Tabs do not work on Macos

Clicking on the tabs in the application no longer works reliably. After some time, the tabs no longer respond to clicks, the corresponding view does not open. As a (poor) workaround, it helps to move the tabs, which then opens the window. All tabs are affected, center as well as left and right pane.

This is reproducible in the sandbox (quite fast).

  • Obsidian: Version 1.4.16 (Installer 1.4.13)
  • MacOs: 14.0 (23A344)
2 Likes

I haven’t experienced this. Can you give more detailed steps to reproduce? Like “click 5 tabs” or “wait 5 minutes” or whatever you can identify.

I wasn’t able to reproduce in the sandbox vault (same MacOS and Obsidian versions as you). I opened the sandbox vault and clicked back and forth among the default left sidebar tabs for 50 clicks, then opened a new tab in the main area and clicked back and forth between that and the existing note for 50 clicks.

Hi! I have a similar issue: after searching notes by tag, I can’t go back to the Tags panel. Only double-clicking works all the time. Tabs don’t work well for me either.
The problem might occur because of an external screen. There is no problem when I use the main screen of my Mac.

REC-20231107110727
REC-20231107111052

Not normal, well this must be a bug caused by Sonoma or how the newest MacOs is called

I’m also experiencing this problem on Sonoma

@demn @panteleus @kl_s

Everyone in this thread, if you could, please provide your “Show Debug Info”.

And if you are on an older installation version, try reinstalling from the latest 1.5.3 download on the website. And make sure you give it a test in the Sandbox vault to make sure it isn’t a plugin or CSS snippet that is causing the issue. (kl_s, I see you did already, but that was an older post and an older version. I wonder if you’re still experiencing this.)

I can’t reproduce this either. It’s working fine on my side.

SYSTEM INFO:
	Obsidian version: v1.5.3
	Installer version: v1.5.3
	Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 23.2.0: Wed Nov 15 21:53:34 PST 2023; root:xnu-10002.61.3~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 23.2.0
	Login status: not logged in
	Insider build toggle: off
	Live preview: on
	Base theme: adapt to system
	Community theme: none
	Snippets enabled: 1
	Restricted mode: off
	Plugins installed: 17
	Plugins enabled: 17
		1: Kanban v1.5.3
		2: Better footnote v1.0.1
		3: Vocabulary View v0.1.2
		4: Calendar v1.5.10
		5: Periodic Notes v0.0.17
		6: Mind Map v1.1.0
		7: Reading Time v1.1.1
		8: Obsidian Functionplot v1.2.1
		9: TimeStamper v1.3.0
		10: Fleeting Notes Sync v0.6.3
		11: Obsidian Git v2.22.1
		12: Templater v2.1.2
		13: Latex Environments v0.4.2
		14: Dataview v0.5.64
		15: Excalidraw v2.0.18
		16: Quick Latex for Obsidian v2.6.4
		17: Projects v1.17.1

RECOMMENDATIONS:
	Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.
	Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.

1 Like

I’ve tried to reproduce this bug in the newly created vault – but it doesn’t work. I can also notice that this bug sometimes appears and sometimes does not

very strange. I hope somebody can point to the right direction

I have this problem on my machine as well. I figured out exactly when it happens and found a fix (that works in my case at least). Don’t know the root cause.

Specs

  • macOS Sonoma 14.4.1
  • Obsidian Debug Info (to emphasise that this also happens in brand new vaults without any community plugins/themes and snippets):
    SYSTEM INFO:
    	Obsidian version: v1.5.12
    	Installer version: v1.3.5
    	Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 23.4.0: Fri Mar 15 00:11:05 PDT 2024; root:xnu-10063.101.17~1/RELEASE_X86_64 23.4.0
    	Login status: not logged in
    	Insider build toggle: off
    	Live preview: on
    	Base theme: adapt to system
    	Community theme: none
    	Snippets enabled: 0
    	Restricted mode: on
    

When it happens / How to reproduce

Use Obsidian…

  1. … in full-screen mode (note: this is not the same as maximised mode on Macs) AND
  2. … on any screen that is not your laptop screen.

:warning: To reiterate, this issue only comes up when both conditions (1) and (2) are met.

Fix

  • I normally use my built-in display (laptop screen) as the main display and my monitor as the extended display.
  • I switched this around and made my monitor the main display (which automatically makes the in-built one and extended display).
  • :white_check_mark: Clicking on tabs is now working as expected on both displays, regardless of whether Obsidian is full-screen or not.
2 Likes

You are on a pretty old installer version.

The last version I’m aware of that was required to update manually was 1.4. There was also an important security update a while back. Your first step should be downloading and reinstalling manually.

(This may or may not address this issue for you.)

Otherwise thanks for the details and the clues! I wonder if that was a common factor for the other people.

I don’t think it’s the installer because @demn has the latest minor release but is still facing the same problem. I will update my installer anyway though, it’s been long overdue, you’re right! :see_no_evil:

Maybe @demn @panteleus and @kl_s could try out the fix I suggested (see comment) and see if it works?

1 Like

Many thanks for posting this. This was exactly my issue when I upgraded to Sonoma last week. Any tab (including open note tabs) proved difficult to click on to open or close. It always seemed to “prefer” dragging or dropping the tab.

For now I’m not using Obsidian in full-screen mode but rather maximised and all is well again.

I also have this issue using Sonoma 14.6.1 and Obsidian 1.6.7 (installer 1.4.13). It doesn’t seem to occur in the sandbox vault, so I moved all my files to a new vault with all the plugins turned off, then I incrementally turned on plugins and checked to see if the problem reappeared. It did not for any one plugin, but it does still occasionally appear for no reason that I’ve been able to figure out. Restarting Obsidian often fixes the issue, but only temporarily.

I recently started using Notion again after about a year of avoidance. It appears to have a similar issue, where attempts to click certain menus–those in the top, right-hand corner–is difficult. Clicking the very bottom of the menu icons works every time, but the top ~3/4 of the icons just briefly changes my mouse pointer, but it does not open the menus. The same is true of Obsidian’s tabs: clicking the bottom ~1/4 of the tab works every time, but anything above that just causes my pointer to change. Strangely, Notion’s tabs do not appear to be affected.

I mention the issue with Notion because I believe both Notion and Obsidian are Electron apps, which might be relevant. Maybe there’s some toolkit used for certain interactive elements that is interacting with Mac’s menu bar in unexpected ways? The menu bar isn’t visible in fullscreen mode, but maybe the OS still reserves that space in some way that conflicts with certain Electron elements. Just spitballing.

Writing the last paragraph above got me thinking, so I went to System Settings > Control Center and changed Automatically hide and show the menu bar from In Full Screen Only to Always. This fixed the issue in Notion immediately. Also, the issue returns when I change back to In Full Screen Only, then disappears again when I switch back to Always, so the causation is very clear. Obsidian also seems to be working well.

It looks like the menu bar leaves some sort of “residue” in fullscreen mode that some Electron apps don’t know how to deal with.

1 Like

Electron has been updated with the public release of Obsidian 1.6.5 in June :blush: …
Maybe updating Obsidian’s installer could help ? :woman_shrugging: