All windows lose focus after 3-5 seconds

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!

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'm so glad I found this post. I was so frustrated with my windows loosing focus. I uninstalled Cox Backup and it was fixed immediately.

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.

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

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