Authentication dialog window loses focus easily - Ubuntu 12.04

I haven't seen this behaviour for a while now, so I'm assuming that it's been fixed.

Sorry, I spoke too soon. Not fixed yet. I opened GParted, the authentication dialog box was in front a terminal that was already open, and I had to click on the dialog box top bar to get focus.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I've submitted the bug upstream with a possible patch to fix it. I believe that this bug is related to metacity's focus-stealing prevention and use of stale X11 timestamps to activate windows. Please see the upstream bug for more details:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=676076

I'm also experiencing this issue e.g. with opening Synaptic. Thanks for opening this topic.
The password dailog box almost always loses focus immediately.

Don't know if it's the same issue, but when opening Nautilus, the new Nautilus window sits only in the background on my window list panel. It is not showing on top or having focus.

12.04, Gnome fallback, no effects (metacity).

I don't sense too much fixing activity ...

I see that issue with nautilus too, but I believe that is a separate bug, although it may be similar in source.

I've uploaded a test policykit-1-gnome package for 12.04 to my ppa here:
https://launchpad.net/~jeff250/+archive/ppa

Please upgrade the policykit-1-gnome package, log out, log in, and test it and report your feedback.

I also tried to upload a 12.10 test package, but launchpad yelled at me since it's essentially the same package as the 12.04 package modulo the changelog (12.10 hasn't changed the package yet since 12.04). But quantal users can still test it by manually adding the precise repository, or by manually installing one of the debs here:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/jeff250/ppa/ubuntu/pool/main/p/policykit-1-gnome/

I'm also attaching the debdiff patches.

The attachment "Proposed debdiff for precise" of this bug report has been identified as being a patch in the form of a debdiff. The ubuntu-sponsors team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review and hopefully sponsor the debdiff. In the event that this is in fact not a patch you can resolve this situation by removing the tag 'patch' from the bug report and editing the attachment so that it is not flagged as a patch. Additionally, if you are member of the ubuntu-sponsors team please also unsubscribe the team from this bug report.

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Well, also Transmission loses focus when it's running and I'm adding a torrent.
The files window opens briefly, then loses focus and I can start looking for the window to click OK.
Seems to be a larger problem with metacity.

policykit-gnome presently uses stale timestamps to focus the password dialog--it should use a timestamp that is as fresh as the user input that triggered its focus.

Maybe metacity should be more forgiving with buggy application-provided timestamps, but this report is about policykit-gnome. If you think metacity is buggy, feel free to find/create another report about that.

Thanks for the fix, and the debdiffs!

ACK.

I'm uploading it to quantal now, with a slight change: I've added headers to your patch as per guidelines: http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep3/

Once it's been in Quantal for a few days, we can SRU it into precise.

Uploaded to precise-proposed, and subscribed SRU team for processing.

Changed bug to actual source package name, and marked quantal as "fix released" since it's in.

Hello Jane, or anyone else affected,

Accepted policykit-1-gnome into precise-proposed. The package will build now and be available at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/policykit-1-gnome/0.105-1ubuntu3.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please change the bug tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not, change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

I've tested the precise-proposed package on three different installs, and the issue appears resolved.

The verification of this Stable Release Update has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regresssions.

This bug was fixed in the package policykit-1-gnome - 0.105-1ubuntu3.1

---------------
policykit-1-gnome (0.105-1ubuntu3.1) precise-proposed; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/08-fresh-x11-timestamps.patch: use fresh X11 timestamps
    when displaying authentication dialog to circumvent focus-stealing
    prevention. (LP: #946171)
 -- Jeffrey Knockel <email address hidden> Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:41:43 -0600

This bug appears again in Ubuntu 22.04.