Latest version - default to full screen

[Booter]

Hiya folks,

Just installed Version 1.8.6.1473.
Things seemed good until I mounted the new PI.
It defaults to full screen, with no pulldowns, etc.  I can open up images with quick keys .... but then the images do not show.
I will attach a screen cap of what I am seeing (and what I can't get out of).
Also, this is a Windows 7 machine and I am able to do the Alt + Ctl + U  sequence but it only toggles back and forth between a larger and smaller version of the same thing ... with the smaller version only having the gray bar at top with the blue cube icon and "PixInsight 1.8.6" on it.  Have also restarted the computer, no change.
Any suggestions warmly welcomed......

Jeff in Oakville, Canada

PS:  I had just been running the earlier version and it was fine.
PPS:  Uninstalled and reinstalled ... same problem.
PPPS: Installed the earlier version again, that earlier version works fine.

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Jeff,

This is a machine-specific issue that we cannot reproduce. Check that you have the latest driver versions available for your graphics card. Also take into account that you always must reboot your computer after installing PixInsight on Windows 7 (this is not necessary on Windows 10).

Besides that, note that Windows 7 and 8.x are no longer supported by current versions of PixInsight. I strongly recommend you upgrade to Windows 10.

[Booter]

Hi back, Juan,

Thank you very much for your reply and advice.
I just updated the OS on this particular computer -- as per your "strong" recommendation -- and all is now GOOD!   
As it turns out, I had held off on the PI update on my Windows 10 machine, due to the Win 7 experience.
Now, I will shortly update that computer, too, with your latest PI version.
Woo hoo!

Again, thank you very much ... from Canada.

Best
Jeff Booth

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Jeff,

That's great, I'm glad to know I could help. Now I hope you enjoy PixInsight!

[sheggie]

Juan, et al - I (also in Canada) am having this same problem - the newest release PI boots up with a totally black screen. If I move the mouse to the top of the screen and click where the menu titles should be, they appear. But nothing else is accessible. If I double click on the background, I'm offered the file-open window. I select a file recently processed in PI and I can tell it opened it but I can't see it. Moving the cursor around tells me there is something on the screen but all is black. I managed to load my process icons and again, I can tell they are there but they are black on black. I am running an i7 Dell XPS laptop with W'7 home that is fully up to date and this all started when I loaded the latest release of PI. Everything else on the computer is still working fine.

Stuart (northwest of Oakville)

[sheggie]

I should add that I did reboot my computer and have reinstalled the latest version as a "repair" but it is still all black.

Stuart

[Renan]

Same problem here.
NUC Intel 7i3BNK, 8Gb memory, SSD disk, latest drivers (just cheked with intel), Windows 10 up to date (just checked), and the same empty screen except that mine is white on white.
I reinstalled previous version, 1457, and now I have de same problem but it was not present before when running this version before installing 1473-5.
Why PI was working with v 1453 and after installing 1473 and also after going back to 1457 this problem exists?
Thanks
Renan


,

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Stuart, Renan,

These are machine-specific issues that cannot be reproduced under normal working conditions. The most probable cause for these issues is the OpenGL implementation in your graphics drivers. Try running the application with the --opengl=raster command line argument. This may fix these problems, or at least alleviate them somewhat.

Why PI was working with v 1453 and after installing 1473 and also after going back to 1457 this problem exists?

There is no logical reason for this to happen on the PixInsight side. Maybe there has been a system or driver update that has created this problem. I cannot know.

I am running an i7 Dell XPS laptop with W'7

Please note that Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 are not supported by current PixInsight 1.8.6 versions. The only Windows version supported officially is Windows 10.

[mboccabella]

Hi Juan,

I just upgraded to a commercial license yesterday (ver 1473). Previously, my trial license was downloaded on 12-May-2019 (ver 1457). My configuration is Win 10 Pro, and a 7th generation i7 processor with SSD and 8GB memory.

The version downloaded for the trial worked fine. I uninstalled from Windows control panel, installed the new version, and the screen came up OK, but everything inside the workspace was not "calibrated" for the mouse. If I loaded process icons to the desktop, I had to click underneath them (not on them) to select it. The main menu was not present, but if I clicked below where it was supposed to be, it activated.

Reading through the forum online, I decided to update drivers on my PC. The graphics card driver updated, plus several other things that did not appear to be relevant (sound driver, wifi etc). After the update, the behavior changed. Now, it is a white screen. The menu is still available if I click below where I expect things to be.

