All windows lose focus after 3-5 seconds

It's not Cox because I hardly have anything on my Airbook, just use for internet, photoshop cs6, BeerSmith, google apps, QB online. That's about all. This is driving me nuts as well. I can't type anything without it losing focus. This is a piece of ****, I hope Apple or someone figures it out. I'm new to the mac world with 10.8 in July and it was fine, I don't remember it doing this on 10.8. It seems to be only 10.9 doing it. I love the Air, its fantastic because of the battery life and small but this stupid little issue is basically making this $1800 laptop unusable and i'm pretty ****** off.

I've done the same things, I've disabled login items thinking it was that. I thought about wiping it but after reading others doing that (just did it during this sentence! grrr) and not working so i'll rule out doing that. I'll keep plugging along being annoyed to the tilt.

Thanks GTK. I'll give that a shot. I'm a Windows I.T. admin so I've been trying everything I can try to troubleshoot this stupid issue. It has made me crazy and annoyed. I know at least i'm not the only person. I've disabled App Nap on Firefox, Chrome (main apps I use) to see if that helps any. If i discover anything, i will definitely update everyone.

thanks

Hey

Everyone using Cox, I would uninstall it for sure because there are better software out there for backing up because the defocus active windows is more annoying. Get Bitcasa, ibackup or carbonite or something and it'll be ok. I have Bitcasa and no issues.

I found my problem, it was my monitoring agent that I use for all of my clients to monitor their hardware, software, updates, AV, etc. They came out with a Mac agent earlier in the year and I don't think it's Mavericks compatible. I uninstalled it the other day and my Air has been just fine since, several reboots, turned App Nap back on for all of the main apps I use.

So my feeling is that the software isn't compatible with the new energy saving techniques Apple created for Mavericks. Again, just get rid of the Cox software and use someone else or uninstall it and wait for an update because this issue was making me regret my Air purchase or Mavericks upgrade.

Thanks

I had the same problem and as soon as I uninstalled Cox backup the problem went away. I was really frustrated for only one day its weird because it didnt startup when I first installed Cox backup it was a day later after install. Hit uninstall and problem instantly went away.

I just want to report another culprit for loosing focus on windows under X11 (under Mavericks):

In my case it was iCloud foto sync. I had it deactivated in the iCloud Preferences panel, but anyway in the subordinated Options dialog the checkmarks for foto streaming and sharing were marked. I unchecked them, and now the focus stays on the window I use. Strange…

Hope it helps somebody… (it was difficult to find out; Foto syncing appearing in activity monitor gave me the clue)

Cheers - Klaus

Thank you for the python code!

After running it in terminal, I was able to find the culprit by selecting each active app one at a time and doing things in the app while waiting for the window to lose focus. Once it lost focus I waited until the python code identified the front-most app.

For me it turned out to be the latest version of MalTagsHelper - a plug-in for Mail.

Thanks for the code - will try that if my problem continues.

On two systems I was having this sort of issue but only intermittently.

In both cases I had trackball software installed for trackballs which are no longer in use because the hardware stopped working.

I have been using multi-button trackballs since the Mac SE - and find them far superior to any mouse - the trouble is that over the years the device drivers have often lagged behind and older hardware has dropped out of support. I have had a couple devices last for many years - but they have all failed to the point where now I have an external Apple Trackpad linked to each of my notebooks - but I had forgotten to remove the software that was necessary for the trackballs. One one machine I still have Kensington's MouseWorks installed and on the other SteerMouse - SteerMouse was awesome and filled the gap left by Kensington in their product support very nicely.

Will have to see over the next week or so if removing those no longer needed bits of software has solved my issue or if I need to use the code to identify other culprits.

Update - had one instance of lost focus during a period when the script was not running (changed the parameters to have it run longer).

So far only had one thing pop up unexpectedly - Google Drive - though I did not notice a loss of focus at that time as I may have been clicking from one app to another at the same time.

I am turning off Google Drive for awhile to see what happens, that was only on one of my two systems.

I am thinking about a modification to the code where instead of showing output every tick comparing the new value to the old value and then only showing output when there is a change of focus - that way it could run for much longer and have a smaller output that is easier to see what happens - of course then it might be harder to detect an unwanted change since most entries would be alone - whereas an unexpected loss of focus while in a given app would be only one or maybe two outputs amidst a large block of whatever you were working on when it happened.

On my work system at least I switch between many apps in the course of doing my work - at home I do run lots of apps but don't need to switch between them nearly as often.

I too used the very useful Python script provided above.

I found the culprit was none of the faceless helper apps I expected.

Apparently, in my case, Parallels 13 is the culprit.

I just upgraded and renewed my subscription to it and the new Parallels Access in it is stealing focus.

Even worse, it is doing it most irritatingly when I am trying to type in a new filename for a PDF open in Preview. (That Preview app in Sierra itself has a recent new flaw that prevents filename changes typed into the document window title bar from being saved unless you hit Tab or something before hitting Enter).

I just quit Access and will file a report with Parallels because I do rely in Access to use my various Macs from each other or iOS devices.

Imran

2017-08-28 05:36:51: Parallels Access Agent [/Applications/Parallels Access.app/Contents/MacOS/Parallels Access Agent.app]

2017-08-28 05:37:17: Parallels Access [/Applications/Parallels Access.app]

Same thing for me - I can hardly type this! I hope someone has a solution!

And this morning, it's doing it again.Back to the drawing board...

Removing all apps from auto login and safe mode booting did not help me. Any other ideas?

that didn't last long. Shut my laptop down last night and I am having the problem again. Any other ideas?