Hi Opera team,
i just had a chat with ChatGPT and it thinks it has to be an Opera Problem (focus lost when starting a new private window from taskbar right click Opera then "New private window"). If you cannot reproduce it at all, it's alright. It happened to me by upgrading to version 131. If on your system everything's fine, then I'll wait for a Microsoft cumulative patch, see if this fixes the broken focus handling. So if that's the case, never mind. Just wanted to mention it after asking ChatGPT for a text which I can copy-paste for you devs. Maybe it helps, if not it's ok. So the following is the text from ChatGPT...
I found a reproducible focus issue with private windows on Windows 11 and wanted to provide a clean reproduction case.
Environment
- Opera One: version 131.x
- Windows 11
- Issue reproducible consistently
Problem
When opening a private window via the Windows taskbar jump list:
Right click Opera taskbar icon
โ "New private window"
the new private window opens correctly, but the address bar / omnibox does NOT receive keyboard focus.
Result:
- typing immediately after opening does nothing
- user must click the address bar manually
- sometimes TAB or CTRL+L restores focus
Important observation
The problem ONLY occurs when launching the private window from the Windows taskbar jump list.
The following methods work correctly and DO focus the omnibox:
Works correctly
Keyboard shortcut:
Ctrl + Shift + N
Direct command line launch:
opera.exe --private
Opening private windows from inside Opera menus also appears to work normally.
Additional testing already done
The issue persists after:
- creating a fresh Opera profile
- disabling extensions
- disabling hardware acceleration
- restarting Windows
- reinstalling Opera
So this does not appear to be profile corruption or an extension issue.
Likely cause
This looks specifically related to:
- Windows 11 taskbar jump list integration
- AppUserModelID / ShellExecute launch path
- missing focus handoff to the omnibox after private window creation
The direct opera.exe --private launch path works correctly, which suggests the bug exists specifically in the jump-list-triggered private window handler.
Hope this helps narrow it down.