This sounds a lot like what others experienced above, but everything for me is up to date.

As a last ditch effort, I decided to open PixInsight by double clicking on an XISF file on my hard drive. Everything opens up fine. If I load my process icons, they behave properly, and the main menu is present. If I close PixInsight and open by double clicking the shortcut on my desktop, the white screen syndrome returns.

This behavior seems to indicate it is not a computer configuration problem, but maybe an initialization problem when the software starts up. On my system, this is very repeatable behavior.

For me, the only way for the software to work properly is by launching it viaopening an XISF file, then closing the file once the software starts up. For now it works, but I hope someone takes a look at this new development.

Regards,
Mike Boccabella

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Mike,

None of these problems are reproducible on any of our machines, on any supported platform (FreeBSD, Linux. macOS, Windows 10). Nothing essential has changed in the core application between versions 1.8.6.1457 (January 23) and 1.8.6.1473 (May 14). Both versions are bugfix/update releases for the current 1.8.6 version of PixInsight, and I cannot figure out any reason for such a drastic difference between them.

The version downloaded for the trial worked fine. I uninstalled from Windows control panel, installed the new version, and the screen came up OK, but everything inside the workspace was not "calibrated" for the mouse. If I loaded process icons to the desktop, I had to click underneath them (not on them) to select it. The main menu was not present, but if I clicked below where it was supposed to be, it activated.

AFAIK, these weird problems with the mouse have not been reported before. Needless to say, they are very strange and cannot be reproduced under normal working conditions.

As a last ditch effort, I decided to open PixInsight by double clicking on an XISF file on my hard drive. Everything opens up fine. If I load my process icons, they behave properly, and the main menu is present. If I close PixInsight and open by double clicking the shortcut on my desktop, the white screen syndrome returns.

This behavior seems to indicate it is not a computer configuration problem, but maybe an initialization problem when the software starts up. On my system, this is very repeatable behavior.

Nothing is different when you launch the PixInsight core application with or without loading an image at startup, other than the obvious fact that a file is scheduled for loading and then loaded when the application enters its main event loop. I can show you basically the entire source code that runs in both cases to demonstrate what I am saying here.

I understand your frustration with these issues, but please understand that I cannot fix something that I cannot reproduce on our working and testing machines (which include 5 different installations of Windows 10 as of writing this; we are currently restructuring our development infrastructure).

My advice is a complete reinstall of your operating system, trying to configure a clean system with a minimal software configuration and the latest hardware drivers available, with a proven good virus protection software, without any bloatware, using a Windows installation image downloaded directly from Microsoft servers. This is what we do on our Windows machines, and they work fine (considering it's Windows, after all).

[mboccabella]

Hi Juan,

Thank you for the reply. Uninstalling and reinstalling Windows is not really an option, especially since PixInsight works if launched in a specific fashion.

I would be willing to install a version of PixInsight with extra levels of debugging and logging enabled as I launch in both configurations to see if the information produced there can help to shed some light on this. I understand you can't fix it if you can't reproduce it, but I can offer my computer to remotely reproduce it.

Regards,
Mike

[ssagerian]

I have the same problem.
white full screen at startup, right clicking at various locations will produce menus, double clicking on background will open up open file dialog, however no image files are visible after opening. Otherwise its a large white screen with the window bar displaying the application version, nothing else.
I get the same failures with 1.8.6-1473 but not with 1.8.6-1457 (which appears to work fine).
I am running an older yet standard lenovo laptop with 8GB of ram. i7-2620M processor at 2.7GHz. I havent had any problems until upgrading. Down grading to 1457 does not require any tweaks to the graphics environment. I also tried running 1.8.7 via windows power shell command line with the options you suggested --opengl=raster, no joy for either 1.8.7 or 1.8.6 -1473.
I have a commercial Pix Insight license.
Any suggestions would be helpful. thanks
Steve S

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Steve,

As noted above, we cannot reproduce these problems. They are machine-specific issues, probably being caused by incompatible or defective graphics drivers. Sorry for not being able to offer more specific help.

[ssagerian]

Yes, me too, sorry to see people give up so quickly, what changed that would affect the video performance between  1.8.6-1457  and 1.8.6-1473 ? Rev 1.8.6-1457 works.
Also why do some dialog window work fine when I right click ? They seem be rendered fine?