[tooltip] Unexpected behaviour when nesting tootip inside another tooltip's trigger

[OliverJAsh]

Bug report

As reported on Discord: https://discord.com/channels/1287292451308048406/1287292451308048409/1488499829104443424

Current behavior

The inner and outer tooltips do not work correctly. There is flicker.

Screen.Recording.2026-04-01.at.09.10.57.mov

If we add open={false} to the outer tooltip:

Screen.Recording.2026-04-01.at.09.11.50.mov

Expected behavior

The inner and outer tooltips work correctly. No flicker.

Reproducible example

https://stackblitz.com/edit/zrcwexu5?file=src%2FApp.tsx

Base UI version

1.3.0

Which browser are you using?

Chrome

Which OS are you using?

macOS

Which assistive tech are you using (if applicable)?

Voiceover/JAWS etc.

Additional context

For context, here the real world example of where I need nested tooltips:

Screen.Recording.2026-04-01.at.09.17.13.mov

[aarongarciah]

Base UI tooltips are just visual aids, so we'd love to see valid use cases before considering supporting nested tooltips.

For your example above, I'd consider positioning the row buttons with position: absolute so the triggers are not nested.

[OliverJAsh]

For your example above, I'd consider positioning the row buttons with position: absolute so the triggers are not nested.

This feels like a hack. I generally want to avoid taking elements out of the document flow as it can affect layout in other ways.

[aarongarciah]

You can also use display: grid to overlap elements.

[OliverJAsh]

I don't think that works either. I need the text on the left and the buttons on the right to be in the document flow so that the text gets truncated when there's not enough room.

[michaldudak]

Does #4501 fix your issue?

[aarongarciah]

@OliverJAsh not sure I follow. With display grid, the elements are kept in the document flow. Here's an example: https://stackblitz.com/edit/stackblitz-starters-higjv1jn?file=styles.css

[OliverJAsh]

@aarongarciah The buttons overlap the truncated text, leading to this situation where you can't see the truncation: