focus goes to the wrong window on multi window applications

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I tested with Gimp alone in multi window mode. The problem occurs in Ubuntu, but not on Lubuntu.

1 - Open Gimp on multi window mode
2 - Open any dialog from menu (Open file for example)
3 - Press Esc

Expected (happens on Lubuntu):
- Focus goes back to the main window (the window with the menu)

What happens:
- Focus goes to any other Gimp window

I did some other tests using "Always on Top" feature.

1 - Open Gimp on multi window mode
2 - Open a terminal
3 - Set the terminal as always on top
4 - Go back to Gimp and press Ctrl + O (Open dialog)
5 - Press Esc

Now focus goes sometimes to Gimp main window, but keep doing opening and closing the dialog and eventually it always goes to the "always on top" terminal.

1 - Open Gimp on multi window mode
2 - Open two dock windows (if you there is none already)
3 - Let's say you have Layers and Toolbox windows open. Move the Toolbox over the Layers window.
4 - Click on the main window.
5 - Press Ctrl + O (Open dialog)
6 - Press Esc

Focus goes to the Toolbox window

7 - Move the Layers window over the Toolbox window, so it gets on front of it.
8 - Click on the main window.
9 - Press Ctrl + O (Open dialog)
10 - Press Esc

Focus goes to the Layers window.

So, considering all the tests I made, it seems that when you close any window, the window manager chooses to focus the most on top window even if this window is from another application, which is hardly ever the expected result. I would expect to always focus on the last window.

I decided to investigate this problem and checked out the source code. After a lot of debugging I found out that the call to focus the wrong window is coming from compiz CompScreenImpl::focusDefaultWindow which comes from this code on compiz event.cpp :

  else if (event->xfocus.window == privateScreen.rootWindow())
  {
      /* Don't ever let the focus go to the root
       * window except in grab cases
       *
       * FIXME: There might be a case where we have to
       * handle root windows of other screens here, but
       * the other window managers should handle that
       */

      if (event->xfocus.detail == NotifyDetailNone ||
   (event->xfocus.mode == NotifyNormal &&
    event->xfocus.detail == NotifyInferior))
      {
   privateScreen.orphanData.activeWindow = None;

   if (event->xfocus.detail == NotifyDetailNone ||
       (event->xfocus.mode == NotifyNormal &&
        event->xfocus.detail == NotifyInferior))
   {
       screen->focusDefaultWindow ();
   }
      }
  }

The FIXME comment is very suspicious but I have no idea what would be the solution.
I'm adding an attachment file with the stacktrace.

This is the stacktrace obtained with gdb when the wrong call to focus is made.

Just to update, I removed the "screen->focusDefaultWindow ();" line and recompiled compiz and I've been using it for more than a month and this solved the problem and I could not observe any side effect. So I think this code could probably be removed at least when using unity.

As part of the big bug review for 16.04 LTS, I have tested this on 15.10 and the bug is still there.

Added to Trello: https://trello.com/c/BpjOFqDh/18-bug-1459671-focus-goes-to-the-wrong-window-on-multi-window-applications

Hi Andrea,

Which Ubuntu version is not affected any more? I still get this behaviour on 16.04

Hi Guilherme,

unity (Ubuntu) is still targeted and this is the project we track. I'm planning to work on this bug this week.

> unity (Ubuntu) is still targeted and this is the project we track. I'm planning to work on this bug this week.

Great! Let me know if I can help

Hi Guilherme,
I just proposed a fix, thanks for the debugging. You've been very helpful!

Great! I tested the patch and confirm it fixes the problem.
Thanks

This bug was fixed in the package compiz - 1:0.9.13.0+16.10.20160801.3-0ubuntu1

---------------
compiz (1:0.9.13.0+16.10.20160801.3-0ubuntu1) yakkety; urgency=medium

  [ Andrea Azzarone ]
  * focusDefaultWindow: focus Most Recently Used (MRU) window and
    fallback to the top window in case MRU list is not available. (LP:
    #1073488, #1459671)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Mon, 01 Aug 2016 13:25:42 +0000

Hello Guilherme, or anyone else affected,

Accepted compiz into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

I can confirm that this fixes all problems reported on this bug (Eclipse and Gimp).
The following packages are installed:

$ dpkg -l | grep compiz
ii compiz 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1 all
ii compiz-core 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1 amd64
ii compiz-gnome 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1 amd64
ii compiz-plugins:amd64 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1 amd64
ii compiz-plugins-default:amd64 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1 amd64
ii compizconfig-settings-manager 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160526-0ubuntu1 all
ii libcompizconfig0:amd64 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1 amd64
ii python-compizconfig:amd64 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160526-0ubuntu1 amd64

This bug was fixed in the package compiz - 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1

---------------
compiz (1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160801.3-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  [ Andrea Azzarone ]
  * Don't activate expo if not needed (1x1 setup) (LP: #1606254)
  * Don't crash if gsettings key is not found. Default value will be
    used. (LP: #1044662)
  * focusDefaultWindow: focus Most Recently Used (MRU) window and
    fallback to the top window in case MRU list is not available. (LP:
    #1073488, LP: #1459671)

  [ Marco Trevisan (Treviño) ]
  * Unity MigrationScript: sync gsettings on exit, and only use dconf on
    failure (LP: #1605011)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Mon, 01 Aug 2016 13:41:42 +0000

The verification of the Stable Release Update for compiz has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.