The Brave browser creates multiple duplicate entries in the Alt+Tab switcher

Brave Browser Desktop Support
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1

**Description of the issue:**When using Brave in fullscreen mode (e.g., watching a video), the browser creates multiple entries in the Alt+Tab switcher. These phantom windows persist even after closing Brave, and they appear as black or blank windows.

How can this issue be reproduced?
DISABLE HARDWARE ACCELERATION

  1. Open any video in Brave (e.g., YouTube or Netflix) and switch to fullscreen mode (The video, not brave).
  2. Press Alt+Tab and switch to another app (not brave)
  3. Press Alt+Tab and return to brave
  4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 several times

Expected result: There is supposed to be only one brave window in the ALT+TAB view.

Actual result:
There are MULTIPLE brave windows in the ALT+TAB view. Even if you close brave, they will stay there as a black window.

Brave Version( check About Brave): Brave 1.80.122 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Additional Information: This issue started occurring after a clean installation of Windows 11.

  • Installed via USB
  • Fresh install (no files or settings retained)
  • No third-party modifications or custom themes applied

*This only happens in the ALT+TAB view. The WINDOWS+TAB view only shows one brave window.
*Restarting the explorer is just a temporal solution.
*It only happens when hardware acceleration is disabled, which is annoying because I can’t take screenshots while watching a video.

2

I only see one window. Even with multiple tabs open. If you have multiple brave windows open there will be multiple. For example having a Brave window open and then opening a Private window there will be 2 Brave windows in the taskbar. If your using private window and go to add a new tab it will also open in a new window and there will be 2 windows when pressing alt tab. I would say that maybe you just need to close everything down and restart the browser maybe even do ctrl+alt+del of your on windows. If your on linux then use ps, top, or pgrep to get the process id then use the kill command followed by the pid (ex. kill 123). Either way, stop all the Brave processes that are running and then reopen the browser and see if the same thing happens. Chances are you might have had something open and forgot about it.

3

Enabling hardware acceleration fixed the issue. I had that problem for days so it was not a temporal bug. I just read in a reddit forum of 2 years ago that enabling hardware acceleration fixes the issue, and it did. Also, the duplicated windows were clones of the main window and only restarting the explorer fixed those duplicated windows. Thanks for answering.