Textualize/textual · error · ScreenError

Can't make {self} active as it is not in the current stack.

Error message

Can't make {self} active as it is not in the current stack.

What it means

pop_until_active tries to pop the screen stack down to this screen, but the underlying App._pop_to_screen failed, meaning this screen instance is not in the active stack.

Source

Thrown at src/textual/screen.py:2096

        await_pop.set_pre_await_callback(pre_await)

        return await_pop

    def pop_until_active(self) -> None:
        """Pop any screens on top of this one, until this screen is active.

        Raises:
            ScreenError: If this screen is not in the current mode.

        """
        from textual.app import ScreenError

        try:
            self.app._pop_to_screen(self)
        except ScreenError:
            # More specific error message
            raise ScreenError(
                f"Can't make {self} active as it is not in the current stack."
            ) from None

    async def action_dismiss(self, result: ScreenResultType | None = None) -> None:
        """A wrapper around [`dismiss`][textual.screen.Screen.dismiss] that can be called as an action.

        Args:
            result: The optional result to be passed to the result callback.
        """
        await self._flush_next_callbacks()
        self.dismiss(result)

    def can_view_entire(self, widget: Widget) -> bool:
        """Check if a given widget is fully within the current screen.

        Note: This doesn't necessarily equate to a widget being visible.
        There are other reasons why a widget may not be visible.

View on GitHub (pinned to 06dbeef4bb)

Solutions

1. Re-create and push the screen instead of reusing a dismissed instance
2. Check 'self in self.app.screen_stack' before calling
3. Use app.switch_screen() for replacing the base screen

Example fix

# before
self.old_screen.pop_until_active()  # stale reference
# after
self.app.switch_screen(MainScreen())

if self in self.app.screen_stack:
    self.pop_until_active()

from textual.app import ScreenError
try:
    screen.pop_until_active()
except ScreenError:
    app.switch_screen(screen.__class__())

When it happens

Trigger: Calling screen.pop_until_active() (usually via the make_base_active action) on a screen that was already dismissed, never pushed, or was removed from the stack.

Common situations: Holding a stale reference to a dismissed modal and re-triggering navigation to it; calling the action after the screen stack changed asynchronously.

Related errors

• node has no screen
• Can't await screen.dismiss() from the screen's message handl
• Can't animate attribute {attribute!r} on {obj!r}; attribute
• Don't know how to animate {value!r}; Can only animate <int>,
• Can't encode {datum!r}

AI-assisted analysis of Textualize/textual@06dbeef4bb (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/73d5725f411c26a2. Report an issue: GitHub.