# Ignition 8.3 Swapping Window Issue

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-8-3-swapping-window-issue/114271>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Tags:** vision\
**Created:** [March 2, 2026, 6:40pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-8-3-swapping-window-issue/114271 "2026-03-02T18:40:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![angelina.yoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71c47a/32.png) [@angelina.yoder](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/angelina.yoder)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 6:40pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-8-3-swapping-window-issue/114271/1 "2026-03-02T18:40:08Z")

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Hi there!

An issue that we are experiencing on a current v8.3 project is that we are using a docked navigation bar for swapping between screens. However, some of the buttons in the navigation bar don’t open when pressed. But, we can press another button in the same nav. bar and that screen will open, then press the original desired button again and then the screen will actually open. We have tried to adjust several settings to help the desired screen to open and they are the following:

- Changing the Docking
- Having it start maximized
- Changed the Cache Policy per window to never so that it isn’t waiting in the cache
- Changed the Project Properties – Docking
- Implemented a script to see how many windows are open – it always says 4 when we expect this to be 3
- Confirmed that when all windows are being opened, they are ‘Open/swap’

Is there anything else that could be changed or optimized to prevent this issue? Thank you in advance!

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**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 7:28pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-8-3-swapping-window-issue/114271/2 "2026-03-02T19:28:55Z")

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One or more of your windows are not proper "main" windows, guaranteed:

> **[Main Windows​ - Window Types | Ignition User Manual](https://www.docs.inductiveautomation.com/docs/8.3/ignition-modules/vision/vision-windows/window-types#main-windows)**
>
> A Main window is one that is set to start maximized, and has its Border and Titlebar display policies set to 'When Not Maximized' or 'Never.' This will make the window take up all available space (minus space used by any "docked" windows). This makes...

There's no actual difference between the different window types other than their properties - a 'docked' vs 'main' window is just a reflection of which properties are set. The Open/Swap actions rely on windows being proper "main" windows in order to work; if they're not detected as such you'll end up with extra window copies and weirdly inconsistent navigation.