activitywatch: Fails to get active window on macOS

Mac OSX 10.12.6 Sierra, running all modules + aw-watcher-spotify + aw-watcher-web Python 3.6.3 :: Anaconda, Inc.

I added the last heartbeat for debugging purposes

Inserted:{'id': 1148, 'timestamp': datetime.datetime(2018, 9, 11, 6, 15, 45, 412000, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc), 'duration': datetime.timedelta(0), 'data': {'url': 'https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-better-history/aadbaagbanfijdnflkhepgjmhlpppbad', 'title': 'Chrome Better History - Chrome Web Store', 'audible': False, 'incognito': False}}  (aw_datastore.datastore.Bucket:120)
/Documents/activitywatch/aw_watcher_window/printAppTitle.scpt: execution error: System Events got an error: Can’t get application process 1 whose frontmost = true. Invalid index. (-1719)
2018-09-11 14:26:19 [ERROR]: Exception thrown while trying to get active window: list index out of range  (aw_watcher_window.main:68)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "aw_watcher_window/main.py", line 65, in heartbeat_loop
  File "aw_watcher_window/lib.py", line 46, in get_current_window
  File "aw_watcher_window/lib.py", line 23, in get_current_window_macos
  File "aw_watcher_window/macos.py", line 17, in getTitle
IndexError: list index out of range
/Users/virenmohindra/Documents/activitywatch/aw_watcher_window/printAppTitle.scpt: execution error: System Events got an error: Can’t get application process 1 whose frontmost = true. Invalid index. (-1719)
2018-09-11 15:10:08 [ERROR]: Exception thrown while trying to get active window: list index out of range  (aw_watcher_window.main:68)

and then the same error keeps on getting repeated –

../Documents/activitywatch/aw_watcher_window/printAppTitle.scpt: execution error: sh: -c: lish: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file (2)
2018-09-11 22:49:23 [ERROR]: Exception thrown while trying to get active window: list index out of range  (aw_watcher_window.main:68)

Please let me know if you need the log files

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 6 years ago
Reactions: 1
Comments: 22 (8 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Hello all. I experienced this as well, it’s not fatal, but it came up when running in the terminal. The context was that Firefox crashed while I was away from the computer and for a while, there might not have actually been an active window? The status messages went back to normal after focusing on other windows. Unfortunately, I have not been able to reproduce the issue despite trying to get into situations with no active window.

/.../activitywatch/aw_watcher_window/printAppTitle.scpt: execution error: System Events got an error: Can’t get application process 1 whose frontmost = true. Invalid index. (-1719)
2019-01-23 22:16:00 [ERROR]: Exception thrown while trying to get active window: list index out of range  (aw_watcher_window.main:68)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "aw_watcher_window/main.py", line 65, in heartbeat_loop
  File "aw_watcher_window/lib.py", line 46, in get_current_window
  File "aw_watcher_window/lib.py", line 23, in get_current_window_macos
  File "aw_watcher_window/macos.py", line 17, in getTitle
IndexError: list index out of range

It seems like https://github.com/ActivityWatch/aw-watcher-window/blob/cea4bf048ed9e4af66445bff5015e38c510ec892/aw_watcher_window/macos.py assumes that there will always be an active window.

In the AW gui, the watcher_window shows “unknown” for this time period. That seems reasonable as-is, so perhaps the “solution” here is silence the error?

5tefan on Jan 24, 2019

@Patrick3131 Yes that’s why it’s failing. To test the command either move back activitywatch to the Downloads folder or enter the new path to the printAppTitle.scpt in the command.

johan-bjareholt on Dec 2, 2018