The private function QGraphicsItemPrivate::focusScopeItemChange() is called by QGraphicsItem whenever the d_ptr->focusScopeItem variable changes. This is to notify QDeclarativeItem that the focus scope item has changed, allowing it to correctly emit the focusChanged() signal.

This works fine except when the scope does not have focus. QGraphicsItem updates the pointer but doesn't send the notification, so QDeclarativeItem has no way of notifying the change to QML snippets that need to react to changes to the focus property.