DisplayFusion 3.3.1 Beta 15
Windows 7 x64 SP1

When I launch a full screen application (games mostly) on my primary monitor, a few different things happen, either

1) Taskbar on second monitor disappears completely, exiting out of the full screen application on the primary will cause it to appear again. However the behavior suggests the taskbar was closed, then opened again because the windows move to adjust.

or

2) Taskbar remains on second monitor, but the taskbar on the primary will flash in the full screen application.

Regardless of which scenario occurs, performance seems to be much slower transitioning in and out of the application. This was not present in Beta 8 or 10.

thanks for the reply,

i sent the text from the troubleshooting tab via email, i hope it helps!

I've been having trouble recreating the "blinking primary taskbar" in a fullscreen application, but I did get the "disappearing taskbar" on the secondary monitor when entering a full screen application. When I alt tab out of the full screen application, the taskbar reappears on the second monitor and the taskbar icons move back to their relevant taskbars (per the setting "Taskbar Mode"- All taskbars show relevant windows)

I emailed the log and its contents. Thank you for your time and effort!

Okay I tried again and I managed to recreate the "blinking taskbar"

It happens when I play Warcraft III and I am in game- maybe a DirectX conflict? I emailed the log again, don't know if there's a difference.

When I exit out of DisplayFusion everything is okay.
Which is strange. Warcraft III, DisplayFusion, and Windows 7 have been holding hands nicely for almost a year. Only recently it started with Beta 15 I believe, but it might have been before that too. (Beta 8 confirmed to work fine).

This is the general order of events:

1) Go into Warcraft III / Bioshock / etc. by either alt tab or launching.
2) Taskbar on secondary disappears and all icons in taskbar move to primary taskbar (as if DisplayFusion closed). Main taskbar begins to flicker through Warcraft III
3) When Warcraft III loses focus, either alt tab or exit, DisplayFusion appears to reinitialize and the second taskbar appears / icons move accordingly.

It doesn't' happen every time, but I'd say well over 45% of the time.

Just updated to Beta 17.

Unfortunately the issue is not gone.
However, the drop in performance / speed when switching in and out of full screen applications I mentioned does not appear to exist anymore so thats great! The taskbar on the secondary screen still disappears when entering a full screen application on the primary (albeit it disappears faster) and reappears with shifting taskbar icons after leaving the full screen application.

The most annoying taskbar flicker does occur less, I can say that much. from 45% to maybe 25% of the time.

Is there any place where I can download Beta 10 or earlier? I foolishly deleted the file after installing Beta 14, and I wanted to go back and make sure it wasn't some other change.

Thanks Mr. Lammers for your constant feedback and attention you have given this matter.

The issue was found?! Thats awesome!

I swear that the taskbar never disappeared before in my applications, but I hope that Beta 18 will be my Messiah!

UPDATE: Beta 18 did not fix it

I sent the Troubleshooting text as the email body, and attached the debug log after I recreated the taskbar blinking.
I took your suggestion with Beta 14 and the stable and here were my findings:

• Beta 14 does have this issue. Worse than Beta 18, but similar to Beta 15, 16, and 17.
• Stable 3.3.0 does not have this issue. The taskbar on my secondary display does not disappear and the icons stay where they are supposed to. Leaving the fullscreen application does not incur a delay and there is no time period where the behavior suggests DisplayFusion is reinitializing.

Understood- however in my case the resolution used is the native and does not change from the desktop resolution.

Got it.



This does sound right, although please note that I have not conducted an extensive test with statistically significant data. With only about roughly 10 alt tab cycles it might be misleading to say it flashes less frequently in Beta 18. What I can say for certain is that 3.3.0 Stable works flawlessly.

Hope it helps!

Yes, it flickers in non-aero form (no transparency or colors) and will continue indefinitely until a successful alt-tab cycle gets rid of it. Not only that, I have an application called RocketDock- whose setting is set to "auto-hide". Whenever the taskbar flickers in-game I am able to call the application from hide by moving my cursor over the target area (on the primary monitor), making it seem like I'm not in the fullscreen application at all- although I am still able to relay keyboard / mouse input to the fullscreen game.

For the record, I exited out of all said applications during testing, and I am still able to replicate the issue. The auto-hide was just added to support my suspicion that there is a full screen detection error.



I have actually began to use FRAPS to capture the issue- however if the option "Monitor Aero" is ticked, I do not get any recording of in-game, and vice versa if the option is unticked. My recording only shows the taskbar start button very briefly though the game and I cannot manage to record the actual flickering with FRAPS (possibly because of Aero / DirectX / FRAPS conflicts).

This is a good suggestion that I have not tried. I have only exited out of DisplayFusion (which does fix it) but I never thought about disabling the secondary taskbar.

Unfortunately, I just packed up my main machine to bring back home (hurrah for summer!). This will be the first thing I will try next Tuesday when I get back on it. Sorry for putting this developing situation on hold, but I look forward to any updates!

I got a chance to test out Beta 20 and unfortunately the flickering problem still exists in full screen applications.

If I disable multi-monitors it does fix the problem, I also played around with "Window Preview Style", "Show taskbar...", and "Focus window...", but didn't get any luck fixing the problem. If there is anything I need to do, just say the word!

In regards to how fast it blinks, I would say it blinks as fast as possible without being solid, easily more than three times a second. In fact if I use FRAPs to record it, it appears solid for a brief moment before disappearing.

I definitely will-
"Fixed: Windows 7 rendering mode detection is now improved when re-adding the taskbars" looks very promising!

