Ripley Call of menu entries produces black GUI surface

[klaustietzel@web.de]

Hi PI,

I'm using Pixinisght 1.8.6.1448 on a Windows 7 professional machine using an core i7-2600 and 8 Gig Ram, Service pack 1 is installed.

Calling the process explorer produces an equal black GUI for a while and then shows the usual background logo agaain. The menu entries in the menu bar on the top of the GUI remain black however. Hovering the mouse above these blackened parts shows the single menu entries again. Click of one of these menu entries refreshens the Gui again. The same thing happens if entries from the menu Resources->Community are called.

I acknowledge, that Win 7 is not an testing platform for PI anaymore. Furthermore, processing of pictures works, but using process explorer would be very convenient. Maybe some hints on WIN 7, e.g. install of dedicated updates, tweaking of graphic card adjustments (i am using the i7 internal HD Graphics 2000) etc?

Best regards

[Juan Conejero]

Hi,

This problem has not been reported before, and cannot be reproduced on any of our working and testing machines, on any supported platform.

On Windows, weird problems like these can happen because of defective or outdated graphics drivers. Check that you have the latest versions of your graphics drivers installed. One of the main problems with Windows 7/8/8.1 is that in many cases graphics drivers are not being updated actively. Intel graphics are particularly problematic in this regard because of defective OpenGL implementations on Windows. If you cannot use a different graphics card, chances are that these issues have no practical solution, unless you use Window 10.

[bulrichl]

I'm using Pixinisght 1.8.6.1448 on a Windows 7 professional machine using an core i7-2600 and 8 Gig Ram, Service pack 1 is installed.

I am using the same version of PI, same Windows version (SP1), processor i7-2600K, internal HD graphics 3000 with 16 GB RAM - obviously a very similar system.

When I start PI and then only call process explorer, the appended error message appears. Apart from that, PI seems to be working correctly.

Bernd

[copello]

Type in Google: "api-ms-win-core" and you will find 10.100.000 hits (how to fix the problem),
it is a Windows related problem not PixInsight. I am still wondering why not first searching for the problem in the Internet (e.g. Google)
and solving it immediately rather than waiting days that somebody reply in the forum and tell to search in the Internet.
If this is a PixInsight related problem then it is very likely that at least 30 others users run into this problem as well.

[bulrichl]

Google? Oh, I would not have hit on it 

Of course I searched for a solution in order to update the dll version. I downloaded and copied the api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-2-0.dll, the 32-bit version to /System32 and the 64-bit version to /SysWOW64. However, it turned out that this did not solve the issue. Now on my machine it behaves exactly like Klaus described it before (without an error message).

Bernd

[Juan Conejero]

None of these problems can be reproduced, and don't happen under normal working conditions.

Please note that 'api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-2-0.dll' is a Windows component, not part of PixInsight. This file should be present in a normal operating system configuration on Windows. If your system lacks this or other files pertaining to the operating system, please contact Microsoft's support to solve this issue.

As for the rest of issues being reported here, such as the 'black GUI' that you are describing, this cannot be reproduced either, neither on Windows nor on any supported platform. However, the most probable cause in this case is a defective and/or outdated graphics driver. Again, please note that we cannot be liable for problems caused by wrong implementations of required standards in hardware drivers, such as a defective OpenGL implementation in your graphics driver. Unfortunately, these problems are quite frequent on Windows, especially on Windows 7, where some drivers are not being updated correctly to support new software with strict standards compliance requirements.

[klaustietzel@web.de]

Hy Juan,

thanks for your help. I installed the latest version of graphics drivers available. The problem remains. But maybe one more info: the process explorer works for some time perfect, than the black gui problem starts.
I understand that you can not support everything, processing works anyway  8). Just a little suprised that a  computer system which worked flawlessly  for years - esprecially with older versions of pixinsight -  now has problems ...

Best regards

Klaus

[bulrichl]

Hi Juan,

Because the installation of "api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-2-0.dll" did not solve my issue, I deleted these files in C:/Windows/System32 and C:/Windows/SysWOW64 again. (My Windows 7 contains "api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-1-0.dll".)

Then I tried the workaround that oldwexi described here:
https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=13062.msg79482#msg79482
and it is working for me as well. That means: starting PI, starting a second instance of PI by typing "!!PixInsight -n" in the process console, then exiting the first instance. Taking this approach I can access Process Explorer with no error message and no black GUI.

Bernd