webbrowser not navigating if you're not looking at it

Question

I got a strange problem. I have a tabcontrol and 3 tabs. On every tab i got a webbrowser control on it. They all navigate to a website. But it only navigates if you're actually looking at the webbrowser control. So having it minimized on taskbar or systray, wont make it navigate to a website.

Why is that? How can i change this behavior?

[EDIT]

This only seems to happen when i startup the app. After it got 'focus' or a 'look at', this doesn't happen anymore.

Some more info, the navigating happens from a different thread than the UI-thread. [/EDIT]

[3nd EDIT]

Here is a test case:

XAML code:

<Window x:Class="WPFWebbrowserFocusTest.MainWindow"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="MainWindow" Height="453" Width="755">
<Grid>
    <TabControl Height="390" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="12,12,0,0" Name="tabControl1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="709">
        <TabItem Header="tabItem1" Name="tabItem1">
            <Grid>
                <Button Content="Button" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="18,17,0,0" Name="button1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="75" Click="button1_Click" />
            </Grid>
        </TabItem>
        <TabItem Header="tabItem2" Name="tabItem2">
            <Grid>
                <WebBrowser Height="352" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,6,0,0" Name="webBrowser1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="693" Navigated="webbrowser_Navigated" LoadCompleted="webbrowser_LoadCompleted" />
            </Grid>
        </TabItem>
        <TabItem Header="tabItem3" Name="tabItem3">
            <Grid>
                <WebBrowser Height="346" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="6,6,0,0" Name="webBrowser2" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="687" Navigated="webbrowser_Navigated" LoadCompleted="webbrowser_LoadCompleted" />
            </Grid>
        </TabItem>
        <TabItem Header="tabItem4" Name="tabItem4">
            <Grid>
                <WebBrowser Height="346" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="10,10,0,0" Name="webBrowser3" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="687" Navigated="webbrowser_Navigated" LoadCompleted="webbrowser_LoadCompleted" />
            </Grid>
        </TabItem>
        <TabItem Header="tabItem5" Name="tabItem5">
            <Grid>
                <WebBrowser Height="346" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="10,10,0,0" Name="webBrowser4" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="687" Navigated="webbrowser_Navigated" LoadCompleted="webbrowser_LoadCompleted" />
            </Grid>
        </TabItem>
    </TabControl>
</Grid>

Here is the code behind file:

public MainWindow()
{
   InitializeComponent();
}

private void webbrowser_Navigated(object sender, NavigationEventArgs e)
{ 
   this.SuppressScriptErrors((WebBrowser)sender, true);
}

private void webbrowser_LoadCompleted(object sender, NavigationEventArgs e)
{
    WebBrowser wb = (WebBrowser)sender;

    if (e.Uri.AbsoluteUri != wb.Source.AbsoluteUri)
        return;
}

public void SuppressScriptErrors(System.Windows.Controls.WebBrowser wb, bool Hide)
{
    FieldInfo fi = typeof(System.Windows.Controls.WebBrowser).GetField(
            "_axIWebBrowser2", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);

    if (fi != null)
    {
        object browser = fi.GetValue(wb);

        if (browser != null)
        {
            browser.GetType().InvokeMember("Silent", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, browser, new object[] { Hide });
        }
    }
}

private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    this.webBrowser1.Navigate("http://www.google.com");
    this.webBrowser2.Navigate("http://www.google.com");
    this.webBrowser3.Navigate("http://www.google.com");
    this.webBrowser4.Navigate("http://www.google.com");
}

How to reproduce:

Put a breakpoint inside webbrowser_LoadCompleted. Then press the button which is located on the first tabpage of the tabcontrol.

Dont go to the next tabpage yet, wait a coupled of seconds, like 15 or so.

Then go to tabitem2 or 3/4/5. You'll see that the page just got loaded and the webbrowser_LoadCompleted event got fired.

Answer 1

Here's a code fragment in WPF that works. Once you click the button, it minimizes the application, and after 2 seconds calls navigate to all browsers while the window is minimized. Pages are loaded in all tabs regardless of window state or tab focus. Make sure are calling Navigate inside a Dispatcher.Invoke. You can't make UI changes in WPF from a different thread unless you call the dispatcher. That might be a problem. My example below calls the navigation from a different thread.

<Window x:Class="WpfApplication3.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        DataContext="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}}"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525"
        StateChanged="Window_StateChanged">
    <Grid>
        <TabControl Height="225" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="12,12,0,0" Name="tabControl1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="491">
            <TabItem Header="tabItem1">
                <WebBrowser Height="189" Name="webBrowser1" Width="479" />
            </TabItem>
            <TabItem Header="tabItem2">
                <WebBrowser Height="185" Name="webBrowser2" Width="466" />
            </TabItem>
            <TabItem Header="tabItem3">
                <WebBrowser Height="187" Name="webBrowser3" Width="434" />
            </TabItem>
        </TabControl>
        <Button Content="Button" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="116,268,0,0" Name="button1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="75" Click="button1_Click" />
        <TextBox Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="236,268,0,0" Name="textBox1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="120" />
    </Grid>
</Window>

private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    this.WindowState = System.Windows.WindowState.Minimized;
}

private void Window_StateChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (this.WindowState == System.Windows.WindowState.Minimized)
    {
        new Thread((state) =>
        {
            Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2));

            this.Dispatcher.Invoke(new Action(() =>
            {
                webBrowser1.Navigate(textBox1.Text);
                webBrowser2.Navigate(textBox1.Text);
                webBrowser3.Navigate(textBox1.Text);
            }), null);

        }).Start();
    }
}