Window randomly goes inactive

[pbrown280]

Hi,

This is driving me crazy and I can't find any mention of it anywhere
on the web or in Usenet. I have Vista Ultimate and I am experiencing
a problem where the currently active application window randomly loses
focus, or goes inactive, for 10-15 seconds, then becomes active
again. So far I've noticed it happening in Outlook and Internet
Explorer, and it occurs when I am doing any kind of action. For
example, in Outlook, I can be typing in a message composition window,
scrolling while reading a message in the preview pane, dragging an
item from one folder to another, etc. When it happens, I can click in
the window to make it active again, or simply wait for 10-15 seconds,
and it will become active again on its own.

This is particularly maddening when typing -- as an advanced hunt-n-
peck type, I look at my keyboard probably 80% of the time while I'm
typing, so when it happens, I'll type a few words or even a sentence
or two and it was a waste -- I have to type it all again once the
window comes back.

I haven't been able to determine where the focus is going. I don't
think another program is stealing it because it happens randomly, with
other programs running, or with nothing else in the task list. I am
willing to entertain the notion that some background process is to
blame, but I'm struggling with how I can possibly figure out if that's
true and if so, which one it is. It is worth mentioning that this is
a work laptop (Thinkpad T60p widescreen) and all of my co-workers have
the same machine, but only one of them is experiencing the same issue,
so if the cause is in fact some other piece of software, it would have
to be something that we both have on our machines, but none of our
other colleagues have on theirs. So far we have not been able to
identify anything that fits that category.

I'll also mention that I did come across a description of a similar
problem in XP that TweakUI had a workaround for. (Reference: <<http://
the-cream.blogspot.com/2007/04/active-window-loses-focus.html>>) I
checked the registry and found that HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel
\Desktop\ForegroundLockTimeout already existed and was set to 0x30d40
(200000). So strike one there.

Any ideas are most welcome.

Thanks,

~paul

 

[Guest]

Right-click your Taskbar and then bring up Task Manager to find out what is
running on there.

 

[pbrown280]

Right-click your Taskbar and then bring up Task Manager to find out what is
running on there.

Thanks for the response. I guess I wasn't as clear as I could have
been. I'll try again.

I have considered the possibility that a background process is
involved in this, and I have looked over the list of running processes
several times in trying to solve this. I haven't been able to
identify anything that looks suspicious or that appears in my and my
colleague's task lists, but not on our other colleagues'.

~paul

 

[Lang Murphy]

Hi,

This is driving me crazy and I can't find any mention of it anywhere
on the web or in Usenet. I have Vista Ultimate and I am experiencing
a problem where the currently active application window randomly loses
focus, or goes inactive, for 10-15 seconds, then becomes active
again. So far I've noticed it happening in Outlook and Internet
Explorer, and it occurs when I am doing any kind of action. For
example, in Outlook, I can be typing in a message composition window,
scrolling while reading a message in the preview pane, dragging an
item from one folder to another, etc. When it happens, I can click in
the window to make it active again, or simply wait for 10-15 seconds,
and it will become active again on its own.

This is particularly maddening when typing -- as an advanced hunt-n-
peck type, I look at my keyboard probably 80% of the time while I'm
typing, so when it happens, I'll type a few words or even a sentence
or two and it was a waste -- I have to type it all again once the
window comes back.

I haven't been able to determine where the focus is going. I don't
think another program is stealing it because it happens randomly, with
other programs running, or with nothing else in the task list. I am
willing to entertain the notion that some background process is to
blame, but I'm struggling with how I can possibly figure out if that's
true and if so, which one it is. It is worth mentioning that this is
a work laptop (Thinkpad T60p widescreen) and all of my co-workers have
the same machine, but only one of them is experiencing the same issue,
so if the cause is in fact some other piece of software, it would have
to be something that we both have on our machines, but none of our
other colleagues have on theirs. So far we have not been able to
identify anything that fits that category.

I'll also mention that I did come across a description of a similar
problem in XP that TweakUI had a workaround for. (Reference: <<http://
the-cream.blogspot.com/2007/04/active-window-loses-focus.html>>) I
checked the registry and found that HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel
\Desktop\ForegroundLockTimeout already existed and was set to 0x30d40
(200000). So strike one there.

Any ideas are most welcome.

Thanks,

~paul

If your problem is only with Outlook and IE, then I'd have to -guess- that
maybe you're losing your network connection for brief periods of time.
Again, that's just a guess...

Lang

 

[pbrown280]

If your problem is only with Outlook and IE, then I'd have to -guess- that
maybe you're losing your network connection for brief periods of time.
Again, that's just a guess...

Lang

Hmmm. I do use wireless most of the time, so that sounds plausible.
However, I typically have multiple ssh sessions open to several
different servers all day long, and anytime the network connection
drops, ssh disconnects. I rarely have that happen, so I think the
WLAN is pretty solid.

~paul

 

[Lang Murphy]

Hmmm. I do use wireless most of the time, so that sounds plausible.
However, I typically have multiple ssh sessions open to several
different servers all day long, and anytime the network connection
drops, ssh disconnects. I rarely have that happen, so I think the
WLAN is pretty solid.

~paul

Well, as I said... it's just a guess... don't know where to go from here,
though. I'm not experienced with the in's and out's of ssh, so I can't
comment further. At any rate, good luck!

Lang

 

[pbrown280]

/bump/

Does anyone else have any ideas? Or is anyone else experiencing this
behavior?

~paul