I think this is a bug involving volume and balance sliders.

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

I’m on Audacity 3.2.4 But I had this problem in the previous version or two. I am on Windows 10 Pro version 22H2

When I have more than one instance of Audacity open, at times, often, the one most recently opened will function just fine except the track volume and balance sliders have the behavior upon attempt to click on either of them that the whole instance disappears to the background rendering the instance inaccessable because the other instance of Audacity which should be in the background now appears.
As I have just said, I cannot now use the instance that I was using because the instance I was not using now appears and blocks any view of the one that is supposed to be there. It is the act of trying to click on a volume slider or a balance slider that causes this and no other button or key action anywhere does this.

I have done everything a user can do, I believe, to discover if there is a user fix, such as making sure all files are saved, and that no popup windows are open.

My only remedy at this time is to close the other instance. Interestingly, if I reopen the other instance it now becomes the one with the malfunctioning volume and balance sliders. So, at times, often, two files are entangled in this problem. While everything else works just fine.

2

I thought I couldn’t make this happen - but some testing gave me these simple STRs (steps to reproduce)

  1. Open Project-1
  2. Ctrl+N to open new project: Project-2
  3. Observe project-2 is fully functional
  4. now just move your cursor, without clicking, over the Meter toolbars meter/slider section in Project-1
  5. Observe: Project-1 is moved the top and Project-2 is (partially) hidden behind it
  6. Now click in the visible part of Project-2
  7. Observe: Project 2 becomes active BUT remains partially hidden behind the now inactive Project-1

No other part of the Project-1 window causes this - not even the mic and speaker buttons in the Meter toolbars.

This is ringing some bells for me, I seem to recall that this mat be an already logged big - I’ll have to try to find it.

It’s also a regression somewhere between 2.0.0 and 2.4.2 - there it acts on the old Mixer toolbar in Project-1.

UPDATE
Found it

Windows: Hovering over the meters of an unfocussed project window brings that window to the front - original project retains focus #4094
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/4094

See also this earlier Forum post that originally reported this:
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/unwanted-switches-between-multiple-open-projects/66306/3

Peter

3

Thanks Peter for keeping the ball rolling on this. I really appreciate you linked relevant posts that allowed me to see a workaround found by mj10008, Thank you mj10008.
I can now continue my work on my active project by clicking the “minimize to taskbar” dash button when the behavior occurs. So to me that is an easy workaround, my other project is still available from the taskbar just as before. So I’m only down one easy click. Well, I guess the first attempt to edit on a slider counts as one too I guess.