Revert "gui, qt: brintToFront workaround for Wayland"

[hebasto]

This PR reverts a Wayland-specific workaround introduced in #831, which appears to break the UI, as reported in:

• v30rc1 Weird GUI windowing behavior bitcoin/bitcoin#33432
• Qt6 version of Bitcoin Core (bitcoin-qt) flickers on Wayland #903

An alternative to #904, as suggested in #904 (comment).

Fixes #903

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ACK	maflcko
Concept ACK	diegoviola

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[hebasto]

cc @benthecarman @diegoviola @pablomartin4btc

[diegoviola]

@hebasto ACK. Thanks for looking into this and for the revert. 👍

[benthecarman]

fixes for me!

[maflcko]

Instead of linking to a bunch of threads, it could make sense to just say that the issue has been fixed upstream in Qt6, so that the workaround is no longer needed?

Ref: https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/418094

lgtm, but I haven't tested this.

review ACK 0672e72 🎩

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[pablomartin4btc]

tested 0672e72

(there's a typo on both the PR and commit titles.. brint -> bring)

The revert doesn't work for me on wayland (Qt v6.2.4 - Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS), the window doesn't come back to front as it does when plugin=xcb.

2025-11-24T15:08:07Z Bitcoin Core version v30.99.0-0672e727bf1d (release build)
2025-11-24T15:08:07Z Qt 6.2.4 (dynamic), plugin=wayland
2025-11-24T15:08:07Z No static plugins.
2025-11-24T15:08:07Z Style: fusion / QFusionStyle
2025-11-24T15:08:07Z System: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS, x86_64-little_endian-lp64

[maflcko]

The revert doesn't work for me on wayland (Qt v6.2.4 - Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS), the window doesn't come back to front as it does when plugin=xcb.

The fix is in qt6.3, so this is expected. Your options are:

• Use a pre-compiled guix release
• Use depends yourself
• Upgrade your OS
• Install/compile a more recent qt yourself and use that
• ...?

[pablomartin4btc]

The fix is in qt6.3, so this is expected. Your options are:

* Use depends yourself

I think I tried that before... I'll check it again, thanks!

[diegoviola]

Instead of linking to a bunch of threads, it could make sense to just say that the issue has been fixed upstream in Qt6, so that the workaround is no longer needed?

The Qt::WindowStaysOnTopHint workaround was never going to work on Wayland. Clients don't get to dictate whether they stay on top or not. The compositor does, and you (the user) are supposed to control the compositor through configuration. This is a fundamental difference that a lot of people don't seem to understand.

It seems like the workaround was added for #817 but curiously enough this has been working fine. If all you want to do is raise a window just call activateWindow() which is what GUIUtil::bringToFront already does.

So yeah, just upgrade your software and things will work better.

[pablomartin4btc]

The fix is in qt6.3, so this is expected. Your options are:

* Use depends yourself

I think I tried that before... I'll check it again, thanks!

Sorry, that (building depends) uses xcb... and that works well.

Built correctly from source both Qt 6.3.2 and 6.10.0, and bringToFront doesn't work on either of them using Wayland. I'll upgrade Ubuntu to 24.04 at some point and will check it again.

2025-11-25T19:22:58Z Bitcoin Core version v30.99.0-0672e727bf1d (release build)
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z Qt 6.10.0 (dynamic), plugin=wayland
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z Static plugins:
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z  QICNSPlugin, version 395776
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z  QTgaPlugin, version 395776
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z  QTiffPlugin, version 395776
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z  QWbmpPlugin, version 395776
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z  QWebpPlugin, version 395776
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z Style: fusion / QFusionStyle
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z System: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS, x86_64-little_endian-lp64

2025-11-25T18:02:02Z Bitcoin Core version v30.99.0-0672e727bf1d (release build)
2025-11-25T18:02:02Z Qt 6.3.2 (dynamic), plugin=wayland
2025-11-25T18:02:02Z No static plugins.
2025-11-25T18:02:02Z Style: fusion / QFusionStyle
2025-11-25T18:02:02Z System: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS, x86_64-little_endian-lp64

[diegoviola]

Built correctly from source both Qt 6.3.2 and 6.10.0, and bringToFront doesn't work on either of them using Wayland.
2025-11-25T19:22:58Z System: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS, x86_64-little_endian-lp64

That's because Mutter on that GNOME version doesn't support the XDG activation protocol. Which is the protocol used by clients to request activation of surfaces.

GUIUtil::bringToFront uses activateWindow() which uses the XDG activation protocol to communicate with the compositor.

xdg_activation_v1 is supported since Mutter 48.0, so you probably want to upgrade to Ubuntu 25.04.