This could well be a problem with firefox itself. I know that it queues "focus"
events up until the firefox instance actually has focus. Need to look into this a
little bit more before resolving the issue, though.

We have multiple webdriver based test suites running concurrently on the continuous

integration server and this bug is making our intergration builds unstable. Running

the suites sequentially is not an option as the feedback cycle would be unacceptally

long (>1h). I expect other projects developing ajax-heavy application to face the 
same problem when they reach the critical mass of webdriver based automated tests.

Webdriver is a great tool and we would hate to abandon it just because of this. 

It would be valuable if we could figure out whether this behavior is caused by 
Firefox or by webdriver to get the fixing process started on the right end of the 
problem. We have tried debugging this issue but unfortunately it seems to require 
more know-how that we currently have or can aquire for now. However we are currently

finding a way to cope with this problem without actually solving it.

We are using webdriver 0.6.964 and firefox 3.0.6 on windows XP and firefox 3.0.8 on

Ubuntu.

We have similar problem and a fix would be great. We've managed to ease the problem

by forcing focus with something like webDriver.switchTo().window(""); It is an 
annoying help, but might be useful.

I'm seeing this problem in FF3.5/Ubuntu even when the Firefox window has focus. For

now I'm suffixing a tab to force the onchange to be fired:

    sendKeys(Keys.chord(Keys.CONTROL, "a") + Keys.DELETE + value + Keys.TAB)

To get around it.

You could try using native events with Firefox, which should solve the problem. This

involves creating a new FirefoxProfile instance, enabling native events on it 
(setEnableNativeEvents(true)) and instantiating a FirefoxDriver with this profile.

Note that at the moment it *may* break with multiple windows and constant window 
switching.

I need both the combination of native events and Keys.TAB suffix to get onchange to

fire. Just native events it does not and just Keys.TAB it does not.

This behaviour is expected. The "sendKeys" method leaves the focus in the element. You

need to deliberately move the focus from the element (in this case with the tab key)

before the "change" event will fire.

Stephen, are you encountering the same behaviour that the original creator of the 
issue encountered, or does Simon's comment an appropriate explanation for you?

@eran, you are right, I did not expect the expected behavior on sendKeys (I had known

about needing clear() before sendKeys(), but not another focus()). The browser window

active/inactive is not an issue for me.

I have a test with two text input elements and an onchange handler bound to the first
one. The test sends keys to 
the first field, then sends keys to the second field. When running in the foreground,
the change handler is 
triggered. When running in the background it is not -- even though the focus has been
moved off the first 
element.

I.e., the workaround in comment 7 does not work for me. I'm using Firefox on Mac OS
Snow Leopard.

FYI, I tried adding "dom.disable_window_flip" => false to the profile options (corresponding
to the "Allow scripts 
to: Raise or lower windows" preference). It didn't help.

I am experiencing this issue with FF 3.5.9 on OS X 10.5.8 (build 9L31a) on a MacBook
Pro (Intel) using selenium 2.0a4 and 2.0a5.

When FF has focus, I do not see any issue, but if the application window does not have
focus, the events do not seem to be firing.

WebDriver generates the same events whether the browser window has focus or not. I have
encountered similar problems with keyboard event processing in Linux when the window
did not have focus - for Linux, this was solved with the x_ignore_nofocus library.
It won't work on Mac - since Firefox is not displayed over X.
A better solution would be to get the browser to cooperate - and have a preference
that will make it process events regardless of the state of the focus. I'm working
on such a solution but it won't be available for a month, at least.

It seems as though we've all agreed that there is a reproducible issue here.  Can we
switch the status of this ticket to indicate that it's in progress, so that future
passers by can see at a glance that it's being worked on?

Same as comment 12.  OSX 10.6.5 FireFox 3.6.12 selenium 2.0a5-a7.  I've narrowed it
down to elements that fire events themselves.  I have a GWT Textbox with a ValueChangeHandler
that raises events on the EventBus.  Seems that no combination of TAB, click() e.t.c
on any element will cause the browser's onBlur event to fire.  Regular Textbox widgets
that don't raise events themselves work fine.  When focus is given to the window manually,
the test works fine.  Works fine on Windows XP, Vista with Firefox 3.6.2+.

Marking as started as per comment #14

Still a bug on Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Please fix this!!!!

There seem to be a bunch of interrelated bugs reported here.  For the specific case
of Firefox 3.6 not receiving focus events unless the window is active, see this bug:
http://code.google.com/p/selenium/issues/detail?id=543.

Still seeing the same problem as comment #16, even with FF 6.0.2 on OS X 10.6.8 (Snow
Leopard). Has there been any resolution on this?

When running in webdriver, the FF window is in the background - when the FF window
in not in focus it seems the onChange() event does not fire and the test fails. Running
with the FF window in the foreground causes the test to pass successfully.

Sounds like the well-known problem with focus that Firefox has. That's an issue with
Firefox itself.

Simon - Sorry but I can't find any information about this Firefox issue.  Does the Firefox
team agree that it is a Firefox issue?  Do you have a reference to more information
about this problem.

