"Count audible browser tab as active" is decreasing the total activity time

[yodapotatofly]

• I am on the latest ActivityWatch version.
• I have searched the issues of this repo and believe that this is not a duplicate.

• OS name and version: Windows 11 Pro 22H2
• ActivityWatch version: v0.12.1

Describe the bug

In the activity view, when I use the filter "Count audible browser tab as active", the total active time decrease instead of increasing.
It is as is the audible window time was counted negatively ?

To Reproduce

1. Go to the activity page
2. Click on filters
3. Make sure the checkbox "Count audible browser tab as active" is not selected
4. remember the activity time for the day
5. check the box "Count audible browser tab as active"
6. observe that the activity time has decreased

Expected behavior

With this filter is enabled, the activity time should be greater or equal as when is is not selected (depending on whether you've used audible tabs)

Documentation

Additional context

AW was installed from the windows installer. I have almost not touched the settings. I'm not sure whether I have a browser watcher or not. I I don't the time should not be affected at all anyway.

[github-actions]

Hi there!
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[BelKed]

I can't reproduce this issue with ActivityWatch v0.12.2b1 nor v0.12.1 (on macOS 12.6.1):

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Please, try upgrading to the latest beta (v0.12.2b1), and feel free to let us know if the problem still persists :)

[yodapotatofly]

@BelKed
I just tried v0.12.2b1, with no success :(

[BelKed]

Good to know...
Seems like a Windows-related issue.

[yodapotatofly]

Please note that I don't think I have a browser watcher installed :

[BelKed]

That might be the problem since the aw-watcher-window (at least on macOS and with Firefox) can't see whether the browser is playing audio...
Would you mind trying installing aw-watcher-web? I hope that will solve the problem.

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Anyways, the total time shouldn't decrease just because of missing audible data :D

[yodapotatofly]

After installing the browser watcher, the problm is solved. However I believe the issue should stay open : not having the browser watcher shouldn't affect negatively the active time

Thanks :)

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[TimeToBuildBob]

Root cause found. It was the baseline that was wrong, not the audible option.

On the Python server (aw-server, the default on Windows in v0.12.x), filter_period_intersect counted window time twice when two not-afk events overlapped. Turning on "Count audible browser tab as active" runs not_afk = period_union(not_afk, audible_events). That merges the overlapping not-afk events even when there are no browser events, so the double-counted time disappears and the total looks like it dropped. That fits what you saw: it happens without aw-watcher-web, and BelKed couldn't reproduce it on macOS.

Minimal case (seconds): window [264.2, 373.9], not-afk [170.8, 310.8] and [243.6, 310.8]. The true active time is 46.7s. Old aw-core returned 93.3s with the option off and 46.7s with it on.

• Fixed in aw-core by fix(transform): don't double-count overlapping filter events in filter_period_intersect aw-core#166 (merged 2026-09-26). Newer flood() changes (fix(transform): split uncertain flood gaps at midpoint aw-core#146, fix(transform): merge adjacent same-data events in flood() aw-core#165) also clean up the overlaps.
• aw-server-rust was never affected: it returns 46.7s either way.
• It reaches the bundle with the aw-core bump in build(deps): bump aw-core from d6ec34c to b1f04b5 #1480. Until that ships, the option-on number is the correct one.

I'd keep this open until a release includes #1480.