Windows losing focus

Ok, admittedly this is an odd one, i've googled and found no real solution.

I'll be browsing in Firefox and everything's fine. until the window starts randomly losing "focus". In the middle of a scroll, it will suddenly switch states. This also happens with no input whatsoever. For example, I had to enter a search term in the search bar and I ended up having to click in the box three times because, as I typed, the window lost focus and cut off part of my words. In fact, just now I stopped typing to think about what I was going to say and the window lost focus.

It's not lifealtering but it's highly annoying to have to click the mouse every so often while viewing a page, just to ensure that I'll be able to scroll down, or type when needed *and it just did it again *

 

Sounds like something that runs invisible is grabbing focus every so often, taking it away from the browser-window you're working on.

Just as a precaution, have you run an A/V and spyware check recently? The pessimistic view suggests that there might be some malware opening a browser instance (perhaps an instance of IE), which could have the effect of grabbing focus (I suppose).

Beyond that, check to see if anything that seems related is getting logged in the event logs, and maybe try running an instance of Sysinternal's Process Explorer at the same time to see if it picks up on anything that pops into existence, and then disappears.

 

Spyware Doctor Starter finished a scan about 4 hours ago. Only found cookies. A few days before that, I tried scanning with MalwareBytes after learning that PC Tools "gimps" this version of Spyware Doctor by only giving it part of the full definition list that the for-pay version has. Definitely not happy about that but I digress. I have started a scan w/Avira, I'll see soon enough if something managed to sneak onto the machine.


Your probably right about something else trying to steal focus, Firefox's taskbar button "pops out" whenever this happens. Will try running Process Explorer.

Thanks, Ricky

 

EDIT: Ok, it's happening not just in FF but in other programs too. Earlier today, I was typing in OneNote in class and was wondering why i kept mispelling and skipping words. I could barely keep up and usually I'm right with my prof. as she speaks. I can only attribute it to OneNote losing focus as well. (BTW, it happened a few times while I had Process Monitor open, but the activity scrolled by so fast, that I couldn't really pin down exactly what process was responsible for it...)

 

This used to happen to me. I eventually figured out that often when I'm typing or using the keyboard, my hands or thumb hovers over the mousepad, and my mousepad is so sensitive that it detects it sometimes as a click, and therefore clicks at wherever the cursor or pointer happens to be at the time, which was often off the current window or back further in the sentence. I just went to mousepad properties and selected "disable mousepad while typing."

Not sure if you have this problem, but it actually kind of sounds like it, since there's no pattern to when and where you lose focus, etc. Check if you're hovering over your mousepad by accident. Alternatively, if you use an external mouse, you can set the mousepad to disable completely while the external mouse is plugged in.

 

Thanks But it kept happening even with the touchpad disabled-something i've done for quite a while actually. (I have it set to automatically disable it while a mouse is plugged in) I tried turning it off to see what would happen-no dice.

I've noticed that it hasn't happened in my administrator account (the one I'm using to scan for viruses) so I may just rebuild my standard account and start over. I'll see what the virus scan has to say first though

EDIT: Virus Scan done-nothing found I'm just gonna create a new account and start over. Thanks and rep for the suggestions guys

 

That happens to me on login if I don't let it wait for a bit before logging in, and I've had it happen on various occasions with other applications, but never consistently. If I were you, I'd rebuild the account, just like you're doing. Good luck!

 

D***! It started doing it again

 

It seems to have disappered. Good. Hopefully It wont come back

 

Strange... I too use a Dell LATITUDE and exactly the same problem started happening a couple of days back... I recently upgraded my system from dell.com with latest software... Some Bug? Or any new virus?

Also, please tell me where can I find the "Disable mousepad while typing" option...

Thanks in advance.

 

I am using drivers from the new E series so at first i wondered if that was the issue. guess not.

To disable the touchpad and pointing stick when the mouse is plugged in, double click on the touchpad icon in the notification area on the taskbar. Then, in the Dell Touchpad window that opens, click Device Select, then check the "Disable touchpad/pointing stick whenever external USB mouse is present" checkbox. Click OK to close the window.