Description of the issue:
When playing any video in Brave (for example on YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix) and entering fullscreen using the video player’s fullscreen button, exiting fullscreen leaves behind a duplicate or “ghost” window entry in the Windows Alt+Tab switcher.
This ghost entry is not a real second window—it is the same Brave window shown twice in Alt+Tab. Even after closing all Brave windows completely, the ghost entry remains permanently visible in Alt+Tab. It cannot be removed by killing Brave processes in Task Manager. The only way to clear it is to restart Windows entirely.
This does not occur in Chrome or Edge on the same system.
How can this issue be reproduced?
- Open Brave.
- Go to any site with embedded video (e.g. YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix).
- Play a video and click the player’s fullscreen button.
- Exit fullscreen (Esc key or player button).
- Press Alt+Tab: Brave now shows twice.
- Close all Brave windows.
- Press Alt+Tab again: the ghost window is still there.
- Try killing Brave in Task Manager—ghost window remains until restarting Windows.
Expected result:
Alt+Tab should only show one Brave window after exiting fullscreen. Closing Brave completely should remove all entries from Alt+Tab immediately.
Brave Version( check About Brave):
Brave 1.80.113 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Chromium 138.0.7204.49
Additional Information:
- OS: Windows 11 Home 24H2 (OS Build 26100.4484)
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (16GB VRAM)
- NVIDIA Driver Version: 576.80 (CUDA 12.9)
- Other browsers tested: Chrome and Edge (same Chromium version) – No issue.
Troubleshooting already attempted (no effect):
- Toggled hardware acceleration on/off in settings.
- Tried all ANGLE backends in
brave://flags(D3D11, D3D11on12, OpenGL, D3D9). - Disabled hardware-accelerated video decode, overlay scrollbars, GPU rasterization.
- Cleared all browser cache and cookies (all time).
- Fully uninstalled and reinstalled Brave, including deleting user data folders.
- Applied DPI override compatibility settings.
- Verified no third-party overlays (e.g. PowerToys) were running.
- Updated NVIDIA GPU drivers to latest.
- Tested on multiple video sites (YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix) in multiple tabs and windows.
Workarounds that avoid the bug:
- Using Picture-in-Picture mode avoids the ghost entry.
- Using F11 to fullscreen the entire Brave window (instead of the player’s fullscreen button) avoids it.
- Using other browsers like Chrome or Edge avoids it entirely.
Suspected Cause:
Believed to be Brave’s custom video overlay/adblock compositor code not correctly releasing its window handle or overlay surface when exiting fullscreen, especially given changes in Windows 11 24H2’s Desktop Window Manager and NVIDIA’s new driver composition paths.
Impact:
- Leaves permanent phantom Brave window in Alt+Tab.
- Cannot be cleared without a full Windows restart.
- Disruptive for fullscreen video playback on Windows 11 24H2 with NVIDIA GPUs.
Request:
Please investigate and fix this Alt+Tab ghost window behavior. I am happy to provide further logs, DXDiag reports, NVIDIA SMI output, screenshots (including Alt+Tab views showing the duplicate), or videos demonstrating the exact reproduction steps.