This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Why does the Firefox window lose focus when I switch tabs?

  • 1 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by cheflo

more options

Quite often, when I switch from one tab to another, the Firefox window loses focus. This is most notable when I switch and close tabs via keyboard shortcuts. For example, I can be closing a bunch of tabs with Ctrl+w and then suddenly is does not work anymore and I notice that the Firefox windows title is greyed out, indicating that the window lost focus. Alt tabbing or clicking the window regains focus, but this is disruptive to the browsing experience.

There is no particular window or external device that grabs the focus from Firefox, and this does not happen with any other applications, only Firefox. I am on Firefox 45.0.1 on Antegros (Arch) Linux kernel 4.4.5.1-ARCH 64-bit. Any help on how to get Firefox to behave normally and keep focus is appreciated.

Quite often, when I switch from one tab to another, the Firefox window loses focus. This is most notable when I switch and close tabs via keyboard shortcuts. For example, I can be closing a bunch of tabs with Ctrl+w and then suddenly is does not work anymore and I notice that the Firefox windows title is greyed out, indicating that the window lost focus. Alt tabbing or clicking the window regains focus, but this is disruptive to the browsing experience. There is no particular window or external device that grabs the focus from Firefox, and this does not happen with any other applications, only Firefox. I am on Firefox 45.0.1 on Antegros (Arch) Linux kernel 4.4.5.1-ARCH 64-bit. Any help on how to get Firefox to behave normally and keep focus is appreciated.

All Replies (1)

more options

I have updated to Firefox 47.0 and this still occurs. My desktop environment is Gnome 3.20. I also posted this on Superuser http://superuser.com/questions/1090673/why-does-the-active-firefox-window-occasionally-loses-focus