Sudden instability and long start times on W10

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

It looks to me that your version of Windows is not updated 

that's an older version .

type in Run .. winver.exe and post the full version of Windows

you are running .

Check and report back , please .

AzDude
Stardock Community Assistant

Windows 1809 OS Build 17763.1039

This is a corporate installation  so it runs the latest approved version from corporate IT.  Fences was working a few days ago and isn't working now.

Hello,

I have forwarded your report to the Stardock support team for their review and recommendations.

Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates.

We really do appreciate your feedback, thanks.

AzDude
Stardock Community Assistant

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having trouble.

It is not.

What - on your system - has changed?  Something you should ask your IT people perhaps.  Also if you are using WebSesnse/Forcepoint in your corp environment.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Uninstalling Fences gave me a stable desktop.  Purge/reintall caused the problem to reoccur.  Purge/uninstall has given me a stable desktop again.

No known patches, updates, upgrades etc. in the timeframe of the problem.

We do have WebSense/Forcepoint have had it for quite some time.  What should I ask my IT group about it bearing in mind that they don't share details of security configurations with end users.

Hello,

I believe there were many reports from users with regard incompatibility issue between Websence/Forcepoint with Fences. Not really sure why, in your system, just recently it become issue for you. Would like to suggest if your It group could exclude Fences from Websense/Forcepoint, something like Whitelist Fences. That might help.

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

Thanks.  Looks like I am out of luck.  IT does not whitelist anything and would not say further about any Websense/Forcepoint updates that may have happened.   I was thinking about Windows patches and not about other parts of the configuration.  It could be that W/F changed somehow over the past few days in the background. I will have to live without Fences.  I will try reinstalling it in a few weeks and see if anything changes as IT performs future patches and updates.

I'm having the exact same problem. I have to wait for maybe 5 minutes for fences to sort itself out and fix the desktop properly. Until then, I can't access or click a single icon on my desktop, which I frequently have to do.

I've noticed that this happens mostly when I wake my laptop from sleep after I've connected my external monitor. Fences is trying to reconfigure the desktop (because the laptop's screen resolution and external monitor are different), and it goes haywire. It used to just work instantly though. So Fences has a problem now, and it's extremely frustrating. I've restarted my computer more in the past week than I have in the past year, just to be able to access my desktop. 

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Need more information on your system.

1) Windows version. Please use Winver.exe for full version numbers.

2) Fences version.

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

Just make sure to re-download the latest version from your account. Reboot after the purge. Reinstall using the latest version you just downloaded. Reboot after the installation. Retest and report back.

Thanks

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

1) Windows version 1909  Build 18363.719

2) Fences version 3.0.9.11

3) I'll try and let you know in a few days or so. 

Do I uninstall the application before or after the purge or not at all?

The purge will uninstall Fences for you. It is also best for you to backup you snapshots in case you need it later to restore it. Follow this guide : https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#backupsnapshots

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

I also had the problem where running Fences would repeatedly crash Windows Explorer, eventually ending in a prompt saying Fences has been disabled.

Windows Version: 10.0.17763.1039 (managed by corporation)
Fences Version: 3.0.9.11
No ForcePoint/WebSense

I was able to run Fences successfully by doing the following (none of the purging helped):

1. Disabling Snap (right-click on desktop --> Display settings --> Multitasking)
2. Disabling the desktop slideshow (right-click on desktop --> Personalize --> set Background to Picture)
3. Editing the registry to disable "Win+D" to show the desktop by adding the following key:
   Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\DisabledHotkeys = "D" (String)

With all respect to Sean Drohan, something has definitely changed and Fences makes Windows unstable as a result. Obviously Stardock hasn't released anything new lately, so I'm happy to point the finger at Microsoft. Regardless, I can't wait till Stardock patches this because I really enjoy Fences and it has become an integral part of my daily workflow.

Best regards,

Prescott

I was due for a reformat of my computer, so instead of purging Fences I did a clean install of Windows, with no settings or files kept.

I reinstalled Fences, and it's even worse than before. It's crashing Windows Explorer, and putting it into a crash loop. Explorer keeps starting up again and crashing repeatedly.  I see that glynnpg above is having the same issue. 

This is a completely fresh install of Windows on my HP Spectre laptop. 

Fences is completely broken and needs to be fixed please. 

Hello,

Please try the cleanboot as mentioned here :https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#cleanboot

Although you mentioned you on Clean install of Windows. Need to be sure if other 3rd party apps that come with your HP Spectre laptop might causing conflict with Fences.

 Try it and report back.

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having trouble.

Sorry to see you are having trouble but the vast majority are not - we need to find out why you are...

You can try:

Are you in a corp environment - one where ForcePoint \ Websense is used?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Edit: I have updated in my post below that it still has problems and it isn't solved, as I previously mentioned here. 

Thank you basj and sdRohan for your support. I followed the instructions to create a new Admin account, I reinstalled Fences under that account, I did a bunch of tests and everything was working. I logged back into my main account and things were still working, even after rebooting and reconnecting and disconnecting my external monitor. 

It's weird that my system seems to be working with Fences now even though it wasn't before. The only configuration change I've done in the meantime is that I re-installed Nvidia Control Panel, because it was broken when Windows Update automatically installed it. That app is working now, and so is Fences.

I wonder if the other users above me, misc17 and glynnpg also have Nvidia display adapters that are misbehaving? I don't know how to tag them to let them know about this. They just have to manually download the Nvidia Control Panel app from Nvidia's website and install that to replace the version that came with Windows Update. 

Anyways, thank you for your support. 

Hey techguy9,

Awesome, glad you solved it.

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

I just wanted to update that although I said Fences was working now, it still has the the same problem, but it happens less frequently, and doesn't go into a crash loop like before. Every once in a while my desktop will freeze and I have to wait for maybe 5 minutes until it comes back. It is usually triggered by disconnecting my external monitor.

I have switched the "Screen resolution changes" setting to every different option and Fences still freezes the same way. BTW those other options are really problematic. The "Store my layout on per-resolution" option is especially messed up, as it keeps sending my icons to the secondary monitor instead of primary.  And it doesn't store anything, everything is messed up each time switch to the external monitor. And when I try to drag my fences back to my primary monitor, the desktop freezes each time.

I'm at my wit's end and I'm really tired of Fences. Again, this is a completely fresh re-installation of Windows 10 on an HP Spectre x360. I don't have any software installed that should be conflicting with Fences. 

If I can send my system info and list of installed apps, etc, I would be happy to do so. I just want Fences to work like it used to before a couple months ago. 

Hello again,

I have read again your previous comment. You mentioned on on Nvidia GPU, maybe this thread discussing on Nvidia and several solution were offered by others. It may or may not work for you, but it worth something to look at : https://forums.stardock.com/490929/get;3745196

Reply #11 and above offered some solutions. Please try it and report back.

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

same issue here using Fences 3.09 and windows 1909 (build 18363.720). It's a home machine so no websense & al, just defender.

Fences was solid for months. Latest update I did was updating NVidia drivers to 445.75 three days ago, which is when the problems began, so I suspected it was the culprit (along with seeing Nvidia pop up on this thread).

So I ran the Fences purge bat file, uninstalled device drivers with DDU and rolled back to 441.41, but no cigar -- same behavior.

As other users report: either extremely slow reactions (as in, minutes) or fences crash altogether along with a whitish desktop and circular mouse pointer. At this point the only way I can get a functional machine is to remove Fences completely.

Happy to send any log files or try things as requested.

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Have you tried solutions as mentioned here : https://forums.stardock.com/490929/get;3745196 ?

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

No luck... I don't use the Nvidia GeForce Experience, so I never install it. But for the sake of it I installed it, and disabled overlay (the other fix does not apply as I have only one GPU).

Things are slightly better (Fences a little bit more responsive) but I still get crashes and hang ups. Still unusable unfortunately.

Hello zedug,

Please try the clean boot steps as mentioned here and see if there is other conflicting applications :

https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#cleanboot

Try it and report back.

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

I did a clean boot and it works fine. I went back to my regular profile, disabled all the programs autostarting (using sysinternal's autoruns great "compare" function), and it still didn't work.

I tried to reset my fences by performing an automatic layout from the "Layout & snapping" tab, and it still didn't work.

Eventually I manually deleted all the existing fences (which took a very long time since each click would take at least a minute to do something, with the occasional crash on top) and all backups, recreated the fences from scratch. I'm currently adding back the icons, and so far so good.

So for now I would guess that something happened to my previous fences configurations, and for some reason the purge batch file did not catch it...?

Thanks for the hint on the clean boot.