# \[bug\] sp-picker not selectable on secondary monitor (includes repro code!)

**URL:** <https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096>\
**Category:** UXP Plugin API\
**Tags:** ui, bug, uxp\
**Created:** [August 16, 2026, 7:45am UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096 "2026-08-16T07:45:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ducke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@ducke](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/ducke)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2026, 7:45am UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/1 "2026-08-16T07:45:36Z")

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Writing a UXP photoshop plugin.

Started with just an panel, populated by a single sp-picker.

- Works completely fine on primary monitor.
- **When the panel is moved to the secondary monitor, it is no longer selectable via mouse.**
- I am able to use `tab` navigation to reach the dropdown and open it with arrow keys.

Has anybody else encountered this? The native Photoshop dropdown selectors don’t seem to have this problem.. Only the ones created via the plugin tools

is there a different way to create dropdowns?

### [edit] full repro steps, sample plugin/code, and video are posted below !

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ducke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@ducke](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/ducke)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2026, 6:19pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/2 "2026-08-16T18:19:22Z")

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Switched to `webview` for the UI instead and don’t have any issues with that

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ducke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@ducke](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/ducke)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2026, 9:06pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/3 "2026-08-16T21:06:47Z")

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[sp-picker-bug-repro.zip](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/uploads/short-url/hKfrWCxai9yVZJH8d8z8UCzARAf.zip) (16.8 KB)

## Files

There is no build step and no dependencies.

| File | Purpose |
| --- | --- |
| `sp-picker-repro.ccx` | pre-built plugin |
| `package.json` | script runner |
| `package.sh` | Builds a `.ccx` for loading without the debugger |
| `src/manifest.json` | Panel + command entrypoints, manifest v5 |
| `src/index.html` | The picker, the metrics readout, and the divider |
| `src/index.css` | Panel styling, theme-aware per Photoshop’s four themes |
| `src/plugin/plugin.js` | Entrypoint registration, DOM instrumentation, logging |
| `src/plugin/controls.js` | The control group below the divider |

## Recordings

### gif highlight

![photoshop plugin sp-select bug](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/xdplugins/original/2X/f/f78457d02074abd8d1337b3eb28f942919e40e24.gif)

### full video

# Bug Information

**Minimal reproduction:**

- on a secondary display, an `sp-picker`’s menu never appears and cannot be used.
- the sp-picker itself takes focus and shows its focus outline, but the menu is never painted.

The panel instruments the DOM at the moment the menu should be visible. Every property we can read is identical on the working and failing displays: the menu is in the document, computed-visible, and correctly sized. Only the painting differs.

Observed in:

- **Photoshop 27.9.1**
- **UXP manifest v5**
- **Windows 11**

## Repro Steps

Load this plugin with the UXP Developer Tool (`src/manifest.json`), or run `./package.sh` and install the resulting `.ccx`. It reproduces with and without the debugger attached.

1. With the panel on the primary display, click the picker. The menu opens below the control and works normally.
2. Drag the panel to a secondary display.
3. Click the picker again.

**Expected:** the menu opens below the picker, as on the primary display.

**Actual:** no menu appears, and no option can be selected. The picker takes focus and draws its focus outline, so the control looks active but is unusable.

Dragging back to the primary display restores it immediately, with no reload and no re-initialisation.

## An unexplained workaround

Clicking into a text field, focus only and no keystroke, makes the picker start working on the secondary display.

The text field does not have to be in the plugin. Focusing a text input in one of Photoshop’s own panels, such as the Swatches search box, has the same effect. So this is not about the plugin’s DOM, Spectrum, or the panel’s own focus state.

The control group in the panel includes both text controls so the in-plugin version is reproducible.

A related observation, possibly the same underlying gap:

- before clicking the panel at all, Tab triggers Photoshop’s own show/hide-panels shortcut
- before clicking into a text field, Tab does nothing inside the panel
- **after clicking into a text box, Tab and the sp-picker begin working as expected**

## What the debug logs show

Clicking the picker logs the menu’s root, overlay host, computed visibility, and rect. These are byte-identical on both displays:

```plaintext
menu rect: x=1 y=5 w=286 h=166
menu root: document
menu host: (none — still inline)
menu vis : display=block visibility=visible opacity=1

```

Read directly, that says the menu is laid out at a normal size, it lives in the plugin’s own document, it was never reparented into a popup or overlay surface, and CSS considers it fully visible.

The DOM believes the menu is visible and correctly placed. It is not drawn.

## What this rules out

Each of these was a working hypothesis, and each is contradicted by the readings above:

- Off-screen positioning. The menu’s rect is the same on both displays and sits within the panel. Nothing is measured off-screen.
- Overlay mispositioning. There is no overlay. `closest("[popover], sp-overlay, sp-popover, dialog")` returns nothing, and the menu is inline.
- CSS hiding it. `display=block visibility=visible opacity=1`.
- A layout failure. The menu has a real size, `286×166`, on both displays.
- Display scaling. Ruled out separately, see below.
- The UXP debugger. Reproduces when loaded from a packaged `.ccx` with no debugger attached.

## Ruled out: display scaling

The first hypothesis was a DPI/scale mismatch between displays, on the strength of Adobe’s own [known issue](https://github.com/AdobeDocs/uxp-photoshop/blob/main/src/pages/uxp-api/known-issues.md):

> `window.devicePixelRatio` … always returns `1`. This is incorrect … `window.devicePixelRatio` may not always match an element’s pixel ratio if the element is visible on a screen with a different pixel ratio from the primary screen.

