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Alt-tab randomly gets stuck on select screen for unknown reason

Open pawelkontek opened this issue 1 year ago β€’ 34 comments

Describe the bug

The Alt-tab randomly gets stuck on the select screen for an unknown reason. Please see video.

Screenshots / video

(It is best to watch with sound to understand when I am pressing cmd+tab to switch tabs) https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/645529ef-be38-4d88-b1d4-214abe82b09b

Steps to reproduce the bug

  1. Just use alt tab.

Your environment

  • AltTab version: Version 6.72.0
  • macOS version: Sonoma 14.5 (23F79)
  • Other relevant info: Using MBP 14". Using Karabiner.

pawelkontek avatar Aug 25 '24 19:08 pawelkontek

I'm facing same problem, sometime if I press Alt Tab too fast, the tab select automatically move from left to right until end of list of windows

qvanphong avatar Aug 27 '24 13:08 qvanphong

Hi,

Thank you for sharing this issue.

I can't reproduce it. I reproduced your exact inputs as well, and it doesn't get stuck.

Only idea I have is that you may have other apps on your setup which intercept events, and absorb the keyUp event. This would mean AltTab doesn't see them, thus never goes away.

Do you use BTT, Karabineer, external keyboards, logitech things, etc?

Thank you πŸ™‡

@qvanphong what you describe sounds more like https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos/issues/3117

lwouis avatar Aug 27 '24 14:08 lwouis

I'm facing the same problem ever since i updated to sonoma.

milosoria avatar Aug 28 '24 19:08 milosoria

Do you use BTT, Karabineer, external keyboards, logitech things, etc?

I use Karabiner, but I was also able to reproduce this bug with Karabiner completely turned off. I use BTT 🀑 No external keyboards or Logitech (as of recording this bug) – it is possible that the Apple keyboard and trackpad were connected via Bluetooth but not active.

Only idea I have is that you may have other apps on your setup which intercept events, and absorb the keyUp event

Isn't karabiner elements showing what the computer (?) is recording?

pawelkontek avatar Aug 29 '24 14:08 pawelkontek

Karabiner and BTT both listen to keyboard events, and do things with it. In some cases, they may absorb the event.

For instance, if you set Karabiner to remap E to L, when you press E, it will create keyUp event for the letter E. Karabiner will absorb it, and re-emit a new event for the letter L. At least I believe they do something like this. I know for a fact that these apps can absorb events, then AltTab doesn't receive them. Many users have shared issues with AltTab that were actually due to their setup.

Could you please test with BTT and Karabiner not running, and no external keyboard? I think that should confirm if they were the cause, which is the most likely explanation.

Thank you πŸ™‡

lwouis avatar Aug 29 '24 15:08 lwouis

Do you use BTT, Karabineer, external keyboards, logitech things, etc?

Hi @lwouis , I'm not using any other external device. I'm not remember exactly when this happen, maybe after update Sonoma?

My issue is same as https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos/issues/3117

qvanphong avatar Aug 29 '24 15:08 qvanphong

I had the problem when updated to Sonoma. Then I disabled the blue capslock indicator popup in macos and now it seems working normal as before. UPDATE: the problem still persists, but it seems to be more often when there are dynamic windows

nasedil avatar Sep 05 '24 07:09 nasedil

I had the exact same issue for months, but have not found anyone else facing it. Finally there's someone else. I am also using Karabiner, but I can confirm that this also happens with Karabiner stopped.

scriptogre avatar Sep 05 '24 09:09 scriptogre

I have also experienced this issue on a brand new macbook also on Sonoma

ctrl-cheeb-del avatar Sep 07 '24 12:09 ctrl-cheeb-del

I unfortunately don't have a solution, but just bumping this since I am facing the same issue.

Edit: If anyone just wants to make it work again, I suggest downgrading to version 6.63.0. This fixed the issue for me.

ILIAink avatar Sep 08 '24 00:09 ILIAink

@ILIAink I downgraded to 6.63.0. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the issue for me.

pawelkontek avatar Sep 09 '24 15:09 pawelkontek

I also had this issue for a while. After some debugging, I noticed that the bug went away after I disabled Chrome's input monitoring permission.

image

aoli-al avatar Sep 10 '24 23:09 aoli-al

Thank you @aoli-al Anyone else gets the issue to go away by removing Chrome's Input Monitoring permissions? If yes, that would indicate that it was Chrome stealing inputs in some cases.

lwouis avatar Sep 11 '24 07:09 lwouis

No, I use Brave and it is not doing any input monitoring, this issue is really annoying I find myself constantly switching between Brave and VSC, I may have to find an alternative since it seems they are sleeping on this issue

Yazi27 avatar Sep 11 '24 11:09 Yazi27

This happens constantly for me, to the point where AltTab becomes unusable.

multi-io avatar Sep 12 '24 14:09 multi-io

For me, disabling Karabiner's 3 input monitoring applications fixed it, re-enabling them still keeps the fix. Didn't have any other input monitoring apps enabled.

