Activitywatch: Doesn't Track Time When Window Tiling Feature Is Enabled

[ankushdas9]

• [x] I am on the latest ActivityWatch version.
• [x] I have searched the issues of this repo and believe that this is not a duplicate.

• OS version and name: Pop!_OS 20.04
• ActivityWatch version: Version: v0.9.2

Describe the bug

So, when the window tiling feature is enabled on Pop!_OS 20.04 (it's a default feature on Pop!_OS 20.04) ActivityWatch fails to record anything at all.

Here's a screenshot of my activity for reference: https://imgur.com/a/5tb7DKI

For some reason it was able to record a few seconds of my time on Rocket.chat app - but other than that there's nothing else.

To Reproduce

1. Enable window tiling feature.
2. Emulate some activity
3. Check ActivityWatch activity.

Expected behavior

I'm not sure if this is technically possible for ActivityWatch — but if it can somehow gauge the time spent even with Window tiling feature is enabled that would be great!

Documentation

Not sure what exact log file should I upload here - let me know what you need.

Additional context

The window tiling feature on Pop!_OS also highlights the active window — so if it can detect the active window, it might get the data needed.

[ErikBjare]

Please attach the aw-watcher-window logs, and more details about what this "window tiling" feature does differently that might affect it (a screenshot would be nice).

[johan-bjareholt]

more details about what this "window tiling" feature does differently that might affect it (a screenshot would be nice).

I assume he refers to this

https://github.com/pop-os/shell

Since it's just an extension to gnome-shell it sounds very strange that it would break aw-watcher-window, if that's true they must be doing something very strange under the hood.

@nicolae-stroncea I was browsing pop-shell issues and found one issue where I recognized your name since you have contributed to activitywatch before. Does activitywatch work for you with pop-shell?

[ankushdas9]

I noticed that after I disabled the auto-tiling feature and tried to access ActivityWatch dashboard again, I found the recorded activity.

Not sure if it failed to refresh back then or if it was a conflict with the auto-tiling feature.

So, I have attached some recent logs here. You can let me know what exactly happened in my case.

aw-watcher-window_2020-05-18T14-09-41.log
aw-watcher-window_2020-05-16T05-33-49.log

I assume he refers to this

https://github.com/pop-os/shell

And, yes, that would give you all the information about the auto-tile mode on Pop!_OS 20.04. If you need anything else, let me know!

Thanks!

[ErikBjare]

I noticed that after I disabled the auto-tiling feature and tried to access ActivityWatch dashboard again, I found the recorded activity.

Not sure if it failed to refresh back then or if it was a conflict with the auto-tiling feature.

So you now have activity for the period you were missing before? Or just when the tiling feature was off?

[ankushdas9]

I noticed that after I disabled the auto-tiling feature and tried to access ActivityWatch dashboard again, I found the recorded activity.
Not sure if it failed to refresh back then or if it was a conflict with the auto-tiling feature.

So you now have activity for the period you were missing before? Or just when the tiling feature was off?

Yes, now I can see the activity for the period I was missing before.

However, the data refreshed automatically only after I disabled the tiling feature (I didn't try any manual refresh).

So, this could be a coincidence or the tiling feature could have been the culprit. I'll investigate this further with my use and report back the next day.

I'll close this issue if I find that it was a temporary cache-related (somehow didn't refresh) issue.

[nicolae-stroncea]

@johan-bjareholt I've used pop shell for past 2 months (and ActivityWatch for a lot longer than that). I looked through my logs for that time period and everything looks normal.

[ErikBjare]

There's most likely no bug here, just an outdated Activity view. Closing.

@ankushdas9 We welcome all bug reports, but please make sure you can actually replicate first, saves us time :)

[ankushdas9]

There's most likely no bug here, just an outdated Activity view. Closing.

@ankushdas9 We welcome all bug reports, but please make sure you can actually replicate first, saves us time :)

Sure, my bad. Looks like after all the Activity didn't automatically refresh after 2 hours of my usage for some reason and wasn't related to window tiling feature at all.

I just thought I found something weird because after taking a closer look at the data I got after refreshing, I find some of my activity labelled as AFK — which wasn't the case.

Also, it didn't have any data for the previous day.

But, that's something different and I'll make sure that I can verify my observations before trying to raise the issue.

Keep up with all the good work! Thanks for your time! :)