Brave Browser randomly comes in focus blackscreening the first monitor

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1

Description of the issue:
When running an application in full screen on the first monitor Brave Browser randomly (once every ~2h) causes the active windows tab to change to Brave Browser which in turn causes a black screen on the first monitor.

I can observe that the window “focus” switches to the Brave Browser (white highlight in the windows toolbar) same as if it was the currently active window.

Upon the forced focus change Brave Browser works fine and nothing seems out of the ordinary.

There seems to be no obvious trigger associated with the bug, no popup, no notification, no media playing etc.

The issue persists after a clean reinstall (current version without any Extensions).

I have been unable to forcefully replicate the issue but here is what I can surmise/observe:
-It happens regardless of what website is open
-the amount of open tabs seem to have no impact
-it doesn’t happen when there is no website open (just the Brave home screen)
-it happens regardless of the type of full screen (Exclusive, Borderless etc.) used on the first screen application
-When it happens I have to either alt-tab or change the active tab via the windows toolbar with the mouse, otherwise my mouse inputs don’t work (besides in the Brave Browser window)
-When disconnecting the second monitor and only using my first monitor with brave in the Background this issue doesn’t appear.
-I have been able to reproduce the issue when using my Laptop (different windows machine than my main PC) and a second monitor.

The issue only happens when using the Brave Browser, no other application causes this behaviour.
I also tried replicating it with a clean install of Google Chrome & Firefox, but the issue is limited to Brave Browser.

How can this issue be reproduced?

  1. Launch a full screen application like a video Game.
    2.Have Brave Browser open on the second Monitor.
    3.Wait, since I don’t now the trigger.

Expected result:
The first monitor goes black the windows toolbar appears and Brave Browser is now in focus as the active window.
Brave Version( check About Brave):
Version 1.66.115 Chromium: 125.0.6422.112 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Additional Information:
OS:
Windows 10 Home
Version 22H2
OS Build 19045.4412
No Extensions installed

2

My first thought would have been an extension or notifications but you’ve already ruled those out.

The fact it doesn’t happen unless you have a site open in tab could mean there is some kind of refresh happening in the background of that site but I dont know if that alone would cause the focus switch.

To troubleshoot you could make sure the setting “continue running apps in the background” within Brave settings/system menu is disabled. Check if it still switches.

Next place I would look, the focus assist settings within Windows have automatic rules for when you are using an app in fullscreen mode. It might be worth looking there and making sure it isnt set to allow priority and/or Brave isnt a priority app in the customised list.

3

Thanks for the reply.
I disabled “continue running apps in the background” and will check if that changes anything.
Focus assist was off but some of the automatic rules where on.

I will report back if any of those changes helped after I had some time to try it out.

4

This does not seem to fix it as I just had it happen again.
Any other ideas what else I could try to fix this?

5

You could try disabling hardware acceleration in Brave settings.

6

Disabling Hardware Acceleration seemed to work but sadly I just had the problem reappear.

Any other ideas What else might help?

7

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