All windows loses focus every 5 minutes

Question

While in Chrome or Sublime Text and mail for sure, my window will lose focus on 5 minute intervals. How do I determine culprit so that I can eliminate it? I've tried a reboot and closing applications that I think might be responsible and can't figure out what's actually causing the problem.

Answer 1

You can use the following Python script which can tell you which app is currently on focus:

#!/usr/bin/python
# Prints current window focus.
# See: https://apple.stackexchange.com/q/169277
from AppKit import NSWorkspace
import time
workspace = NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace()
active_app = workspace.activeApplication()['NSApplicationName']
print('Active focus: ' + active_app)
while True:
    time.sleep(1)
    prev_app = active_app
    active_app = workspace.activeApplication()['NSApplicationName']
    if prev_app != active_app:
        print('Focus changed to: ' + active_app)

It will print active application which has the focus and any change every second.

^{Related script: Identify which app or process is stealing focus on OSX at Gist}

Usage:

1. Save above script into get_active_focus.py file.
2. Assign execution attributes by: chmod +x get_active_focus.py command.
3. Run it as: ./get_active_focus.py.

Output:

$ ./get_active_focus.py
Active focus: Terminal
Focus changed to: Google Chrome

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Once you found the affected application, consider uninstalling or killing it (if possible).