Robot not working after another app gains focus

Question

I'm trying to automate some clicking for a program using Robot. The problem is, once I give focus to the target program, Robot stops working (so basically, the initial click into the program works, but it's useless if I can't release the mouse). Intuitively, it seems like the target program has somehow gained a higher priviledge to control the mouse or something if it has focus. Programmatically giving focus back to the java program after every event won't work. Is there a way to fix this, or should I try something more native to Windows like C#?
This target program has a 3D interface and it uses DirectX and stuff, which might be why it (can) eats up control of the mouse. However I just think it's badly programmed, I tried doing some Robot stuff on a game and it seems to work.

Answer 1

billyboy:
How are you checking to see if it works? If you have an application that is processing the click events, and another application covers it, then it will no longer see the click events.
This code:
import java.awt.AWTException;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.InputEvent;
import java.awt.Point;
import java.awt.Robot;
import javax.swing.Timer;
public class JRobot implements ActionListener{
  Robot r;
  Timer t = new Timer(200, this);
  Point p = new Point(512, 512);
  boolean bTime = false;
  int iCount = 0;
  public JRobot(){
    try{
      r = new Robot();
      t.start();
    }catch(AWTException e){
      System.out.println(e.toString());
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    new JRobot();
  public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
    if(bTime){
      p.x = 256;
      p.y = 256;
    }else{
      p.x = 512;
      p.y = 512;
    int iState = iCount%6;
    switch(iState){
      case 1: r.mouseMove(p.x, p.y);
              break;
      case 2: r.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
              break;
      case 4: r.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
              break;
      case 5: bTime = !bTime;
      default:
    if(iCount>=100) System.exit(0);
    iCount++;
    System.out.println(iState+" x " + p.x + " y "+ p.y);
}Does keep running and does click and release. I suspect your's is also. If you put one object at (256, 256) and another at (512, 512) you will soon see that they are alternatly chosen and gain and release focus appropriatly, but if one object is on top of the other, then the top object will recieve the click events.