Window.activate() not working in Jupyter Notebook

Works fine in a cmd but when I run it on a Jupyter Notebook (Colab local runtime):

import pyautogui
pyautogui.getWindowsWithTitle('Code')[0].activate()

VSCode flashes on the taskbar but never activated.

Strangely if I focus the window first with pywinauto:

import pywinauto
pywinauto.application.Application().connect(best_match='Code').top_window().set_focus()

then it would work normally, until I restarted the notebook. This only affects one window, other windows have to be focused with pywinauto before being able to be activated with pygetwindow.

Kernel output:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
PyGetWindowException                      Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-2-f7654fe7bc43> in <module>()
      1 
      2 import pyautogui
----> 3 pyautogui.getWindowsWithTitle('Code')[0].activate()

c:\users\dleanjeans\appdata\local\programs\python\python36\lib\site-packages\pygetwindow\_pygetwindow_win.py in activate(self)
    282         result = ctypes.windll.user32.SetForegroundWindow(self._hWnd)
    283         if result == 0:
--> 284             _raiseWithLastError()
    285 
    286 

c:\users\dleanjeans\appdata\local\programs\python\python36\lib\site-packages\pygetwindow\_pygetwindow_win.py in _raiseWithLastError()
     95     information from GetLastError() and FormatMessage()."""
     96     errorCode = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetLastError()
---> 97     raise pygetwindow.PyGetWindowException('Error code from Windows: %s - %s' % (errorCode, _formatMessage(errorCode)))
     98 
     99 

PyGetWindowException: Error code from Windows: 0 - The operation completed successfully.

[khalius]

I’m not pretty sure why this happens, but I also have a workaround that may look cleaner:

import pygetwindow as gw
hwnd = gw.getWindowsWithTitle('Notepad')
if hwnd != []:
    try:
        hwnd[0].activate()
    except:
        hwnd[0].minimize()
        hwnd[0].maximize()

What we do here is try to activate the desired window, then, if this fails, minimize and maximize the same window. No need to import extra libraries or complicated procedures.

[AllHarmDone]

Hello guys,

I have encountered the same issue and I’m sorry if my anwser/workaround looks novice but thats what I am so yeah.

Searching for the reason why this happens I fell down the rabbit whole but I think I some what have an anwser but unfortunately I did not find the sollution. Any how what appears to be happening that it does not find a procces/window to foccus on when the funtion is called. Just the program. Once you use the following as an example:

import pywinauto
import pygetwindow as gw
def focus_to_window(window_title=None):
    window = gw.getWindowsWithTitle(window_title)[0]
    if window.isActive == False:
        pywinauto.application.Application().connect(handle=window._hWnd).top_window().set_focus()

It now seems to bee connected to the procces. after a function like this it seems that the .activate() function seems to work perfectly fine since its pointed to that procces. Until it is minimized because there in no window to focus on.

I have tested it with multiple windows of notepad and looks like it keeps connected to one specific window since “its pointed” to there to bring it to the foreground.

Hopefully I can find the precise reason and get a fully working sollution instead of a workaround

cheers