a side effect of the old focus issue being resolved

[Slau Halatyn]

Just a little heads up that there's a side effect that has come up with the fix for the old focus issue when closing windows and having VoiceOver focus being thrown to the first element in the window. The bug came back in Catalina and, as a result of the new fix, VoiceOver sometimes (for lack of a better way of putting it) "refocuses" on certain elements when navigating. In other words, if you land on an item and VoiceOver says the name, VoiceOver will once again state the name and generate a system sound as if it is being focused on that item all over again. This doesn't happen for all items, only certain ones. I'm thinking that it might be happening on elements that could potentially open other windows and possibly lose focus and that's why VoiceOver is sort of making a mental note of where it is when you land on the item so that it can easily come back to it in case another window is popped open. It's currently logged as a bug and being tracked but it's not clear right now whether this behavior will change. At worst, it's a minor annoyance and perhaps a small price to pay for not being thrown to the beginning of the window in Catalina.
HTH,
Slau