Windows 10 LTSB & Home window focus issues

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

Need some information. Do you have animated wallpaper such as Stardock's Deskscapes or anything similar on your system?

Thanks

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant.

No. Just Fences. However I do have a high resolution wallpaper on my dual monitors.

What is the resolution of the wallpaper and what is the resolution of your two monitors?

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

Wow, you replied 3 minutes after me. Whoops.
Both 1920x1080. The wallpaper is 3840x1080. 

Hi again,

Another question. Do you have Cybersecurity apps such Websense or Forcepoint or something similar in your system?

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

No... Kaspersky does monitor some web activity however.

the right resolution for 3840 is 3840x2160 not 3840x1080

if that means anything .

Nope, not really... When you get another monitor, the width changes, not height.

Hello,

Yes, no problem for me too I am also running 3840x1200 on dual monitor. I am also running slideshow wide wallpapers ranging from 3840x1200, 3840x1080 and some even full 4K one 3840x2640. But no problem with fences on my system.

Please try the purge and reinstall steps : https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#reinstalling

Please make sure to get the latest version from your account and reboot again after reinstall. Retest it and please report back here.

Thank you,

 

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

It was installed fine before the problem and all of a sudden the problem came about.

I doubt it was a faulty installation, but I'll give it a try.

Update: I reinstalled it through Steam and now it's asking for my product key. Where is it?

Lets us know the outcome. Much appreciate it.

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

As far as I know Fences on Steam does not require product key. Please refer to this :  https://forums.stardock.com/486311/accounts-and-activation-support-faq#steamkey

*Figured it out, Steam needed a good ol' restart

I will report back when I run into the problem. With default settings and light PC use,  so far I haven't yet encountered it.

Just now I have encountered the problem. Can only use the functions and buttons within my browser and can't click Task Manager, an adjacent video or the desktop. Fences was reinstalled clean, had to restart my icon groups again, and the problem persists. I suppose until nobody can reproduce this issue it can't be worked on?

Hello,

Sorry to hear you still having issues. From your explanation in reply #14, I cannot figure out what was the issue, it will be great if you could post a video grab of your problem so we can understand it.

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant.

It's very difficult, I'm sure you must know, to try to record the issue while only having one program on focus and no mouse usage works.

And I am sure, you would understand too, that it is difficult for me to help you, if I do not understand what is the problem you are facing.

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

Through the issue, I have switched recording methods and ended up with a video. I feel that I have explained it adequately. You'll find that the issue is no more complicated than what is described in the OP - one window is locked to focus at a time, using the mouse anywhere outside of that window will not do a thing. When focus is changed with ALT-TAB, any mouse use will flip the focus back to the program it's currently locked on.

In this video, (luckily) focus was locked on the recording software itself.

The screen movement during near the end video shows the only mouse movement & use that affected any program there.

Hope this helps.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/me258jtcppbvpen/2018-08-29_19-48-20.mkv/file

Okay, thank you, just to clarify. That your problem is that your task buttons no longer work for switching apps. It randomly stuck to one apps. And how do you get out of the stuck situation? Restart? or it usually slowly resolve themselves?

Anyway, when I asked you to do the purge and reinstall in reply #9. Did you do the full steps or just uninstall and reinstall? Please note that with purge it will cleanup all traces of Fences from your system and when you reinstall it will be just like a new install.

Please try it and report back.

But just in-case you already have it done.

Next steps is to try the cleanboot steps to iron out if there is conflicting apps. https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#cleanboot

And report back your findings

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

I did your version of the purge uninstalled and also used Revo Uninstaller to delete other traces of it.

It certainly seems that the uninstall was clean because the issue did disappear for two weeks - it would have reared its head again immediately if it was the same install or running on the residue of the last install; least that's what seems logical.

I'm not sure what you mean by task buttons... 

What are task buttons? Anyway no... as seen in the video, switching apps via keyboard works perfectly fine; in fact it is the only method of switching apps that actually works. As you can see in the video (though I couldn't find a setting to show the mouse while recording), whenever focus is lost (reverted to OBS) on the program I ALT-TAB'd to, that moment is when I used a button on the mouse.

You should also see, however, that the program focus got stuck to responded, and it seems that Fences can specifically choose sub-windows and objects rather than just the simple ones that you can control with the taskbar. You might notice as I tried to demonstrate, that it was focussed on the middle portion of OBS, the part that was actually the recording output and no other buttons within the window would work. Right clicking in that area was made obvious, and like I mentioned when the screen moved, those were click + drags that were successful.

This bug renders my computer completely useless if I do not have a keyboard.

Usually what I would do to get out of it, as mentioned in the OP:

Though it escapes me as to why this method doesn't seem to have quite as much effect anymore. I have resorted to a custom program my friend built for me that blocks Windows shutdown from fully completing, so that I can tell Windows to shut down and have it close most programs down. This seems to fix the problem for a short amount of time, and that's the fix I used to record the bug for you, and as you can see after I opened those windows, the bug appeared. Don't read too far into that though - it's not just a specific program that causes Fences to go haywire. This'll happen no matter what windows I open.

Restarting the computer also seems to fix the problem for a while.

I don't think there is any specific program that is causing Fences to run faulty, it seems more along the lines of a malfunction, mishandling of focus context when dealing with multiple windows.

I would love to do the clean boot procedure for you but I don't think the problem will come about right away, which means I'd need to use an empty account for quite a while and I haven't got the time just now. Perhaps in the coming weeks or months I will find the time, however this seems to be steps to concluding that my Windows account is specifically in conflict with Fences, and I must remind you that my old installation of Windows Home also saw this problem. I would posit that it is hardly the operating system version or local installation of the account that is the problem.

Were that the case, the law of averages would have us with more reports or us being able to readily reproduce it / see it ourselves.

It may be hard to answer, but do you see this when you are playing a game in Steam or one is running in an alt window?  If so, I would like to see if its own overlay is a culprit:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9394-yofv-0014

The reason for the 'Clean boot' seems clear to you as well.  While not pleasant or easy, it helps determine that Fences indeed works on its own and helps narrow the focus to what app or setting it might be in a fight with when looking back at the roster of apps (settings) that the normal Win profile has. 

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Sean Drohan
Stardock Customer Service Manager

I have looked into the Steam issue, and it doesn't happen during a game load.