This was not applicable to the sp-picker bug. It predicts no failure when both displays share a scale factor, and I tested exactly that case:

- One physical panel, split 50/50 across two HDMI inputs. Windows sees two displays, but they are the _same monitor_, with identical resolution, DPI, and scale factor by construction.
- The picker works on the half Windows designates primary.
- The picker fails on the half Windows designates secondary.

With scaling held constant, the bug still tracks the primary/secondary designation exactly.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tomzag](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/tomzag/32/2464_2.png) [@tomzag](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/tomzag)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2026, 6:27am UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/4 "2026-08-17T06:27:17Z")

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I can’t reproduce this in PS 27.9.1 on macOS 26.6.1, so it may be Windows-specific, though I haven’t been able to test there.

If it only started appearing with 27.9 and later, it’s almost certainly related to the new Drover UXP UI introduced in that release.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ducke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@ducke](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/ducke)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2026, 7:01am UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/5 "2026-08-17T07:01:58Z")

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Appreciate you looking into it!

I think another important detail might be.. when I open Photoshop, it’s opening to the Primary monitor by default, and I have to drag the window over to the Secondary monitor.

And after you give keyboard to any text input field, then the bug won’t show up again until restarting Photoshop.

* * *

I did come up with a programmatic workaround.

I’m able to render this:  
(disclaimer: the following is psuedocode, may not run as-is)

```html
<div class='dropdown'>

  <div id='select-overlay'>
    // height, width equal to the sp-picker
  </div>
  
  <div id='select-text-wrapper'>
    // width: 0%, height: 0%, overflow: hidden;
    // sp-textfield is not visible on-screen but 
    // is still programmatically focusable/clickable

    // there is no way to give sp-textfield a transparent background..
    // any attempt to results in a black rectangle. So, another hacky fix.
    
    <sp-textfield id='select-text' />
    // visibility: hidden WILL NOT WORK because 
    // it prevents clicks and focus from registering correctly
  </div>

  <sp-picker id='picker'>
    <sp-menu slot='options'>
      // ... sp-menu-items
    </sp-menu>
  </sp-picker>
</div>

```

```javascript
const selectOverlay = document.querySelector('select-overlay')
const selectText = document.querySelector('select-text')
const selectPicker = document.querySelector('picker')

selectOverlay.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
  selectText.click()
  // pass click to the invisible sp-textfield element
})

selectText.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
  // after sp-textfield receives click, we can pass focus+click onto sp-picker
  // this results in sp-picker being rendered correctly
  selectPicker.focus()
  selectPicker.click()
})

```

It’s a bit round-a-bout, but it gets the sp-picker to work consistently.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![indranil](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/indranil/32/2584_2.png) [@indranil](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/indranil)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2026, 5:48pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/6 "2026-08-19T17:48:41Z")

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Please allow us some time to investigate this. Would it be possible for you to share if this is a regression you observe and is it limited to any platform (Win/Mac)?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ducke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@ducke](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/ducke)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 5:03am UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/7 "2026-08-20T05:03:35Z")

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no worries!

@indranil I noticed that this **IS** actually affecting ALL native sp-pickers. Without _any_ plugins installed.

- opened photoshop (it opened on Primary monitor)
- moved PS window to secondary monitor
- selected File → New
- native pickers are unselectable with the same behavior demonstrated in the .gif I posted above
  - `pixels/inches`, `color mode`, `bits`, `background contents` etc. are all unusable on the Secondary monitor

- problem goes away [for duration of the session] immediately after clicking into any text box (e.g. `width` or `height`)

There seems to be a second kind of dropdown, like the `Properties` \> `Canvas` \> `Mode` dropdown. Those ones work fine and don’t exhibit the bug.

I don’t have a Mac to test against ☹

if there’s any way for me to debug more deeply, I’m happy to assist any way that I can

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![indranil](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/indranil/32/2584_2.png) [@indranil](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/indranil)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2026, 12:46pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/8 "2026-09-03T12:46:31Z")

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Hello there! We did some internal investigation and this seems to be arising from the Photoshop UI modernization feature. We have raised an internal bug and are following up. What seems to be happening is that once the plugin is moved to the monitor having the Photoshop, the dimensions are not being calculated correctly leading to the rendering of the dropdown going awry. This doesn’t seem to be an issue on Mac though.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ducke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@ducke](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/ducke)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2026, 11:29pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/9 "2026-09-03T23:29:56Z")

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Great to hear that y’all were able to repro the issue and investigate! 🙌❤

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Erin\_Finnegan](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/erin_finnegan/32/100_2.png) [@Erin\_Finnegan](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/Erin_Finnegan)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 5:29pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/10 "2026-09-16T17:29:14Z")

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I just want to take a moment and acknowledge @ducke for such a great subject line, and including repro code and videos. A lot of work went into this!

Also thanks @tomzag for doing the work to reproduce it… and thanks @indranil for replying!

This is PS-208827.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ducke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@ducke](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/ducke)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 5:46pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/bug-sp-picker-not-selectable-on-secondary-monitor-includes-repro-code/12096/11 "2026-09-16T17:46:41Z")

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Thank you!!! 🙏🙌🙌  
Its a huge relief for me to have this fixed!