Secondary display takes keyboard focus, disabling some keyboard shortcuts

Report · Sep 20, 2024

This may be related to P: Fullscreen with Menu Bar not working correctly with multiple monitors. They appeared at the same time.

Starting in LrC 13.5.1 (or 13.5.0… I skipped that one), when the floating secondary display is opened or re-rendered for any reason, its window is activated and it takes keyboard focus. This is evident because the "close" button (in macOS, the tiny red dot in the secondary display's menu bar) is highlighted. Some keyboard shortcuts (the one-letter shortcuts, with no ⌘ modifier) from Library mode are active when the main display has focus but not the secondary display. So opening the secondary display now has the side-effect of making those keyboard shortcuts unresponsive.

In 13.4 and earlier versions, the only way to give focus to the secondary display is to single-click its menu bar, which I have probably never tried before troubleshooting this bug. As far as I know, there is no reason why I would want it to have focus.

Some triggers for the new behavior:

In the Library module with only the primary display open, type a keyboard shortcut such as 'shift-E' or 'shift-G' to open the secondary display. Secondary display gets focus immediately.
Open the secondary display, click anywhere in the primary display to give it back focus, then restart LrC. Secondary display gets focus after restart.
Open the secondary display, click anywhere in the primary display to give it back focus, then select one of the menu options "Window > Screen Mode > Full Screen" or "Window > Screen Mode > Normal". Secondary display gets focus immediately. (The bug does not trigger on "Window > Screen Mode > Full Screen with Menubar". Weird!) The same behavior happens when toggling screen modes with the 'shift-F' keyboard shortcut.
In the Library module with only the primary display open, type 'G' to switch to grid view. Type 'shift-E' to open the secondary display in loupe view. Click within the primary display to give it back focus. Type 'E' to switch the primary display to loupe view and switch the secondary display to grid view. Secondary display disappears for a moment, then gets focus when it is recreated.

That last trigger does not present the bug if GPU acceleration is disabled, apparently because the secondary display doesn't close and reopen. See P: Brief flash on second monitor for more on that.

Some keyboard shortcuts, with their menu titles, which are disabled while the secondary display has focus:

'E' View > Loupe
'G' View > Grid
'shift-E' Window > Secondary display > Loupe - Normal
'shift-G Window > Secondary display > Grid
'F' Window > Screen Mode > Full Screen Preview
'shift-F' Window > Screen Mode > Next Screen Mode
'tab' Window > Panels > Toggle Side Panels
'P' Photo > Set Flag > Flagged
'1' Photo > Set Rating > 1 Star

Keyboard shortcuts starting with 'command'/'⌘' aren't affected, presumably because those are handled by the macOS menu handler; and the LrC application menu does not change when the secondary window has focus.

My System Info:

Lightroom Classic version: 13.5.1 [ 202408271704-d15d09cd ]
License: Creative Cloud
Language setting: en-US
Operating system: Mac OS 14
Version: 14.5.0 [23F79]
Application architecture: arm64
Logical processor count: 16
Processor speed: NA
SqLite Version: 3.36.0
Power Source: Plugged In, 80%
Built-in memory: 65,536.0 MB
Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 304.8MB / 49,152.0MB (0%)
Real memory available to Lightroom: 65,536.0 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 1,441.0 MB (2.1%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 413,096.6 MB
Memory cache size: 140.4MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 16.5 [ 1954 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 80MB / 32767MB (0%)
Camera Raw real memory: 82MB / 65536MB (0%)

Cache1: 
NT- RAM:0.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Combined:0.0MB

Cache2: 
m:140.4MB, n:0.0MB

U-main: 109.0MB

Standard Preview Size: 2880 pixels
Displays: 1) 3024x1964, 2) 2560x1440, 3) 2560x1440

Graphics Processor Info: 
Metal: Apple M3 Max
Init State: GPU for Export supported by default
User Preference: Auto
Enable HDR in Library: ON

Application folder: /Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic 13.5.1
Library Path: /Volumes/home/Documents/photography/lightroom/catalog/Lightroom Catalog.lrcat
Settings Folder: /Users/clyde/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom

Installed Plugins: 
1) Any Crop
2) Any File
3) DxO PureRAW 3
4) DxO PureRAW 3 Importer
5) jf Bag-o-Goodies
6) jf Creative Commons
7) jf Data Explorer
8) jf Geocoding Support
9) jf Metadata Viewer
10) jf Timelapse Support
11) LrMediaWiki

Config.lua flags:

Report · Sep 20, 2024

To clarify my fourth trigger: when toggling the two displays with 'E'/'G'/'shift-E'/'shift-G' I see the bug intermittently. Some combination of switching between Library and Develop, toggling GPU acceleration on and off, or something else I'm doing along the way will put this in or out of bug mode. I can't figure out the cause & effect on this one.

Report · Oct 18, 2024

The bug is still present in LrC 14.0.1. Now it has an added twist: I start up with only the primary display, then when I open the secondary display, the primary display switches screens so that it is now underneath the secondary display. This makes 14.0.1 even more unusable than 13.5.1.

I deleted the LrC preferences file, "~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.LightroomClassicCC7.plist", and created a new catalog with LrC 14.0.1. Imported a couple images, and the bug still happens as soon as I open the secondary display.

Report · Oct 19, 2024

As someone who often uses Secondary Display, I can corroborate this. I’ve been seeing this happen a lot in recent versions. I open the Secondary Window, and this will sometimes cause Lightroom Classic to appear to stop responding to keyboard shortcuts, but after a while I realized Lightroom Classic can be made to start responding to shortcuts again if I grab the mouse and click in the main window.