All windows lose focus after 3-5 seconds

Hello fellow Mac users,

The root cause to this problem will be different for everyone as it's usually some rogue app or process that isn't working properly. In my case it was a Symantec utility called 'SymUIAgent.app'.

Follow these steps to identify what's causing this on your machine

1. Save the code on this file to your Desktop using id_issue.py as the filename: https://gist.github.com/iMerica/8928556/raw/73832a509de4dc5394cf1747b997ea1bd1b0 ff4e/identify_focus_issue.py
2. Open Terminal.app (Located in /Applications/Utilities/)
3. In Terminal, change directory to your Desktop by running: cd ~/Desktop
4. Then run python id_issue.py and just let your computer sit for a few minutes.
5. If the issue occurs once every few seconds/minutes, that code should print which app is in the foreground. Once you find out what it is, just do some googling on getting rid of that specific app.

I hope that helps!

Thanks,

Michael

Hello fellow Mac users,

The root cause to this problem will be different for everyone as it's usually some rogue app or process that isn't working properly. In my case it was a Symantec utility called 'SymUIAgent.app'.

Follow these steps to identify what's causing this on your machine

1. Save the code on this file to your Desktop using id_issue.py as the file name
2. Open Terminal.app (Located in /Applications/Utilities/)
3. In Terminal, change directory to your Desktop by running: cd ~/Desktop
4. Then run python id_issue.py and just let your computer sit for a few minutes.
5. If the issue occurs once every few seconds/minutes, that code should print which app is in the foreground. Once you find out what it is, just do some googling on getting rid of that specific app.

I hope that helps!

Thanks,

Michael

Same for me this morning. Rebooted a few times and now, spontaneously, no issues. Did a little research online and found similar threads implicating the App Nap feature. Disabled this feature in each app through Get Info and checked off Prevent App Nap. Still no issues.

Spent half hour on the phone with tech support. Shared the screen, and he could see the problem too. Booted in safe mode and the problem disappeared. (Hold down the shift key.) Rebooted normally, then went to settings, users and groups. Clicked on my account, and removed all automatic login items. I had one item there for an old Logitech mouse I dint even have anymore. Rebooted again, and so far the problem seems to be gone. I hope that helps!

This apears to have worked for me. I removed all the automatic login items then tried a reboot in normal mode. That did not do it. Then rebooted in safe mode, which seems to not have the issue and just rebooted and the issue has gone away.

Thanks!

-Rindress

OK - one more try - this time I'm hopeful I found it. I tried Safe mode again and it stopped, but started again on a regular reboot. So I started looking for any extension I could think of that might be extraneous. I had a control panel in the system preferences that Cox Cable had for doing backups to their servers. I deleted that and the problem immediately disappeared. I've rebooted a couple of times and it hasn't come back yet. Hopeful once again...!

I am having the same problem. I have tried rebooting sometime that works and other times it doesn't. I will try the safe mode to see if it helps. I hope Apple support is following this and working on a fix as it makes the system pretty unusable.

I did. (Have the cox preference pane). I removed it from the preference pane. I then rebooted. This is the longest I have been able to type since the problem started, so maybe that was the issue. I don't use it for backup, so I tried to uninstall it but I kept getting errors about connecting to ivault.

It's been 2 days now and I haven't had any more problems, so I have to believe that Cox was the problem in my case, since the issue went away immediately upon removal. I use Dropbox, and hardly ever went to the Cox backup, so that's not a problem for me. There are always some incompatible things anytime a new operating system comes out, despite what they try to do. I'm hoping I don't find anything else, but in this case at least, I wouldn't call it Apple's problem. Cox needs to fix their code. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen, I'd look for another backup solution. If removing the Cox preference pane didn't solve it, you probably have another piece of software somewhere that has a similar issue. Good luck finding it, I know that's not always easy!

What happened is I added programs back into the automatic login item group, and had the problem again. Once I removed all apps from the auto login group the problem went away. So it seems to be a problem with Cox and the auto login group.

I am still having this problem on my 2010 17" MBP even after removing all login items, and uninstalling PGP, JMicron PCIe driver and Caldigit driver for my USB 3 PC card (those were suggestions on another forum). I had the problem initially on my Retina MBP but it went away after removing log-in items, which I have successfully been putting back in.

Interestingly I am running the Cox backup software on the Retina MBP and am having no problems with that machine. The machine that continues to have problems is NOT running the Cox software.

I am rapidly concluding that this is a bug in Mavericks that affects only a subset of users. So far there is no single unifying theme to this problem.

Well it looks like I have to eat my words. The problem recurred on my Retina MBP. It also turns out that although I thought I had deleted the Cox software from my 17" 'book, I hadn't (to remove it, don't just control click on the PreferencePane. Open it and select Uninstall). So I did that on both machines and voila, no more problem! Thanks to jm7878 for posting the correct solution!