I believe the relevant bug is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=566671

we also have this issue on testing with selenium2 grid.
i have found a little workaround for firefox. before typing keys into an input field
send a focus event on it.
example:
selenium().fireEvent("id=your_id_locator", "focus");
selenium().typeKeys("id=your_id_locator", "h");
i have only tested with firefox 8.

Is there any sort of workaround when not using the selenium emulation?  I am going all
webdriver because any use of selenium emulation eats all of the alert boxes so you
can't use driver.switchTo().alert() because its not there.  But webdriver doesn't have
a fireEvent() method. 

I would love to be able to run my tests in parallel again.  Until I can figure something
out not only am I running them serially but when I test on my desktop I have to wait
and stare at the screen while the tests run instead of .. well... anything else.  

It would be really great if there was some way to fix this. In the mean time, I've resorted
to triggering the events manually with execute_script when necessary. Like so:

browser.execute_script('$("#description").change()')

This is how I perform fireEvent for mouse events in WebDriver:

private String IE_MOUSE_EVENT_SCRIPT_PATTERN="arguments[0].fireEvent('on%s');";

    private String FF_CHROME_MOUSE_EVENT_SCRIPT_PATTERN="var evt = document.createEvent('MouseEvents');
evt.initMouseEvent('%s',true, true, window, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, false, false, false, false,
0,null); arguments[0].dispatchEvent(evt);";

    /**
     * Executes custom JavaScript
     * 
     * @param javaScript
     * @param args
     * @return
     */
    public Object executeScript(String javaScript, Object... args) {
        return ((JavascriptExecutor) this.getWebDriver())
                .executeScript(javaScript,args);
    }

    /**
     * Executes some Action on provided element
     * 
     * @param javaScriptAction
     * @param element
     * @return
     */
    public Object fireJavaScriptEventForElement(JSActions javaScriptAction,
            Element element) {
        Logger.debug("Firing event '"+javaScriptAction.getFunctionName()+"' for element'"+element.getIdentifyingText()+"'");
        String myScript;
        if (getBrowserType().equals("Microsoft Internet Explorer")){
            myScript=String.format(IE_MOUSE_EVENT_SCRIPT_PATTERN,javaScriptAction.getFunctionName());
        }
        else{
            myScript=String.format(FF_CHROME_MOUSE_EVENT_SCRIPT_PATTERN, javaScriptAction.getFunctionName());
        }
        return executeScript(myScript,element.getWebElement());
        //this.navigate().to(myScript,element.getWebElement());

    }

Where
public String getBrowserType(){
        return executeScript("return navigator.appName.toString()").toString();
    }

Has this or will this ever be fixed? It's really frustrating.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=704583

Thanks for comment #32.
I tried to figure out how to turn on the test mode with webdriver.

Looks like:

FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();
profile.setPreference("focusmanager.testmode",true);
WebDriver webDriver =  new FirefoxDriver(profile);

Source:
http://rostislav-matl.blogspot.com/2011/09/setting-firefox-preferences-via.html

Please note https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=774892, which is the reason
this preference is not enable by Selenium yet.

This issue was closed by revision 9e456160fa2f.

Reopening, focusmanager.testmode is too fragile...

I am having this issue with:

Browser: Firefox 22.0
Selenium Server: 2.33.0

I am using a tool called Behat that interfaces with Selenium, it's a PHP library, I
don't believe the problem lays there.

When filling a text input with focus on Firefox the change event is fired and my AJAX
request completes and loads options for a select, but when the focus is on another
application, the change event is not triggered and my tests fails.

I can confirm comment #37's issue with the following configuration:

Linux (RHEL6)
Firefox 17 ESR
Selenium 2.35
Using native events (required for expected focusmanager.testmode=true functionality)
Using focusmanager.testmode

This makes testing apps that depend on the onChange event difficult to debug of course,
since you cannot simultaneously have Firefox and a debugging tool (eg Eclipse) in focus.

Not only "onchange" event, I also hit this issue for "onfocus" event when run test on
Selenium grid with lots of firefox instances.

I am facing the issue on JavaScript call from radio button from group, have to load
another radio group and have to save the value from the second group. Selenium is not
detecting JavaScript call and not loading the second set. 
Environment
Firefox 24
Windows 7 enterprise
selenium-server-standalone-2.35.0

Anyone who solved the JavaScript call issue please reply
Thanks.

I am facing this issue too for "onclick" event.

Environment
Firefox 25
Windows 7
selenium-server-standalone-2.37.0

Thanks

I am struck up on this javascript call from my web application during
selenium testing. I need to record this and reproduce with different
scenariosas i already created one project which has to automate using an
ant build. As for this javascript call, all my recordings are failing.
Anywhere should we have to post for fixing this issue ?
Kaywin Charles Dcosta

I am also stuck on this. I tried on the selenium server 2.39.0 hoping for a solution
but still the same result. I am heavily dependent on this. The fact that there isn't
chromedriver for 64bit on mac makes it even worse. When would this be fixed? 

Anand.

If you have multiple firefoxdriver sessions running, then the way to solve this issue
is to set the "testmode" of the browser to true:

  FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();
  profile.setPreference("focusmanager.testmode", true);
  new FirefoxDriver(profile);

The underlying cause is down to how firefox handles focus and blur events when the
driver window doesn't have OS focus. That's Mozilla's desired behaviour.