This problem sounds related to focus stealing prevention. That's the feature intended to put new windows in the background when the system thinks you're still busy in the foreground.
However, since you're using a 4-year old release I would first recommend trying the latest long term release (22.04.1): https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop because this bug is likely to have been fixed already. ** Summary changed: - applications start in the background instead of the foreground + [bionic] applications start in the background instead of the foreground -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to gnome-shell in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1993940 Title: [bionic] applications start in the background instead of the foreground Status in gnome-shell package in Ubuntu: New Bug description: I frequently see new applications windows open in the background instead of the foreground, e.g., if I click on a link in an e-mail in Thunderbird, a new browser window will open and a notification at the top of the screen will let me know that the windows has been opened, but Thunderbird remains in the foreground and the new window opens in the background. I've been seeing this for a long time now, but I'd like to stop wrestling with the GUI shell to get to the application that I just started. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04 Package: gnome-shell 3.28.4-0ubuntu18.04.7 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-126.142~18.04.1-generic 5.4.203 Uname: Linux 5.4.0-126-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.28 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME Date: Sun Oct 23 11:52:17 2022 DisplayManager: gdm3 DistributionChannelDescriptor: # This is a distribution channel descriptor # For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor canonical-oem-somerville-xenial-amd64-20160624-2 InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-05-10 (1626 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04 "Xenial" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20160624-10:47 SourcePackage: gnome-shell UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2020-03-04 (963 days ago) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1993940/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
