Bug 513215

Summary:	Browser won't come to the front when any app launches a URL link.
Product:	[Plasma] kwin	Reporter:	Glenn J. Schworak <glenn>
Component:	wayland-generic	Assignee:	KWin default assignee <kwin-bugs-null>
Status:	CLOSED FIXED
Severity:	normal	CC:	nate
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	6.4.5
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Kubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:	6.5.0
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	Screenshot of my "Focus stealing prevention" settings page

Description Glenn J. Schworak 2025-12-11 13:00:53 UTC

This appears to be a known bug but I cannot find the actual bug report to add to.

Web browsers (any) do not come to the front when a new link is opened from any application when running under WAYLAND. But they do when using xWAYLAND so this makes no sense.

When clicking a link in an email or other application, the web browser (chrome, firefox, etc) will open a new tab and load the page but will not come to the front with focus.

On the command line, this command will not bring the browser tot he front like it should if the browser is already open in the background. The page will load but the browser doesn't get focus.

xdg-open https://google.com


If I launch chrome with the "--ozone-platform=x11", then the above command will bring chrome into focus as well as any other application that opens a link. So clearly, chrome can get focus.

I cannot figure out how to make firefox work correctly but chrome is my main browser.

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2025-12-11 16:26:18 UTC

What's your focus stealing prevention level set to in System Settings > Window Management?

What version of Plasma are you using, and on which distro?

Comment 2 Glenn J. Schworak 2025-12-11 17:41:32 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> What's your focus stealing prevention level set to in System Settings >
> Window Management?
> 
> What version of Plasma are you using, and on which distro?

I have the focus stealing is set to NONE. 

Operating System: Kubuntu 25.10
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.17.0
Qt Version: 6.9.2
Kernel Version: 6.14.0-34-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 32 × Intel® Core™ i9-14900HX
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (31.2 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU
Graphics Processor 2: Intel® Graphics
Manufacturer: System76
Product Name: Serval WS
System Version: serw13

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2025-12-12 19:48:56 UTC

If you have focus stealing prevention set to "None", then there should be no barriers to windows raising in this case, so that seems strange. Can you attach a screenshot of the config page with this setting on it?

Comment 4 Glenn J. Schworak 2025-12-13 08:52:58 UTC

Created attachment 187575 [details]
Screenshot of my "Focus stealing prevention" settings page

Notice that the focus stealing setting is set to NONE but this has  no impact on the browsers getting focus when a new URL is opened.

Comment 5 Nate Graham 2025-12-16 21:27:05 UTC

Well that's confusing! With those settings, *every* window is supposed to come forward when activated by another one. But you're saying that *no* windows are doing this.

Can I ask you to create a new clean user account on the same computer, set focus stealing prevention there to "none" and see if it's still happening? I suspect it will be working. If it's not, there's a deeper problem with your computer.

Comment 6 Nate Graham 2025-12-16 21:27:46 UTC

OH!

I forgot that the focus stealing prevention settings didn't work until Plasma 6.5. So that's why the setting does nothing for you.

Once you upgrade to Plasma 6.5, this should automatically start working as you expect.

Comment 7 Glenn J. Schworak 2025-12-16 21:58:53 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #5)
> Well that's confusing! With those settings, *every* window is supposed to
> come forward when activated by another one. But you're saying that *no*
> windows are doing this.
> 
> Can I ask you to create a new clean user account on the same computer, set
> focus stealing prevention there to "none" and see if it's still happening? I
> suspect it will be working. If it's not, there's a deeper problem with your
> computer.

I don't know about every app, only the browsers are of interest to me. I don't know off hand what else might need to come to the front.

I created a new user account and the same thing happens.

Comment 8 Glenn J. Schworak 2025-12-16 22:00:24 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #6)
> OH!
> 
> I forgot that the focus stealing prevention settings didn't work until
> Plasma 6.5. So that's why the setting does nothing for you.
> 
> Once you upgrade to Plasma 6.5, this should automatically start working as
> you expect.

I am using Kubuntu 25.10 so how do I upgrade to KDE Plasma 6.5 now? Without this, I am not sure the issue is "fixed". So if I understand you, it really is a bug in the version that installs with Kubuntu 25.10.

Comment 9 Nate Graham 2025-12-16 22:09:06 UTC

> I am using Kubuntu 25.10 so how do I upgrade to KDE Plasma 6.5 now?
You don't; you wait for Kubuntu to make it available. That's how "discrete release" distros work. The next release of Kubuntu will be 26.04, to be released in April or May of next year.

Comment 10 Glenn J. Schworak 2025-12-17 09:53:09 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #9)
> > I am using Kubuntu 25.10 so how do I upgrade to KDE Plasma 6.5 now?
> You don't; you wait for Kubuntu to make it available. That's how "discrete
> release" distros work. The next release of Kubuntu will be 26.04, to be
> released in April or May of next year.

That is what I was thinking. So thanks for the feedback. I will see if the issue goes away once the update is available.