Page 1 of 2

OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 16. Jan 2017, 22:01
by MisterWooley
Mac OSX Sierra running Vbox 5.1.12 with Windows 7 32bit guest in seamless mode

What seems to happen is that after a windows program is run all open OSX windows loose focus and can only be accessed after clicking on the app's icon on the Mac's Dock bar. This is intensely frustrating.

I believe it is a new behaviour since updating to OSX Sierra although I made the mistake of upgrading to Xbox 5.1.12 at the same time.

I would be grateful for any tips that would fix this problem or suggestions as to how I can provide debug info that might help developers.

It appears that although the windows guest is running seamless it is actually there on top but invisible. Right clicking anywhere including over a Mac window shows the windows 7 context menu. I was unable to reproduce the errant behaviour in scaled mode, but that is not very useful to me.

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 16. Jan 2017, 23:42
by socratis
MisterWooley wrote:upgrading to Xbox 5.1.12
Damn, you're way ahead! Most of the people are still on XBox One!!! :D

But, jokes aside, there is already a bug report open on this: #16246: In seamless mode, mouse events do not reach host windows visible behind the VM.

Known workaround: download to 5.1.8. You can add your vote to get notifications if anything changes.

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 16. Jan 2017, 23:59
by MisterWooley
Thanks Socratis, Your reply to my typo made me chuckle. Thanks for the link to the known bug. I though that this might be the case. My inability to find it is down to the well known trait of searching, you can only find something by searching if you have a reasonable idea of how the original posted would have described it. I'm still learning virtual box speak.

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 17. Jan 2017, 00:07
by socratis
Searching actually, I believe, is one of the things that you have to master before you're given your "internet" license. That and problem description. I mean, you're on a forum, for help, why on earth would you title your topic "Help", "Error" or "Crash" and actually expect people to know what on earth you're referring to? But maybe it's just me getting older and grumpy ;)

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 17. Jan 2017, 03:01
by BillG
There was a good one in a Windows 10 Technet forum recently titled Windows 10!

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 17. Jan 2017, 11:42
by mpack
Grr. OCD kicking in. "Loose focus" might mean something, but I assume the OP actually means "lose focus". I really don't understand why so many (native English speaking) people have trouble spelling a simple four letter word: "lose" !

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 17. Jan 2017, 14:01
by MisterWooley
OMG! And I thort I was asking a simple question. We are suffering a hint of topic drift but. . .

Yes I did spell "lose" incorrectly, or perhaps more correctly auto correct kicked in and "helped" me but I did not notice. How careless I was. And, for the next comment tom pack, Ah! There we goo again. I actually typed "to mpack" and "go" but well done auto correct. Unfortunately I am a bit of a old codger, can't type and look at the screen at the same time.

But mpack, just how was it determined that I am a native english speaking person? As it happens I was born in West Germany, German citizen until the age of 10 and quite fluent in German.

Anyway, I have not taken offence by this little bit of fun banter and I really do now how to spell "thought"

Out of interest I did find the following
*Note: the Oxford English Dictionary does have entries for ‘lose’ as a noun (one meaning ‘an instance of losing’, the other ‘praise; renown’), but neither is listed in our dictionaries of current English.

Thanks

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 17. Jan 2017, 17:16
by mpack
MisterWooley wrote:But mpack, just how was it determined that I am a native english speaking person?
Actually I made no such determination! I was very careful to say only that native English speakers also make the spelling mistake mentioned. As I wrote that I was well aware that you were probably not this, based on clues in your writing style. For non English speakers of course any semantic or spelling error is understandable, even if it is only for a four letter word.

I always disable all "live" spelling and grammar checking in every device and every PC application I use, as I find such features infuriating, and often wrong. I will sometimes use offline (i.e. manually activated) spell checkers when I'm creating a formal document such as user manual - but only as a final step before publication, and I check each suggested correction. I absolutely never allow any kind of auto correction.

Sorry I can't contribute towards solving your problem as I'm not a Mac user.

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 18. Jan 2017, 04:54
by brycesteiner
Anyone try the latest 5.1.14?
I see it's available but this bug is not listed as being fixed in the changelog.

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 18. Jan 2017, 08:31
by socratis
I don't know why you expected a not-reported-as-fixed bug, actually being fixed. They'd have referenced it by name ;)

It's not. Host: 10.9.5, VBox: 5.1.14, Guest: WinXP.

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 18. Jan 2017, 13:48
by brycesteiner
I don't know why you expected a not-reported-as-fixed bug, actually being fixed. They'd have referenced it by name
I was just checking because there have been times that I've seen other bugs fixed (but I don't think they were reported) in one version to another.

This must be a pretty serious regression issue considering it's now on the second version after being reported.

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 18. Jan 2017, 14:48
by socratis
brycesteiner wrote:This must be a pretty serious regression
Not really. I mean, you have to be in seamless mode, on OSX hosts, with Windows guests, in a non-destructive bug, with a known workaround. Not even close to being considered serious in my book. Annoying, maybe. Serious?

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 19. Jan 2017, 01:00
by brycesteiner
with a known workaround.
You mean going back to 5.1.8?

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 19. Jan 2017, 01:17
by socratis
Yes.

Re: OSX Windows Loose Focus

Posted: 29. May 2017, 09:33
by DARKGuy
Well, I don't think a workaround would be to downgrade. The real path to follow here would be to work on the bug, I mean, I know not many people use seamless mode but for me it's really important as I do some development and I need to see some console windows while being helped by OSX's terminal transparency, to say one use case. I hope this gets fixed soon :) something broke between .8 and .22 I guess.