Bugzilla Bug 172264

See summary.  This happens every time when switching virtual desktops, and is
exceptionally annoying.  There doesn't seem to be any way to turn off the
flashing -- I've tried unchecking 'enable_animations' for the panel in gconf,
and I've tried disabling taskbar notifications in kcontrol -- no effect.

The problem is not limited to virtual desktop switching; sometimes it happens
out of the blue even when working on only one desktop.  It's 100% reproducible
when switching virtual deskops, though.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use Gnome.  Tested with gnome-panel 2.16.2 and 2.16.3.
2. Open at least one KDE app (eg kate).  Also open another app and switch focus
to that (flashing won't happen if an app already has focus).
3. Switch to another virtual desktop.
4. Switch back to the virtual desktop with the KDE apps.  All of the KDE tasks
are now flashing in the taskbar.  While flashing the tasks will take up space
and scream for attention even if you switch desktops.  The only way to stop the
flashing is to click the tasks so they gain focus.

Actual Results:  
Annoying flashing for no good reason


Expected Results:  
No flashing


# emerge info
*** Deprecated use of action 'info', use '--info' instead
Portage 2.1.2.2 (default-linux/amd64/2006.1/desktop, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.5-r0,
2.6.19-gentoo-r5 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor
4200+
Gentoo Base System release 1.12.9
Timestamp of tree: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:00:01 +0000
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.31-r5
dev-lang/python:     2.3.5-r3, 2.4.3-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils:  2.17
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.14
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.17-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=k8 -msse3 -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config
/usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf
/etc/java-config/vms/ /etc/php/apache1-php5/ext-active/
/etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/
/etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-march=k8 -msse3 -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox
sfperms strict userpriv usersandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/ http://mirror.gentoo.no/"
LANG="nb_NO.UTF-8"
LC_ALL="nb_NO.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS=""
LINGUAS="no nb no_NO nb_NO"
MAKEOPTS="-j4"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress
--force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180
--exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages
--filter=H_**/files/digest-*"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="16bit 7zip S3TC X Xaw3d a52 aac aalib acl acpi alsa amd64 ao aotuv apache2
applet artworkextra asf audiofile bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts
browserplugin bzip2 cairo caps ccache cdparanoia cdr cli cracklib crypt css
ctype cups curl cvs dbus dri dvd dvdr dvdread eds elf emboss emul-linux-x86
encode exif expat fam fame fat ffmpeg firefox flac flash fontconfig fortran gcj
gd gdb gdbm gif gimp glitz glut glx gmp gnome gpm graphviz gstreamer gtk gtk2
gtkhtml guile gzip h323 hal icecast iconv idn ieee1394 imagemagick imap imlib
imlib2 intl ipv6 jabber jack jack-tmpfs java javascript joystick jpeg json kde
kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility kqemu lame lcms ldap libcaca libg++
linuxthreads-tls logitech-mouse lua lzo mad matroska md5sum mhash midi mikmod
ming mjpeg mmap mng mod modplug mono mozbranding mozilla moznocompose moznoirc
moznomail moznoroaming mp3 mp4 mp4live mpeg mpeg2 mplayer mpm-prefork msn
musepack music musicbrainz ncurses new-login nforce2 nls no nptl nptlonly
nsplugin ntfs nvidia nvram objc ocaml ogg oggvorbis openal opengl openssh
openssl oss pam paste64 pcre pdf perl php physfs png pnp povray ppds pppd
python qemu-fast qt4 quicktime rar readline reflection rtc samba scanner sdk
sdl sdl-sound session sharedext sharedmem sid slang smp sms sndfile speex spell
spl sse-filters sse3 ssl startup-notification stencil-buffer subtitles
subversion svg sysfs tcpd tga theora thesaurus threads tiff timidity transcode
truetype truetype-fonts type1 type1-fonts unicode usb vcd videos vorbis wacom
wma wma123 wxwindows x264 xanim xine xml xml2 xorg xpm xrandr xscreensaver xv
xvid xvmc yv12 zip zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x
ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0
intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci"
ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file
hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route
share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INITNG_PLUGINS="also bash_launcher chdir
chroot conflict cpout critical cron daemon dev dllaunch envparser find fstat
history idleprobe initctl interactive iparser last limit logfile netprobe ngc4
pause pidfile reload renice rlparser simple_launcher stcmd stdout suid syncron
syslog unneeded provide" INPUT_DEVICES="joystick keyboard mouse wacom"
KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001
mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="no nb no_NO nb_NO" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nv
nvidia vesa fbdev"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_COMPRESS,
PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

KDE team, please advise? I see no reason why it would do that in the first
place just for KDE apps, so I imagine Qt/kdelibs might be doing something to
cause this.
I see this problem myself as well, and only exclusively with KDE apps like
kate, or simpler ones like kfind.

PS: I saw this problem on a co-workers Ubuntu Edgy just as well.

KDE apps send PropertyNotify events for _NET_STARTUP_ID on workspace switches
and metacity used to "active" the window then due to _NET_STARTUP_ID being set,
which even further down the logic made the taskbar blink for attention.
Fixed in metacity-2.18.5, now in tree, by not setting the window active if the
startup id value is set to what it already was before.
More details for the curious in the upstream bug in URL field.