Just installed Beta 21: Huge improvements.

• Went through two dozen alt tab cycles back to back to try and replicate the problems and the flickering taskbar never reared its head once.
• About 6% of the time (3/20) the taskbar on the secondary disappeared, but the reinitialization was quick and non-intrusive (unlike previous Betas).
• Overall transition speed is slower than 3.30 stable, but its really not an issue and when compared to previous Betas its refreshing.

Phenomenal job, thanks so much!

Uh oh,

I just managed to recreate the blinking taskbar. It happened randomly so I was caught off-guard for a second. It definitely happens less often (only once so far) but I wanted to make sure you were aware.

Thanks so far though!

After 3.3.1 installation I have experienced worse flickering than Beta 21.

On a happier if somewhat unrelated note, I am pleased to have purchased a DisplayFusion Pro license primarily because of the superb communication I have received from you guys- thanks for putting so much time and effort into this!

I think it has something to do with DirectX and its interaction with Aero Basic / Aero.
Most of the other games I play do not automatically cause Windows to switch to Aero Basic. In fact I have noticed something interesting.

Fullscreen DX10 games do not initialize Aero Basic (there will be a prompt if resources are low) and do not cause the blinking taskbar. Usually the secondary screen is filled with a blank black screen. DX10 games have a little trouble alt-tabbing. It is a little slow and sometimes it turns games into windowed mode / unlocks mouse when tabbing back in. This is most noticeable in Bioshock and Crysis.

Fullscreen DX9 games do not initialize Aero Basic (there will be a prompt if resources are low) and do not cause the blinking taskbar. Quick alt-tab, very responsive.

Warcraft III is DX8.1, and it does initialize Aero Basic right away- causing the possibility of the blinking taskbar.

OpenGL does not initialize Aero Basic and works very well.

Here is a list of games confirmed to not cause the blinking taskbar. They are all DX9, except the ones with an asterick which are DX10
[list type=decimal]

Mass Effect

Mass Effect 2

Modern Warfare 2

Arkham Asylum

**Bioshock

**Bioshock 2

**Resident Evil 5

**Crysis

Crysis 2

[/ul]

I've been looking at the 3.4 changelogs and I am very excited. Unfortunately I am out of town and I won't be with my desktop till mid-August (very painful). If possible, I will try to walk my brother through the process and see what the results are. Keep me posted!

Thanks- but seriously can DisplayFusion get any more awesome? These changelogs are like early Christmas.

One more month and I can finally test out DisplayFusion 3.4 Beta- from the changelogs I expect this rapid blinking / disappearing taskbar and the accompanied lag to have been long fixed.

What's your take on it? Also, has anyone else reported similar problems as I have?

Hello, i have the same problem (secondary monitor taskbar often don't reappear after desktop mode switching).
It occurs when i launch a game with compatibility mode enable > "Disable desktop composition" like described here : http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/easily-disable-vistas-aero-before-running-an-application-such-as-a-video-game/ .

It seems to be the case with all the games I launch that way, sometimes the secondary taskbar reappear correctly, sometimes it does not.
I did not have this problem v3.3.0, it appeared with 3.3.1 version, i'm curently testing the v3.4.0 beta 9 but the behavior is still the same.
I have bypassed this problem with a Titlebar button to quickly force disable/re-enable Multi-Monitor Taskbar, but it's not really handy.

Thanks for this good software and i hope it will help you (sorry if my post is not understandable, i don't speak english very well).

The taskbar disappear, but sometimes it does not re-appear correctly (not there at all), and i have to disable and enable secondary taskbar to see it back again.

Exactly !
I have to disable/re-enable the taskbar (or close the game so desktop composition is automatically switched to on) and the bar come back

No, the only rule i have is to disable TitlebarButton for Steam (and Steam is not runnning when i have the issue with the taskbar)

When i check "Enable debug logging" and click on "apply", the checkbox is automatically un-checked, and the button "Open log" pop a windows that say : "Debug log file not found. Please make sure you have enabled the debug logging option".

Can i just copy the content of the log that is in the Troubleshooting tab or the DisplayFusion.log file contains more information ?

I have search the DisplayFusion.log file, the only file i found is named DisplayFusionSetup.log that contains install's information only.

(I use the last beta 11)

Done !
DisplayFusion.log sent

Thank you. I hope the log file will help you solve the only problem I had so far with Displayfusion

got a chance to run 3.4.0 beta 12-

the rapid blinking issue is mitigated greatly, most of the time there is no problem. however, i was able to replicate the blinking primary taskbar after maybe 15 continuous tries- which is fine by me.

i can also confirm the disappearing taskbar on the secondary display: however it is not like the older issue where it went away then reinitialized. the new issue is a little different- when the secondary taskbar goes away it retains its physical presence (windows will accomodate for the space taken by the taskbar), but is completely black- this issue is probably a 1/10 occurrence or fewer.

Good news !

3.4.0 (Beta 14) ~ In Development...

Fixed: Taskbars are no longer reloaded when switching between Aero/Basic modes in Windows 7

Great

All is OK for me, no more bug, thank you

I did a strenuous ALT-TAB loop with Warcraft III (initializes Aero Basic) and I am pleased to say that everything is perfect. None of my complaints that I have detailed exist any longer. There is no slowdown, there is no re initializing of the taskbar, no blinking taskbar behind the full screen application.

It also seems that ALT-TAB performance for DX9/DX10/DX11 (do not automatically start Aero Basic) has improved as well.

I'm not sure what you guys did, but IT'S AMAZING.

Thank you!