have been dealing with this same problem and have not resolved it but have more information that may narrow the down the problem.

First my environment.

Running on on Windows 7 64bit I originally have Oracle VirtualBox 5.2.22 with matching extensions then installed CentOS 7 build 1810.

After fighting with this same problem for quite a while and no results helping despite numerous Google searches, I was also having another problem with screen size and the VirtualBox Guest additions and noticed VirtualBox 6.0.2 came out today.

I updated to VirtualBox 6.0.2 and updated the extensions (Guest Additions) and fixed my resolution problems but I still have this windows focus problem with them mouse.

The symptoms are that I have a terminal window open and suddenly cannot grab the window frame to move the window or resize. I can select any of the menus (Applications Places Terminal) to start another app.

Sometimes I have two terminal windows open and suddenly can't switch focus back to the other window. Having to resort to using Alt-Tab to toggle between windows. This also happened when having a Terminal window open and a Firefox window open. Also having Firefox open and after selecting to download a file from a website (Oracle JDK) I could not get the OK or Cancel button to dismiss the dialog.

What I did realize is that when two terminal windows are open, I can click and drag to highlight text in the window that had focus last.

So if I have Terminal window 1 (TW1) and then open Terminal Window 2 (TW2) then lose mouse capabilities on terminal windows, I can highlight text in the window that had focus when this happens (TW2). If I use ALT-TAB to switch focus to the other window, I can type commands with the keyboard but I cannot hightlight text in TW1. But even with TW1 on top of TW2 (having focus) I can see that if I click and drag it is highlighting text in TW2 even though TW1 is on top.

Finally observation and workaround.

If I Right-Click on the window that had focus when the problem started (whether the context window comes up or not) this seems to release this "stuck" behavior and I can work normally until it happens again.

Not sure what is causing it but hopefully the keyboard working in the window having focus but the mouse still suck in a previous window/app and then right-clicking on the window/app which the mouse is still trying to work on releasing the stuck behavior so that things work normally again can help someone narrow the problem and resolve it.

Hopefully a fix is found soon.

Thank you,

Eric

lightman47
Posts: 1521
Joined: 2014/05/21 20:16:00
Location: Central New York, USA

Re: Windows doesn't release focus

Post by lightman47 » 2019/01/18 11:27:33

Having similar focus problem on VirtualBox 5.2 (5.2.24_128163_el7-1) CentOS 7 running on CentOS 7 machine. VirtualBox has changed something I suspect.

I can usually wrestle back control by clicking title bars, window content, or other things.

ericreiss
Posts: 2
Joined: 2019/01/16 01:26:09

Re: Windows doesn't release focus

Post by ericreiss » 2019/01/18 16:48:38

lightman47,

yes, just right-click on the different windows on your desktop until you regain control.

Post Reply