AfzalivE avatar Sep 12 '24 17:09 AfzalivE

The bug still persists for me, even after disabling monitoring apps.

I am going to disable alt-tab and use macOS regular switcher, and see if it also gets stuck.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/516746d3-19b0-44a2-93ad-33dcc45ebed0

pawelkontek avatar Sep 13 '24 12:09 pawelkontek

This is happening when the mouse cursor is positioned over the AltTab popup. Hiding window thumbnails in AltTab Appearance settings helps with this as it reduces the chances of the cursor being over the popup area.

albionselimaj avatar Sep 13 '24 14:09 albionselimaj

This happens constantly for me, to the point where AltTab becomes unusable.

Update: I had Karabiner Elements running, wasn't really using it anymore. Disabled it and restarted, and it looks like the problem is gone. I still have Rectangle with a whole bunch of keyboard mappings running, and this would be much harder to replace or stop using, but so far it doesn't seem to interfere with AltTab. I will report back if the issue reappears.

multi-io avatar Sep 13 '24 19:09 multi-io

just wanted to say, I was experiencing this issue but took @ILIAink suggestion of downgrading to 6.63.0 seemed to fix it for me

ctrl-cheeb-del avatar Sep 13 '24 19:09 ctrl-cheeb-del

I don't have Karabiner, the issue does arise when my mouse is somewhere around where the windows appear as @albionselimaj mentioned, it would be nice to add a feature to disable entirely disable cursor as an easy fix, or maybe disable it when its not moving?

Would be nice if a dev answers

Yazi27 avatar Sep 13 '24 23:09 Yazi27

Hi,

A lot of cases in this threads have been confirmed to be caused not by AltTab having a bug, but by another app stealing a keyboard input.

It's hard to investigate more without being able to ever reproduce the issue on my machine. Soon, we'll add a logger to AltTab. It will allow for casual users to share logs here. These will help us investigate such issues that happen only on some people setups.

Thank you πŸ™‡

lwouis avatar Sep 14 '24 17:09 lwouis

Any solution regarding the cursor being on the way of the windows making the cycle get stuck, even cycling by itself? I'll provide a video.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4b391942-643c-42c8-80f8-543644219c03

Yazi27 avatar Sep 14 '24 18:09 Yazi27

I was testing different versions trying to figure out, which one does not have the issue mentioned, because I had it. I tried all version starting from 6.63.0 up to the latest one. I do not have a slightest idea why, but the issue fixed itself and currently I am not experiencing it on the latest version. Weird.

hikariatama avatar Sep 15 '24 16:09 hikariatama

This is happening when the mouse cursor is positioned over the AltTab popup. Hiding window thumbnails in AltTab Appearance settings helps with this as it reduces the chances of the cursor being over the popup area.

Exactly what happens for me – most definitely this is what is causing it for me. Disabled all input capturing apps, but still happens.

and-poulsen avatar Sep 23 '24 22:09 and-poulsen

I've been experiencing this for a while. Setting Apparition delay to 0ms rather than 104ms seems to have resolved it. 🀞

Unable to reproduce by putting my cursor where AltTab will pop up.

d-lord avatar Oct 01 '24 03:10 d-lord

I can reproduce as well with the mouse being over the switcher popup when it appears & have nothing like Karabiner installed. If I move my mouse to the side of the screen, I have no issue. If I have my mouse in the center, it happens every time. Wasn't actually aware this was the pattern until I found this thread, but experimenting now that I know to pay attention to where my mouse is that explanation fits perfectly :) I've got >16 windows open, so it takes up most of the screen. My Apparition Delay was already set to 0ms.

james-aus avatar Oct 04 '24 05:10 james-aus

I also have this issue, which is caused by the mouse cursor being over the AltTab window, as @albionselimaj said.

However, under controls, I have deselected "Also select windows using mouse hover" and "Cursor follows focus", so this seems like a bug.

lordgrenville avatar Oct 08 '24 09:10 lordgrenville

This happens constantly for me, to the point where AltTab becomes unusable.

Update: I had Karabiner Elements running, wasn't really using it anymore. Disabled it and restarted, and it looks like the problem is gone. I still have Rectangle with a whole bunch of keyboard mappings running, and this would be much harder to replace or stop using, but so far it doesn't seem to interfere with AltTab. I will report back if the issue reappears.

Well...it did reappear. I did not reinstall Karabiner Elements. Restarting it seems to help, for a while at least.

multi-io avatar Oct 10 '24 21:10 multi-io

Would it help to give Alt-Tab a higher priority compared to BTT / Karabiner etc.? Could Alt-Tab become a "Input Monitoring App?"

rcwmt avatar Oct 13 '24 12:10 rcwmt