A random window becomes "always-on-bottom" frequently

[aresler]

yabai-v7.1.6

After a period of normal usage (creating spaces, moving/swapping windows around), any random window can occasionally become "always-on-bottom", which is exactly the opposite of "always-on-top" (for the lack of better term). Meaning it is always hidden behind any other window on top of it. The only solution is to quit and restart the app that is drawing this window.

I don't see any errors in the log.

I haven't found reliable steps to reproduce it, but it happens about every ~15 minutes of normal usage. I don't have any obvious toggles that can do that in my rc files (attached). I'm happy to collect any data about the window if needed.

skhdrc.txt
yabairc.txt

UPD: Just reproduced the issue as follows:

1. Destroyed a 3rd space with a window on it
2. The window moved to the 1st space
3. I moved the window to the 2nd space, that had some other windows in floating mode

I can now focus the said window from the mission control, but it's always covered by other windows.

Here's the query for the window after reproducing the issue:

{
	"id":17291,
	"pid":47148,
	"app":"IntelliJ IDEA",
	"title":"my_snippets – client.py",
	"scratchpad":"",
	"frame":{
		"x":10.0000,
		"y":50.0000,
		"w":1900.0000,
		"h":1020.0000
	},
	"role":"AXWindow",
	"subrole":"AXStandardWindow",
	"root-window":true,
	"display":1,
	"space":2,
	"level":0,
	"sub-level":-20,
	"layer":"normal",
	"sub-layer":"below",
	"opacity":1.0000,
	"split-type":"none",
	"split-child":"none",
	"stack-index":0,
	"can-move":true,
	"can-resize":true,
	"has-focus":false,
	"has-shadow":false,
	"has-parent-zoom":false,
	"has-fullscreen-zoom":false,
	"has-ax-reference":true,
	"is-native-fullscreen":false,
	"is-visible":true,
	"is-minimized":false,
	"is-hidden":false,
	"is-floating":false,
	"is-sticky":false,
	"is-grabbed":false
}

[aresler]

I'm concerned by the "sub-level":-20,. When the issue is not reproducing, the sub-level is 0 for all windows.

[aresler]

Well, this issue makes yabai plain unusable because after swapping few window around, the issue is reproduced and I have to restart the apps. Almost every time.

[koekeishiya]

I'll look into this when I have time. I think the auto-move because of space destroy is a key thing here.

For now you can use yabai -m window <id> --sub-layer normal or if the window is currently the focused window, just yabai -m window --sub-layer normal from a hotkey.

The intended purpose of the feature is to keep floating windows always on top of tiled/managed windows.
If you never want this behaviour at all you can use a rule in your config: yabai -m rule --add app=".*" sub-layer=normal

[aresler]

The workaround helps, thank you for the suggestion and for the awesome software :)

I want to add one more step necessary to reproduce the issue -- before the step 1 from above, it seems necessary to switch the layout mode to bsp and back to float. Then the issue is reproduced reliably for me.