Can't ALT-TAB from games

[tesfabpel]

I've tried 3 games (Tekken 7, NieR: Automata and Thief) and in all these games ALT-TAB doesn't work. The app switcher appears and I can select a window but after that the game window remains on top.

ArchLinux (kernel: 4.18.3.arch1-1) GPU: NVIDIA GTX 970 (driver: 396.51) CPU: AMD Ryzen 1800X DE: KDE (Plasma 5.13.4)

[rkunschke]

I had issues like that too. Its gets better for me after disable compositing with shift + alt + F12 It would be better when steam does this automatically when running fulscreen games. This is possible with kwin.

[tuxtergames]

I have this issue with gnome, I think that is composite issue, in kde its not happen.

[Sanaki]

Chances are you're correct. In Cinnamon I don't ever have an issue with alt+tab failing to function.

EDIT: This was probably the result of me not playing the games that caused this issue. See my comment a few comments down this thread.

[fgblomqvist]

I have this issue as well and I run Ubuntu 18.10 with latest gnome. What are the steps to disable compositing?

EDIT: nvm, not possible to do in gnome :(

[NoXPhasma]

I have a similar issue, which has probably the same cause. In some games, when I Alt+Tab out of the game, I can see the mouse and can click on other windows, the windows then get focus for less than a second and the focus goes back to the game. While the cursor stays where it was. This even happens when the game is minimized or the Steam overlay is open.

I have a dual monitor setup, which might be the reason I have a different behaviour.

• Distribution: Linux Mint 19.1
• Desktop: Cinnamon 4.0.9
• GPU: GTX 1080
• Driver/LLVM version: nvidia 418.43
• Kernel version: 4.20
• Proton: 3.16-8
• System info: https://gist.github.com/NoXPhasma/90aa30e6d970a809519f368a336de86f

Games where this happens are Luxor Solitaire (1034270) [steam-1034270.log] and Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (34870) [steam-34870.log]. There are probably more games where this happens and I just didn't tried to Alt+Tab out.

[Sanaki]

I've run into this problem in so many games I don't even know which ones do it, as I tend to assume they all will. As a kludge solution, learn the keybinds to manage multiple desktops on your distribution. On mine, I can use ctrl+alt+shift+right arrow to bump the game over to my second desktop, then ctrl+alt+left arrow to get back to the first and get access to the things the game was obscuring. By no means is this an actual fix for the issue, but it will let you manage the problem until it is fixed.

[Zorrototo]

Same problem here, can not get other windows to go on top of the games I play, I need to put game in windowed mode and minimize the window to be able to access the desktop and other windows.

Manjaro KDE here.

[Pandiora]

Same here, I'm using Manjaro Cinnamon, Kernel 5.1 and Proton 4.9.2. While playing "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter" I couldn't rly tab out and had to "tab back in" to be able to get to the menu and quitting the game.

[JulianGro]

I cannot minimize ATLAS but I can minimize Railroad Tycoon 3

[Zorrototo]

I know that doesn't fix anything, but if you have possibility of enabling a second 'desktop' (it is called Virtual Desktop on my Manjaro KDE), you can configure two keyboard shortcuts to transfer the current active window/application to Desktop 1 or Desktop 2, and two other to show Desktop 1 or Desktop 2, this way when your game is started, transfer it to Desktop 2, and when you need to 'alt-tab' you simply show Desktop 1, and return to Desktop 2 when you want to go back to the game. This is how I deal with this problem for now.

[sarthak96]

Adding to this, there's a KWin plugin for KDE users - Maximize to new virtual desktop. It places new fullscreen windows in a new virtual desktop. This makes alt tabbing pretty seamless for games that keep grabbing the screen. You can easily modify the plugin's JS to suit your needs, I removed the push and pop calls to just place the new window in the next desktop to current one

[ljmc2000]

@Sanaki Not all heros wear capes. Thank you so much this has been bothering me for days!

[jaubin]

Hi,

Problem is sadly still there now. It is annoying for games that cannot be launched in windowed mode.

[sanawu]

This is probably the single largest annoying problem with Proton games (apart from them not working) so far every game I have tried (that I could get working) cannot allow switching to other running apps or to the desktop

input (such as ALT+F4) seems to be sent to the switched app, but it is still rending the game

[vlad0337187]

I have same issues with:

Stronghold Crusader HD Stronghold Crusader 2 Wither 1 Heroes 3 HD

[vlad0337187]

Does anybody have a game with Proton, which doesn't freeze when alt-tabbing ?)

[jaubin]

Le mercredi 17 février 2021, 11:25:16 CET Vladislav a écrit :

Does anybody have a game with Proton, which doesn't freeze when alt-tabbing ?)

Not on my side, this is why I always put my games in windowed mode. But for some games it's unfortunately the "normal" behaviour, even on Windows or with the native ones. Windowed mode or borderless windows are actually much more reliable.

[Zorrototo]

Pretty much all my games work without issue with ALT-TABBING. Of course if the game natively has issues with ALT-TABBING, it is pretty much same behavior under Proton.

[leberknecht]

For the logs: something similar works for Cinnamon: instead of alt+tab, use ctrl+alt+shift+right to switch the game to another workspace, then you can use ctrl+alt+up to select first workspace again

[vlad0337187]

BTW, installed Latest Mint Cinnamon (20.1) and everything worked. Fedora 32 has this issue (Cinnamon too).

[C3x64]

Same issue, Some games whom run full screen, I can not successfully alt tab, It causes

1. Display resolution problems
2. Keyboard being bind to game, instead of system, making me unable to type anything with keyboard while game runs in background.
3. Unable to use cursor, It reminds bind to game, making entire main system screen unusable, as I can't click anything on it.

All of those issues happen with different games or generally multiple of them happen at once, usually windows wine emulations/proton emulations. I assume issue is on wine side?

games I had problems with are quake 3 arena(problem ended when I made it windowed, and used "`" key to open console in game) unreal tournament planet base(keyboard binded, only able to alt tab when opening steam overlay in game, keyboard remains unusable on system, plus other weird magic happening) system shock heroes of might and magic(display issue, everything zoomed in, doesn't resize after alt tab) dungeon keeper 2 and 1 antichamber

it's extremely annoying thing, games who are native to linux do not have this problem for me, I can run them windowed most cases, windowed mode on wine compatibility games doesn't fix issue where my keyboard and mouse stays binded to game in most cases.

My system:

I run latest proton and wine.(I tried workspace workaround, problem presist, keyboard and mouse unusable, display problems)

[C3x64]

I really hope betting on proton(steam deck thing), that most often than not, can't even perform basic simple function of alt-tab ing from game to multitask, is better bet than just native port of game?(unless game is super old then I get it)