this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Games freezing when alt-tabbing. Where do I even being debugging? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 days ago by Kelbesq@lemmy.ml to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
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I've had a problem in several games, and I don't really no where to to being debugging it. It's not like there is any error message. Is it my DE? my distro? drivers? proton? the game engine itself?

I've done some basic web searches, and all of the answers are hyper specific, or "alt-tab just breaks some times".

The actual problem: When I alt-tab, some games will appear to freeze when I tab back in. I've noticed that while I am holding alt-tab and have a non-game window selected, the game is not frozen. As long as have not selected the window I am trying to swap to, it keeps running. It's almost as if the game has inverted it's internal state of whether it's in the foreground are not.

(if it does matter, I am using Gnome on 22.04 PopOS, Nvidia 565 driver, Steam/Proton).

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[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Disclaimer: Theory, based loosely on related experiences in Windows ages ago back when I actually used Windows.

The keyboard handler might be getting confused when you Alt+Tab, leaving the game stuck thinking you're still holding Alt+Tab when you return to the game.

Just for shits and giggles, the next time you experience this, try tapping Alt once or twice to see if that refreshes the keyboard buffer and status.

You might even try tapping the other toggle/special keys as well, such as Ctrl, Shift, Esc...

I realize Windows and Linux are like comparing bananas to oranges, but still, the keyboard buffer might not be getting refreshed properly when switching apps.

It's worth a try, do let us know if this helps in any way.

[–] Kelbesq@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've tried every key combo I could think of, and it didn't seem to help. However I started using super-D to swap workspaces instead, and I have not hit the problem so far.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah, interesting, glad you found a workaround at least.

That makes sense really, it highly suggests that the game has trouble passing keyboard control off to the operating system when using hotkeys that the game has available for gameplay, but since the Super key is handled only by the operating system, that doesn't confuse the game.

👍

[–] Kelbesq@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Good to know general knowledge. The game is clearly still running in the back ground when I swap workspaces, so no real chance for the it get confused.

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