Scrolling in another app causes Obsidian's document position to jump

Once you’ve done the above, delete everything above this line.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open Obsidian
  2. Open the Sandbox Vault
  3. Open a long document in Obsidian
  4. Scroll to the middle of the document
  5. Highlight some text so you can easily see if your position unexpectedly changes
  6. Switch to some other random GUI app like a web browser
  7. Using your mouse scroll wheel, scroll all the way down the web page all of the way to the bottom
  8. Alt-tab switch back to Obsidian
  9. Move the scroll wheel one notch in either direction
  10. Witness Obsidian jump the viewing window to the bottom of the document in the same direction you had scrolled in the web browser
  11. Notice that the scroll wheel works just fine at your new position in the document
  12. Reposition yourself in the Obsidian document back to the middle where you were
  13. Highlight some text again so you can easily see if the position changes
  14. Alt-tab switch to the web browser
  15. Scroll all of the way to the top of the web page
  16. Alt-tab switch back to Obsidian
  17. Move the scroll wheel one notch in either direction
  18. Witness Obsidian jump the viewing window to the bottom of the document in the same direction you had scrolled in the web browser
  19. Notice that the scroll wheel works just fine at your new position in the document

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Yes. I followed the troubleshooting guide and did testing using the sandbox vault.

Expected result

I expect that Obsidian doesn’t initialize the viewing window in the document according to scrolling done in other apps. I have seen no other GUI apps behave this way.

Actual result

At the first mouse scroll wheel event detected, Obsidian jumped the scroll wheel position directly proportional the amount scrolled in another GUI app and in the same direction. Consequently, I lost the previous position that I was viewing in Obsidian.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.10
Installer version: v1.7.7
Operating system: #58-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Feb 14 15:33:28 UTC 2025 6.8.0-56-generic
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none


Additional information

To visit the video, copy/paste the following URL text, then remove the blanks in the line:

rumble. com /v6w9jve-obsidian-scrolling-bug-2025-07-16-11.06.59.html

NOTE: Your instructions say to “drop a link here” for videos, but then I get an error of “An error occurred: Sorry, you can’t include links in your posts.” Fix your website.

Which distro is this? Are you using X11 or wayland?

Did you use our AppImage to install the app?
Does this happen if you use the latest AppImage?

Ubuntu 24.04.2
X11 (not Wayland)
Appimage Obsidian v1.8.10 (latest)

It’s not clear if you download and reinstalled the latest appimage from your answer. What does your installer version say now?

I just upgraded:

Previous:

Current version: v1.8.10
(Installer version: v1.7.7)
Obsidian is up to date!


Current:

Current version: v1.8.10
(Installer version: v1.8.10)
Obsidian is up to date!


I retested with this new Appimage and there’s no change to the incorrect scrolling behavior.

which mouse/pointing device do you have exactly?

Does it happen with another mouse?

It happens with a Logitech Ergo M575S trackball and my Lenovo X230 mousepad. Same behavior.

I did some more research into this and it turns out it’s not an issue with Obsidian. I use Ubuntu with Gnome. Gnome has a LONG standing, well known bug STILL not fixed where if you scroll in one app’s window, then Alt-Tab to another app window, the scrolling behavior from the first window gets inherited on first scroll event detected by a massive jump to catch up to the scrolling done in that first window. Someone wrote a Gnome extension to fix this as a workaround. I installed it and the issue is fixed. You just go to the Gnome extension web page and turn it on. It does require a prerequisite package of “gnome-browser-connector” to be installed. Then you refresh the extension web page and you see a slider to install the extension. Super easy. Thanks for your help and sorry for the unnecessary blame on Obsidian.

Install prerequisite: sudo apt install gnome-browser-connector

Alt-Tab workaround Gnome extension web page: https:// extensions. gnome. org/extension/5282/alttab-scroll-workaround/ (remove the spaces from the URL)

Please close this ticket. Thanks.

Thanks letting us know!

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.