4.4.191 Experience Missing Focus on the Start Menu

[taylor-p-mason]

Describe the bug

In version 4.4.191 (Latest) I am experiencing a missing "FOCUS" on the Start Menu upon opening (sometimes).

Explaination: Clicking on the start menu button, the start menu appears, you move your mouse over the links only to notice there is no highlighting of items as you scroll. If you attempt to click on any nonhighlighted items, nothing will happen for it. In this situation, I just go back and start over, by clicking on the start menu again, and scroll over the links using my mouse to look for the items (links or shortcuts) to be highlighted. When there is highlighting everythnig works as expected.

So, why does the first time upon clicking on the start menu has missing focus (sometimes), and what triggers it?

It doesn't happen all the time. This leads me to assume, maybe it's the operating system interferring, like robbing the focus from the Start Menu? Could that happen for thumbnails, like when you got a Windows Explorer folder icon sitting in the system traybar right next to the start menu and when you move your mouse towards the start menu button, it often rolls over the windows explorer folder icon here. If not that, maybe there is another explaination of how the focus is stolen away.

Area of issue

Start menu

To reproduce

1. Click on the Start Menu button
2. then scroll over the shortcut links
3. confim and check if the shortcut links are highlighted?

The issue occurs when there is no highlighted shortcut links shown.

Expected behavior

After clicking on the Start Menu, the expected behavior is to see the highlighted shortcut link as you scroll over them. When the issue occurs, this does not happen, no shortcut link is highlighted, and thus clicking upon the non-highlighted shortcut link results in no action for it.

Open-Shell version

4.4.191

Windows version

Windows 11 23H2

Additional context

In Windows 10 this isn't an issue - it happens only on Windows 11 systems (not all the time), but when it does occur, it's very dissapointing, because you clicked on ths hortcut application link to open that software and nothing happens at all. You wait, and wait, and then realize, did I click on the shortcut application link from the Start Menu to open that application - and you told youself yeah, I did! But, you know something failed here, and that when I noticed, there was a missing highlighted shortcut application link, just before I had clicked on it.

As for when this occurs, when the shortcut application link doesn't get highlighted, I haven't determined as yet how to reproduced this everytime. But, it seems like a FOCUS issue, because going back and doing it again works, so something must be stealing away the focus, or interfers with the focus, whatever makes the shortcut application links HIGHLIGHTED as expected.

NOTE: In 4.4.191 I have set the skin to IMMERSIVE using the dark menu theme. I also used the registry (regedit) to delay the taskbar thumbnail views just to prevent popups over or near the start menu button.

; DELAY - Taskbar Thumbnail Previews 2000 = 2 seconds
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"ExtendedUIHoverTime"=dword:00002000

As you see above, a thumbnail preview can popup over the start menu which gets in the way when your wanting to click on the start menu screen! So the reason for the Taskbar Thumbnail Preview delays was to reduce the timing of when those thumbnail previews popup - setting to 2 seconds keeps accidential mouse movements over taskbar applications from popping up over the start menu for 2 seconds .... long enough to click on the start menu and still use thumbnail previews.

Maybe this will help something else to know it.

[ge0rdi]

Could you try to obtain ETW trace for the issue?

I understand it happens randomly, so you can just start the tracing (it will store events into memory buffers, so you can keep it running). Then just wait for the issue to happen and then stop the trace right away (you can keep console with prepared stop command at hand).

In the trace it should be possible to see window in focus. So we can see if there is something that steals it.

Not sure what else to try. I have not encountered such issue, but I'm not using Open-Shell on Win11.

[taylor-p-mason]

ge0rdi, I will investigate using ETW trace, attempt to capture the random event and share.

As for the moment, I can say, the random issue occurs more often when doing the following;

1. In Windows Explorer, select a file so that it shows it's highlighted, then left click on the Open Shell Menu, sometimes this action produces the issue, more so if your fast doing it.

2. Other times, it's when you right click on a webpage like Github to see the content menu and then left click on the start button to open the Open Shell Menu only to see the issue - no shortcut is highlighted as you scroll making it not possible to left click on any shortcut application link until you reopen Open Shell Menu again.

Of course, this action (of selecting a file/folder or right click content menu) doesn't always cause the issue ... but I got it to do that a couple of times for what appears to be randomly occuring.

I say all this to share for your readers in case they suffer for the issue or may be able to help explain why.

Unfortunately, I don't know how Windows 11 23H2 is coded for "managing focus", and I didn't have this issue on Windows 10 21H2, 1809, etcetera... So, no doubt Microsoft made some adjustments, changes here. This issue might not even be the fault of Open Shell Menu, but it does suffer for it at times. So, if we are able to discover the cause, we might then have a method to overcome.

I was hoping there would had been other Windows 11 23H2 end users noticing the same issue here, and may had more to add. In anycase, I will attempt the ETW trace to investigate more. Thank you for the suggestion.