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Cannot type in new pane or tab until focus is manually activated with mouse click #13388
Description
Windows Terminal version
1.14.1451.0
Windows build number
10.0.19042.0
Other Software
No response
Steps to reproduce
Create new pane/new tab
Expected Behavior
It is possible to type in the newly opened terminal
Actual Behavior
Unable to type until I click on the new terminal.
Note that enabling the option "Automatically focus pane on mouse hover" partially prevents the issue from happening.
It seems like focus is removed from all terminal tabs/panes whenever a new one is created.
Activity
[-]Cannot type in new pane or tab until focus is manually actived with mouse click[/-][+]Cannot type in new pane or tab until focus is manually activated with mouse click[/+]lhecker commentedon Jun 27, 2022
I can't reproduce this issue, unless it's an initial launch of WSL. Does your issue happen with WSL or with any shell?
praimmugen commentedon Jun 28, 2022
Hey, thanks for having a look at this. At the moment I can reproduce it with both WSL and Powershell profiles. However it's a lot less consistent than I thought initially.
It doesn't make much sense, but mostly, after starting a new terminal, new tabs/panes are working fine (apart from the initial launch of WSL as you also noticed). However, if I switch to a different window for some time (seems like around a minute is enough, but 30 seconds is not), then go back to Windows Terminal (using Alt+Tab or mouse doesn't make a difference), I can experience the issue.
At the moment the option "Automatically focus pane on mouse hover" is disabled, so I don't think that was necessarily making any difference like I said in the initial report.
In case it helps, I'm attaching my settings.json
winterm-settings.json.zip
jamesmcdonald commentedon Jul 18, 2022
I have an issue that might be related. If I open a terminal from the Start menu in Windows 11 by typing to search for "terminal", it almost always appears under other windows and fails to get focus. If I just click on the pinned icon in the Start menu without typing, this never happens. Opening a terminal with Win-x i also gets focus correctly, as does Ctrl-Shift-n from another terminal. This seems to be consistent with both Terminal (1.13.11432.0) and Terminal Preview (1.15.1863.0).
My default profile is WSL, in case that makes a difference. The issue affects any new windows regardless of how many terminals I have open.
elouanKeryell-Even commentedon Jul 26, 2022
same issue here, cannot seem to get the focus on a newly opened tab
zadjii-msft commentedon Jul 26, 2022
I'm gonna focus in on the PowerShell repro case here. The fact that the Terminal loses focus when a WSL tab is opened is a well-known bug (I believe in WSLg).
I don't have any idea why this would happen. Alemu (@praimmugen) when the terminal does get into this state (where apparently nothig is focused), what does pressing tab do? That should move focus to the "next" UI element, which might help us figure out where focus is currently.
praimmugen commentedon Jul 26, 2022
Unfortunately, pressing
tabhas no effect - I can't see anything getting focus no matter how many times I press the key.Not sure it changes things, but in my case focus is also lost when opening new WSL panes within a tab.
zadjii-msft commentedon Jul 26, 2022
Is there anything in your PowerShell profile? If pressing tab does nothing, then I'd suspect that maybe the Terminal HWND itself doesn't even have focus, and something else is the forground window. Maybe there's something in your profile.ps1 that's like, shelling out to WSL or something
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Fix three GitHub issues: microsoft#19493, microsoft#19488, and micros…
Add PR description template for issues microsoft#19493, microsoft#19488…
DayKev commentedon Jan 14, 2026
Well I wish I paid attention to what my old version was before updating, because I'm now having this issue too (or a similar issue? not sure).
Right click in explorer
->choose "open in terminal"->explorer window stays focused and continues to be the window receiving inputs.The taskbar icon for terminal continually flashes and the terminal window that opened behind the active explorer window has a blinking cursor as if it had focus... but it doesn't.
Win10 22H2, Terminal 1.23.13503.0 (also tested the most recent 1.24 preview release via the "releases" tab on GitHub and the 1.25 canary build via the installer linked a few comments up, same behavior).
If a terminal window is already open and "open in terminal" opens a new tab in the same window, then it focuses correctly, the issue only occurs when a new terminal window is opened via the explorer context menu.
