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Thread for monitor issues with Fences 5.81

Fences 5.82 Monitor Post

We have a Fences 5.82 build to help us collect information to solve some issues reported shortly after the release of Fences 5.81 regarding Fences and icon placement as well as some reports that ‘layouts’ are not being restored.

The build

Fences 5.82 (Revision 5)

Updated: 08/26/2024 2:03 PM est.

https://cdn.stardock.us/support/uploads/Fences5_5.8.2.5-j132-Setup.exe

Changelogs

08/26/2024

More logging included for some remaining issues

08/23/2024

It should fix clients with the "Fences scrunched up at bottom of the monitor" problem
It will NOT fix clients that are unable to save layouts. We are going to continue to solicit reports from clients directly.

Post-install \ reboot instructions

Issue Reproduction

If you can get your PC in a working state, generally seen by starting with just one monitor, that would be ideal.

After that, create the conditions to put it in a ‘broken’ state by adding more monitors to the point that your reported issues can be seen. Please also work to restore a prior ‘working’ Layout even if it fails.

Even if you cannot get it in a working state, that it is always ‘broken’ no matter what you so, please proceed with the rest of the instructions.

Log creation and submission

Once the issue has been reproduced, please open the Fences config and go to:

‘About’ → ‘Troubleshooting’ → ‘Create error report package for technical support’

Fill out the form

After Fences collects and zips the logs, it will open a Windows Explorer window where it was created as well as a webpage for it to be uploaded to:

Please upload the zip file and let us know in the forum thread that you have in this thread.

Video of the process
https://cdn.stardock.us/support/uploads/2024-08-23_11-47-01amcguinness.mp4

We will review the logs and potentially contact you for more information.

Thank you all for the time, effort, and patience.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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There have been a few users reporting issues with this recently – we're working on a special build to output more debug information, to hopefully move this forward. Please stay tuned thank you!

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Quoting Dr W - Fences Support,

reply 2

There have been a few users reporting issues with this recently – we're working on a special build to output more debug information, to hopefully move this forward. Please stay tuned thank you!

I'm sure the variable causing the issue is found here.

A reproduction step for the stardock team could be to try installing Fences 5 overtop of a Fences 4 install. I, myself, do not have a multi monitor setup to test.

https://forums.stardock.com/529682/page/1/#3940366

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Experiencing similar issues. All of my icons were bunched up at the bottom. Restoring the layout didn't help, kept it at the bottom.

Wondering if it's related to multi-monitor. I have a monitor above my primary monitor, wondering if that is related?

If I fix the layout, then "Perform Backup" and restore it, the icons are in the wrong positions again.

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Quoting asherosborne,

reply 3

Experiencing similar issues. All of my icons were bunched up at the bottom. Restoring the layout didn't help, kept it at the bottom.

Wondering if it's related to multi-monitor. I have a monitor above my primary monitor, wondering if that is related?

If you follow the steps noted above, the elimination of monitors, do you see any difference?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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Thanks for your reply. I went through the troubleshooting steps, here are the result:

Verify that ALL your icons are represented in the default Fences

Reboot

Q: Are all of your Fences and icons where they should be?

A: No, all of the icons moved to the bottom of the screen.

Create new Fences, move icons to them

Reboot

Q: Are all of your Fences and icons where they should be?

A: No, same issue.

If all is well, plug in 1 (and only 1) additional monitor

Reboot.

Q: Are all of your Fences and icons where they should be?

A: No, same spot. But if I restore the icons, it looks normal. This only works without the 2nd Sceptre F27 monitor plugged in.

If all is well, move some Fences to the newly pugged-in monitor.

Reboot

Q: Are all of your Fences and icons where they should be?

A: Yes

Repeat the monitor additions and Fences placement, rebooting in-between each addition and verifying that their placement is as expected

If any monitor addition has Fences \ icon placement go wrong, detail what one and what the connection type was.

I'm not sure if this is related to the other monitor being the same model number, or if it's because the monitor position is on top of the existing monitor. Those are the two clues that stand out to me.

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Thank you for the time and effort.

Quoting asheroto,

reply 5

Verify that ALL your icons are represented in the default Fences

Reboot

Q: Are all of your Fences and icons where they should be?

A: No, all of the icons moved to the bottom of the screen.

I want to be clear on this one:

You have only 1 monitor plugged in
You have 'Per monitor...' set in Fences 5.81
You did the 'Perform automatic layout'
It then auto-arranged your single monitor desktop something like this:
You rebooted and Fences and icons were as you left them, again, with just 1 monitor plugged in.

All was fine with monitors 1 and 2, it was only when you plugged in monitor 3 that there were issues, correct?

Quoting asheroto,

reply 5

The issue occurs when I plug in monitor 3. It is a Sceptre F27, which is the same model as monitor 1. The other monitor are different models. I can plug in the other monitors and the icons will restore to the correct position, but when plugging in monitor "3" (the 4th monitor in testing) then the icons are bunched up at the bottom.

I'm not sure if this is related to the other monitor being the same model number, or if it's because the monitor position is on top of the existing monitor. Those are the two clues that stand out to me.

Does changing the connection type (HDMI, DVI) make any difference at all?

If the 'same model' monitors were the only two plugged in, can you then reproduce it... nor no, its fine?

Again, thanks for the time and effort.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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Hello,

Happy to help. I appreciate your time. I have 4 monitors.

- #1 - Sceptre F27 - HDMI

- #2 - Acer G245HQ - DVI

- #3 - Sceptre F27 - HDMI

- #4 - Dell P2210 - DisplayPort

If I plug in #1, #2, and #4, then Fences will restore my icon layout just fine. But when I plug in #3, it shoves all the icons to the bottom...

Screenshot

Using "Perform automatic layout" does not work either, it moves the icons to other incorrect positions...

Screenshot #2

Upon rebooting, the same issue occurs. The only way I can get the icons to show up correctly is if I unplug monitor #3, and then restore a layout.

The monitor in question only has 2x HDMI and a VGA, and I don't have a VGA output, so I can't test another type of output.

When I unplug #4 and plug in only #1 and #3, I still have the same issue.

Does Fences produce any type of log file I can send you for debugging?

MultiMonitorTool:

MonitorInfoView:

Hopefully that helps diagnose the issue.

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Quoting asheroto,

reply 7

When I unplug #4 and plug in only #1 and #3, I still have the same issue.

Is monitor 3 listed as "Display 5" ?

It looks like it is the only monitor that is not plugged into your 1050ti gpu.

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All VERY helpful, asheroto, ty.

Quoting asheroto,

reply 7

Does Fences produce any type of log file I can send you for debugging?

A build is coming that will gather more than it does now, yes. You all will be the 1st to get it.

Again, thank you for the time and effort, appreciated a ton.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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Happy to help! I moved some of the columns on MultiMonitorTool.

Unplugging "Display 3" results in the error. I know, I know, confusing numbering. The numbers under the "Name" column do not match hat is shown in Display Settings.

This should make it easier to understand. Unplugging monitor 3 (as shown below) results in the icons being bunched up at the bottom if I restore a layout / restart. If I have monitors #1, #2, and #4 plugged in, the icons show up correctly if I restore a layout / restart. #1 is my main/primary monitor.

Even if I unplug the Dell P2210 / ATI FirePro monitor, the issue still occurs. If I unplug the #3 Sceptre F27, though, it works fine.

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All,

I have edited the 1st post in this thread.

https://forums.stardock.com/529991/page/1/#3941177:~:text=Fences%205.82%20Monitor%20Post

Please review it and let us know if you have any questions.

Again, thank you for your time, feedback, and support.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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I am also having the same issue as others are reporting...on my multi-monitor setup, after installing the 5.81 update, the Fences windows keep collapsing to the bottom of the main monitor screen on every boot-up. WTF!!! Clearly inadequate software quality testing by Stardock...echoes the failed CrowdStrike update issue that impacted numerous Windows PCs and servers.

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5.8.2.1 still not working for me. Zip file was sent.

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Quoting drt42,

reply 12

Thank you for the positive feedback, drt42.

