Who grabbed the focus?

[Whitehill]

I started having a weird problem about two weeks ago. I'm working in an application (any application, I think) when suddenly the focus is gone. That is, any keystroke draws a beep. If I single-click in the window, life goes on normally. When this happens, the name in the menu bar does not change.

How can I discover who is grabbing the focus?

 

[Scoops98]

Sounds like is Exposé. F10 shows application windows and "loses focus" if you only have one window open.

 

[Whitehill]

I have about 16 applications running with around 30 windows. And my F10 shuts off the speaker.

 

[Scoops98]

Maybe a hot corner is setup? What if you press FN-F10.

 

[jcooke]

Maybe a hot corner is setup? What if you press FN-F10.

He has the newer MacBook with the updated keyboard, so for him it would F3.

 

[Whitehill]

I have a hot corner for the screensaver, but the focus grab can happen in between keystrokes when the screensaver is not running. And yes FN-F10 gets Exposé.

 

[fryke]

If you have that many apps open, chances are it's one of those. Start only _one_ of the apps after a clean reboot and see if it happens even then. Best, even start the typing in the Finder (a comment field perhaps in a get-info window?) without ANY apps opened. Then start one app after the other until the error appears. The last started application is probably the culprit.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Gotta agree with fryke -- it may be a long and tedious process, but process of elimination seems to be the most definitive route to go on this one.

 

[Whitehill]

<whine>

Nooooooo! Not process of elimination!
​

</whine>

 

[fryke]

Proceed! On a more serious note: The symptoms aren't something I hear much about. I sometimes have a focus problem on FileMaker 10, where a script might leave me with the wrong window in focus, but if we don't really know what's running on the machine, there's not much to speculate by. Process of elimination is the way to go...