I was being driven up the wall with this problem for a long time (even in a non-Ubuntu distro) and couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on until someone mentioned Unclutter! (I was blaming the window manager, GUI toolkits, etc.--I never would have suspected unclutter.) It does indeed seem to cause problems.
I sort of worry that -noevent could potentially cause other problems, though. Apparently unclutter uses a lot of funky hacks to do its work which causes weird things to happen in general. There's a rewrite of it using the x11-xfixes extension which looks like a much cleaner solution: https://github.com/Airblader/unclutter-xfixes I found it fairly easy to build, and so far I haven't seen any problems or weird behavior while using it. It would be nice if it could be considered for inclusion in the Ubuntu repos. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to unclutter in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1231588 Title: Running unclutter without "-noevent" causes focus problems for Firefox and Thunderbird Status in Mozilla Firefox: Won't Fix Status in unclutter package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: I have found in the last day or so that Firefox windows do not accept focus when they are clicked upon. The focus (and key and mouse events) are still sent to a different window even after it has been selected for the foreground by click or ALT+TAB,ALT+`. Initially I experienced this on a dual-head display, but even when the window is moved from the external monitor to the built-in laptop monitor, events are routed to the wrong firefox window. This issue has survived an apt-get upgrade and a reboot, and is still occurring. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10 Package: firefox 24.0+build1-0ubuntu1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-8.15-generic 3.11.1 Uname: Linux 3.11.0-8-generic i686 AddonCompatCheckDisabled: False ApportVersion: 2.12.4-0ubuntu1 Architecture: i386 AudioDevicesInUse: USER PID ACCESS COMMAND /dev/snd/controlC0: cefn 4062 F.... pulseaudio BuildID: 20130917154333 Channel: Unavailable Date: Thu Sep 26 18:07:55 2013 ForcedLayersAccel: False IfupdownConfig: # interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8) auto lo iface lo inet loopback InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-08-15 (42 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Alpha i386 (20130626) IpRoute: default via 192.168.1.1 dev wlan0 proto static 192.168.1.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.23 metric 9 MarkForUpload: True Plugins: Shockwave Flash - /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so Java(TM) Plug-in 10.40.2 - /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so Gnome Shell Integration - /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libgnome-shell-browser-plugin.so (gnome-shell) Silverlight Plug-In - /usr/lib/pipelight/libpipelight.so (pipelight) iTunes Application Detector - /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/librhythmbox-itms-detection-plugin.so (rhythmbox-mozilla) PrefSources: prefs.js /usr/share/mozilla/extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}/[email protected]/defaults/preferences/001ubuntu-gnome-mods.js ProcEnviron: LANGUAGE=en_GB:en TERM=xterm PATH=(custom, no user) LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash Profiles: Profile0 (Default) - LastVersion=24.0/20130917154333 (In use) PulseList: Error: command ['pacmd', 'list'] failed with exit code 1: Home directory not accessible: Permission denied No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon. RelatedPackageVersions: gnome-shell 3.8.4-0ubuntu5 pipelight 0.1-4-0~ubuntu13.10.1 rhythmbox-mozilla 2.99.1-0ubuntu1 RunningIncompatibleAddons: False SourcePackage: firefox UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) dmi.bios.date: 10/23/2008 dmi.bios.vendor: TOSHIBA dmi.bios.version: Version 1.50 dmi.board.asset.tag: 0000000000 dmi.board.name: Portable PC dmi.board.vendor: TOSHIBA dmi.board.version: Version A0 dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 0000000000 dmi.chassis.type: 10 dmi.chassis.vendor: TOSHIBA dmi.chassis.version: Version 1.0 dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnTOSHIBA:bvrVersion1.50:bd10/23/2008:svnTOSHIBA:pnPORTEGER600:pvrPPR61E-00Q00CEN:rvnTOSHIBA:rnPortablePC:rvrVersionA0:cvnTOSHIBA:ct10:cvrVersion1.0: dmi.product.name: PORTEGE R600 dmi.product.version: PPR61E-00Q00CEN dmi.sys.vendor: TOSHIBA To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/1231588/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp

