Suddenly Broken

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Please try purge and reinstall steps as mentioned here: https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#reinstalling Just make sure to redownload the latest version from your account. Reboot after the purged. Reinstall, and Reboot again after the installation. Retest it. Report back here.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

You have saved my desktop from a huge mess of icons!

The Purge worked!  Glad for the help!

Great, glad to help.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Well.. that seems to have fixed the issue of the icons appearing in Fences, but sometimes when I click the desktop, the icons disappear, the "wait" icon spins in the task bar, and about 10 minutes later, the desktop is finally re-drawn with the fences in place.

Checking the Task Manager does not reveal anything suspicious, as CPU and Memory levels are well within reason.  I'm not convinced that this is a Fences issue.  AV, CCleaner, Win Updates, DISM, Chkdsk all came back clean.  Not a disk issues, since I'm running a SSD that is optimized.

Again, let me know if I can run any additional diagnostics that would help potentially identify the issue.

That usually show that Explorer.exe has crash. Need to know if you are on Corporate Environment? And please tell us more on your system.

1) Windows 10 full version numbers. Please use Microsoft's Winver.exe for full Windows version numbers.

2) Fences versions.

3) AV/Security software installed.

4) Any wallpaper managers install such as Wallpaper engine etc etc.

5) Monitor/s setting ie resolutions, scaling (100%, 125%, 150% etc) and connection type.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

I am on a Corp Environment, Bitlocker enabled, working from home.

Device: Dell 5490 laptop (i7-7600U CPU @ 2.80GHz), 16GB RAM, Video: Intel HD Graphics 620

Disk: 256GB SSD: Intel NVMe SSDPEKKF256GB NV

Windows 10 Enterprise, build 19041.423

Fences version: 3.0.9.11

AV installed: Malwarebytes Free + Windows Defender

No wallpaper managers.

3 monitors:

  * Display 1 (laptop screen Dell): 1920x1080

  * Display 2 (Digital Television CLC501): 1280x720 [Connection Type: HDMI]

  * Display 3 (Digital Display HP L1950): 1280x1024 [Connection Type: VGA]

Error when system "hangs" and finally returns control:

explorer.exe - the remote procedure call failed and did not execute

(I click OK, then get):

shell:::{52205fd8-5dfb-447d-801a-d0b52f2e83e1}
the remote procedure call failed and did not execute

..and I have to start explorer.exe from the Task Manager.

Interestingly, browser and non-windows-system related apps seem to execute correctly.

sfc /scannow does not return any errors.

Please review this suggestion and apply it if it applicable to you.

https://forums.stardock.com/494392/get;3780664

Try it and report back.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

This appears to make my laptop a bit snappier.  I will run it this way for a while and report back my findings after a few days.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Interesting: I applied the Tuesday Windows patches, and after a reboot, I'm seeing the same issue as I was seeing before.  I'll have to see if that memory setting got reset by the Windows Update process.

I changed the memory settings, again, according to the article supplied.  I was able to get Fences to run again, but it didn't seem to like it when I selected a previous desktop layout snapshot; so, I completely uninstalled Fences, and ran the cleaning .bat file.  Things were working just fine with no Fences ---cluttered, but working.

Now, I have re-installed the latest version of Fences, created NEW fences, and have re-booted.  Now, my fences are showing empty, with no icons after a reboot.  Clicking anywhere turns the screen white-ish, and the mouse icon spins and spins.  Task Manager shows 18% CPU, 41% memory, and 3% disk --- so there is no activity that is causing this.

Ironically, I decided to purchase the Objects desktop for the Groupy and KVM software -- which were running fine before the reboot.

Rebooting again...

Creating new Fences seemed to work better than re-using an old snapshot layout.

Sometimes, I get blank/empty Fences -- like the icons are waiting to load, while something else is loading.  After a bit of a wait, the icons eventually load.  Seems less like a Fences issue, and more of a 3rd party app "hanging" before the icons can load.

Have you seen this before?

You can try cleanboot steps to check which one is causing the issues.

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

Try that and report back.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Running as a stand-alone admin account in Win 10, things load fine.  Not so much with my account.

So, I purged Fences, and ran for 1/2 a day with no Fences (no fun), then at the end of the day, I got adventurous clicked Customize Fences, and received the message that Fences was not installed, but then I was prompted for my license key, which I supplied.

No reboot was requested, so I went to one of my empty screens and drew a Fence -- and get the spinning icon..  I clicked on another icon, and got the white/translucent screen, and nothing else happened.

I'll reboot it now to see where it leads me to!

Post boot: attempted to draw a Fence.. but it did not recognize that I was trying to draw a Fence.  This indicates to me that I need to re-install Fences from the installer.

Uninstalling...rebooting....re-installing..activred..

Drawing a Fence....same thing, windows spinning wait icon, white overlay screen...

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having issues.
Let's collect some info please.

Windows version ( full version #'s ) use winver.exe for that #

Version of Fences ?

# of Monitors ?

Resolution and Scaling ?

also when you Purge different than a uninstall  reboot then reinstall

from your account and reboot , did you do that ?

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

Account https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products/

also you can use Snapshot to restore Fences to a previous version 

AzDude
Stardock Community Assistant