There's no focus change after 30s or any other amount of time, it just stays in the background (with the taskbar icon flashing) until I manually switch focus to the window.
Terminal's default profile is set to Pwsh7 (though briefly setting it back to Pwsh5 doesn't change the behavior).
KoenT-SS commentedon Feb 4, 2026
I can confirm this is still happening for me too on Windows 10 Pro 22H2 build 19045.6809 (latest (paid) ESU):
right click in explorer (on a folder or on empty space) -> choose "open in terminal" -> terminal opens but explorer window stays focused and continues to be the window receiving inputs (you start typing, expecting you're typing in the terminal, but you're typing in the explorer window instead...)
Also happens if you right click on desktop -> choose "open in terminal" for example.
This is an annoying bug, that I run in to every single day.
Note: this doesn't seem to happen on my other Windows machine, which is running Windows 11 Pro 25H2 build 26200.7623.
jonas-jonsson commentedon Feb 17, 2026
To me this bug appeared after I installed Visual Studio Community to use the C++ Toolchain. Could it be the profiles VS adds or something VS does to the registry?
I currently suppressed it by setting
HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Control Panel >> Desktop >> ForegroundLockTimeout's value to 0, but supressing it this way is hacky, and not ideal at all.Win 10 Home 22H2 19045.6937KoenT-SS commentedon Feb 19, 2026
@adhSwede I also have Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition with the C++ toolchain installed. Might be related perhaps. Not sure if I had the issue before I installed it though (since it's the first thing I install on a new system).
Mike Griese (@zadjii-msft) I happened to see your comment on a pull request at #19520 (comment) where you mentioned this:
"Furthermore, #13388 has plagued us not because the terminal isn't focused, but because another application is stealing foreground from us."
Not entirely sure if that was only focused on that specific context there, but I for sure experience this bug not as another application stealing focus, but rather as the new terminal not gaining focus when it starts. Just try this (without any other application open):
For some reason, the newly started terminal ("command prompt", not power shell in my case) does NOT receive the focus.
Can you reproduce this? It's really consistent.
Windows 10 Pro, 22H2, 19045.6937 (paid ESU).
jgilles commentedon Feb 19, 2026
An update since my last comment quite a while ago (Aug 2024). I ran the canary build that was provided then for a long time since it was an improvement over the old behavior. I recently decided to try the latest official release and now the issue has completely gone away. I have zero focus issues at all. If this is some interaction with other software like Beyond Trust, maybe updates to that software since has helped? Unfortunately, I have no idea what has fixed the issue. Recent comments all mention Windows 10.
Windows 11 Enterprise 23H2
BeyondTrust Privilege Management (and many other corporate management/monitoring tools)
Windows Terminal Version: 1.23.20211.0
ryanmda commentedon Feb 19, 2026
Jesse Gilles (@jgilles) The current variant of the issue is that Terminal steals focus after 30 seconds instead of losing it.
jgilles commentedon Feb 19, 2026
Ryan Armstrong (@ryanmda) I definitely saw Terminal steal focus back when I first tried the canary build, but now I don't see that either. Terminal doesn't lose focus nor steal it.
Brain2000 commentedon Mar 6, 2026
This issue only happens with windows terminal, it doesn't matter if you use cmd or powershell or wsl.
It happens when you pin Terminal and click it or use WIN +
It doesn't seem to happen if you click Start-> type "terminal" -> press Enter.
UPDATE: I just found my other machine was working fine, so I compared the two until I found the difference.
Version 1.23.20211.0 focuses just fine. The previous 1.14.xxx does not.
As soon as I opened the windows store and pulled up the terminal app, it immediately updated.
KoenT-SS commentedon Mar 6, 2026
This is what I'm seeing when right-clicking and then selecting Open in Terminal: terminal opens but doesn't get the focus, and you have click it before you can type:
teminal.mp4
jonas-jonsson commentedon Mar 10, 2026
I second this. It's always related to open in terminal for me, opening terminal in of self doesn't trigger this behaviour, only open in terminal does.
MichelJenishDev commentedon Mar 26, 2026
Hi, I’d like to work on this issue. Is it still available?
Archaeology: preserve microsoft#13388 focus logger
Document microsoft#13388 archaeology cohort