wezterm/wezterm · error · anyhow::Error

active window is not in any screen

Error message

active window is not in any screen

What it means

The X11 connection tracks RANDR screen rectangles; this lookup picks the screen owning the currently focused window by intersecting the window's rectangle with each screen rect and keeping the largest overlap. If the active window's geometry intersects no known screen, max_by_key finds nothing and this error is raised.

Source

Thrown at window/src/os/x11/connection.rs:1053

                src_y: 0,
            })
            .context("querying root coordinates")?;
        let window_rect: ScreenRect = euclid::rect(
            trans_geom.dst_x().into(),
            trans_geom.dst_y().into(),
            geom.width() as isize,
            geom.height() as isize,
        );
        Ok(by_name
            .values()
            .filter_map(|screen| {
                screen
                    .rect
                    .intersection(&window_rect)
                    .map(|r| (screen, r.area()))
            })
            .max_by_key(|s| s.1)
            .ok_or_else(|| anyhow::anyhow!("active window is not in any screen"))?
            .0
            .clone())
    }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 3ff7522b96)

Solutions

1. Run `xrandr` and reposition outputs so they tile sensibly with no orphaned regions
2. Restart wezterm after changing display layout so screen state is re-read
3. Pull the stray window back: `wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -e 0,0,0,-1,-1`
4. Update wezterm; screen tracking around RANDR changes has seen multiple upstream fixes

Example fix

# before: broken layout leaves the active window off every output
xrandr --output eDP-1 --auto --output HDMI-1 --off
# after: contiguous tiling, then restart wezterm
xrandr --output eDP-1 --auto --primary --output HDMI-1 --auto --right-of eDP-1

# quick triage: compare window geometry against connected outputs
xdotool getactivewindow getwindowgeometry
xrandr | grep ' connected'

// embedders: degrade to the primary screen when lookup fails
let screen = current_screen(&conn).unwrap_or_else(|_| primary_screen(&conn));

When it happens

Trigger: The focused window's x/y/width/height lies entirely outside every RANDR CRTC rectangle: stale screen layout after an output was unplugged, xrandr scripts leaving gaps or stranding coordinates, or a window sitting on a removed output.

Common situations: Laptop docking/undocking; display layout changes while windows keep old geometry; VNC or nested X servers reporting odd layouts; window managers that park windows offscreen.

Related errors

• XRANDR is not available, cannot query screen geometry
• window is not in any screen
• empty list of windows
• problem with new keymap
• problem with new state

AI-assisted analysis of wezterm/wezterm@3ff7522b96 (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6ea89bff49f80ba8. Report an issue: GitHub.