I don't know if this is related to bug 304933, where the problem always occurs if the "Open new tabs in the background" setting is off.

The problem could be ameliorated if Page Down with focus in the location bar were ignored (bug 171612).

Are you sure you are not instead pressing SHIFT before using the MMB to click on the link ? Doing SHIFT + MMB causes the new tab to be activated instead of opened in the background (which is the default case) and hence result in the confirmed bug reported in bug# 304933. If you are sure you are not pressing the SHIFT key, then the issue is something else that is not readily reproducible.

Yes, I'm sure (which is why I opened two bug reports). Indeed, it's not readily reproducible.

OK, I can reproduce it now.

1. Set window behaviour policy to Focus Follows Mouse.

2. Have Konqueror (with KHTML) on the desktop and some other application (e.g., Konsole).

3. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org and enter some article title (e.g., KDE) in the search box. Enter the text manually (don't use the menu items that Wikipedia presents) and press Enter on the keyboard.

4. Notice that no area has focus (pressing Space has no effect).

5. Move the mouse cursor out of Konqueror and into the other application.

6. Move the mouse cursor back to Konqueror. Notice that focus is now in the location bar, so pressing Space inserts a space before the URL, or Page Down goes to the top of the history list.

Currently using 4.9.00.

Git commit 55c0f6baf97a07d1ee03a6a0523f9d4ea3ad40a3 by Dawit Alemayehu.
Committed on 27/08/2012 at 01:40.
Pushed by adawit into branch 'KDE/4.9'.

Fix for the issue where the focus goes to the location bar when opening a link
in new foreground tab.
Related: bug 304933
FIXED-IN: 4.9.1
REVIEW: 105984

M  +2    -1    konqueror/src/konqframe.cpp
M  +9    -0    konqueror/src/konqview.cpp

http://commits.kde.org/kde-baseapps/55c0f6baf97a07d1ee03a6a0523f9d4ea3ad40a3

Git commit a2ae8003352442efdb5731b3fd3de3107b0c1e99 by Dawit Alemayehu.
Committed on 27/08/2012 at 01:40.
Pushed by adawit into branch 'master'.

Fix for the issue where the focus goes to the location bar when opening a link
in new foreground tab.
Related: bug 304933
FIXED-IN: 4.9.1
REVIEW: 105984

M  +2    -1    konqueror/src/konqframe.cpp
M  +9    -0    konqueror/src/konqview.cpp

http://commits.kde.org/kde-baseapps/a2ae8003352442efdb5731b3fd3de3107b0c1e99

I've installed the Kubuntu PPA for 4.9.1, but the problem is still present: I can reproduce it as detailed above.

(In reply to comment #7)
> I've installed the Kubuntu PPA for 4.9.1, but the problem is still present:
> I can reproduce it as detailed above.

Yes, the fix I committed had a flaw (regression) that was subsequently addressed addressed in a later commit [1]. Unfortunately that commit did not make the 4.9.1 cut. It will however be in v4.9.2. I've updated the "Version Fixed In:" field accordingly.

[1] https://projects.kde.org/projects/kde/kde-kaseapps/repository/revisions/5fa3dbc49f8cac8253e198298948832ca7d38674

The bug is still present in 4.9.2: I can reproduce it as detailed above. This is both with the Kubuntu PPA under Kubuntu 12.04 and with a clean install of Kubuntu 12.10 Beta 2 with recent updates. Kubuntu 12.10 Beta 2 has KDE 4.9.1 when installed, and the updates take it up to 4.9.2.

Now everyting is getting conflated here. You did not specify that you were using "Focus Follows Mouse" policy on the original report. You specified that in comment #4 ; so the question remains can you can reproduce the problem when the "Focus Follows Mouse" window policy is not set ? I do not use that policy and the fix as well as the subsquent testing I did was done without that window policy being set. There are other things that need to be considered if the issue only occurs when that policy is set.

Until comment 4 the problem seemed to me to be intermittent. Can you suggest a checklist of information people should include when reporting apparently intermittent problems?

In comment 4 I gave details of how to reproduce the problem, including as Step 1 the setting of the focus policy.

In answer to your question: yes, I can reproduce the problem using Click to Focus. Here are the steps to do so:

1. Set window behaviour policy to Click to Focus.

2. Have Konqueror (with KHTML) on the desktop and some other application (e.g., Konsole).

3. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org and enter some article title (e.g., KDE) in the search box. Enter the text manually (don't use the menu items that Wikipedia presents) and press Enter on the keyboard.

4. Notice that no area has focus (pressing Space has no effect).

5. Click the mouse in the other application to give it focus.

6. Click the mouse on the Konqueror window title. Notice that focus is now in the location bar, so pressing Space inserts a space before the URL, or Page Down goes to the top of the history list.

(In reply to comment #11)
> Until comment 4 the problem seemed to me to be intermittent. Can you suggest
> a checklist of information people should include when reporting apparently
> intermittent problems?

Well, you marked it correctly by saying "Reproducible: Sometimes". That is the only means a user has to report such issues. We do not have a specific checklist you can use, but including as much information about your setup so as to help the developers reproduce the problem goes a long way into getting bugs fixed much more quickly.

> In comment 4 I gave details of how to reproduce the problem, including as
> Step 1 the setting of the focus policy.
> 
> In answer to your question: yes, I can reproduce the problem using Click to
> Focus. Here are the steps to do so:
> 
> 1. Set window behaviour policy to Click to Focus.
> 
> 2. Have Konqueror (with KHTML) on the desktop and some other application
> (e.g., Konsole).
> 
> 3. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org and enter some article title (e.g., KDE)
> in the search box. Enter the text manually (don't use the menu items that
> Wikipedia presents) and press Enter on the keyboard.
> 
> 4. Notice that no area has focus (pressing Space has no effect).
> 
> 5. Click the mouse in the other application to give it focus.
> 
> 6. Click the mouse on the Konqueror window title. Notice that focus is now
> in the location bar, so pressing Space inserts a space before the URL, or
> Page Down goes to the top of the history list.

OK. I see why I cannot reproduce this problem. The issue can only be reproduced with the KHTML engine and I use the webkit engine. Though I doubt it, I will try to determine if Konqueror is responsible for this bug. It is highly likely the issue is in khtml itself, but we shall see...

This is a khtml issue as far as I can tell.

Opened bug 326267 instead; closing this bug.