We were hoping to have passionate clients like yourself participate in the solution. If you review my edited initial post, we would appreciate your feedback.

Thanks again, drt42.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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Quoting Axonian,

reply 13

5.8.2.1 still not working for me. Zip file was sent.

It was not meant to fix, just collect data. We thank you for it.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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FYI, found a work-around to the issue, although it sucks. Found in my Microsoft Windows Downloads folder an earlier version of Fences that had been downloaded (version 5.04), installed that to overwrite the failed 5.81 version, rebooted, and then restored my Fences layout backup snapshot...which seemed to fix the problem of Fences windows collapsing to the bottom of the screen for now (seems to hold after rebooting the PC).

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Quoting drt42,

reply 16

As noted here in the 5.81 thread

https://forums.stardock.com/529942/get;3940573

A Fences 5.80, that did not force 'Per monitor' layouts, can be found on your account page.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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Hey guys,

We are experiencing an issue with Fences v5.81, where the desktop layout changes on every reboot or sign-in, and the top of each Fence does not align properly with the top of the monitors. It seems that the absolute position of the Fences is not being saved correctly, and when restoring (either manually or after a reboot/sign-in), the Fences are not aligned with the top of the monitors as they should be—their position isn’t being properly restored. This happens regardless of whether we use the layout auto-adjustment options "Don't preserve my desktop layout" or "Store my layout on a per-monitor-configuration basis."

We are using six monitors on the computer in question, all with a resolution of 2560 x 1080, except for one at 1920 x 1080. Please see the screenshot below to view the screen display layout from Windows settings. The Fences on both the left and right screens have their tops aligned in the middle of the screen, while the main display (monitor 3) has the Fences’ tops aligned about 1/4 down from the top. Even though we manually place them where they should be and back up that layout (using either of the auto-adjustment options), as soon as we try to restore or reboot/sign-out, the Fences revert to this same problematic layout, rendering Fences v5.81 unusable at this time.

Hoping this can be solved promptly, as we have no idea how to roll-back to the previous version at this time.

Thanks so much in advance!

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Quoting hrmediagroup,

reply 18

Hoping this can be solved promptly, as we have no idea how to roll-back to the previous version at this time.

Thanks so much in advance!

Fences 5.80 can be found on your account page

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

However, if you wish to participate in a solution for issues seen in 5.81, please see my initial post:

https://forums.stardock.com/529991/page/1/#3941175:~:text=Fences%205.82%20Monitor%20Post

Thanks for your feedback.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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Quoting hrmediagroup,

reply 18

Hey guys,

We are experiencing an issue with Fences v5.81, where the desktop layout changes on every reboot or sign-in, and the top of each Fence does not align properly with the top of the monitors. It seems that the absolute position of the Fences is not being saved correctly, and when restoring (either manually or after a reboot/sign-in), the Fences are not aligned with the top of the monitors as they should be—their position isn’t being properly restored. This happens regardless of whether we use the layout auto-adjustment options "Don't preserve my desktop layout" or "Store my layout on a per-monitor-configuration basis."

I noticed you also have a monitor on top of your primary one, like I do. If you unplug monitor #1, then restore a layout, does it fix it for you?

I'm rolling back to version 5.8.0 for now.

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Quoting sdrohan,

reply 19

Quoting hrmediagroup,

reply 18

Hoping this can be solved promptly, as we have no idea how to roll-back to the previous version at this time.

Thanks so much in advance!

Fences 5.80 can be found on your account page

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

However, if you wish to participate in a solution for issues seen in 5.81, please see my initial post:

https://forums.stardock.com/529991/page/1/#3941175:~:text=Fences%205.82%20Monitor%20Post

Thanks for your feedback.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Unfortunately, we only have access to download Object Desktop, and not individual apps. Inside Object Desktop, there doesn't seem to be a way to roll back, only to uninstall and install the latest version.

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This is what I want:


And that's what I get after a reboot:

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Quoting AmigaLink,

reply 22

That's what I want:

And that's what I get after a reboot:

Your images are too small to view and your post lacks enough to be able to help, AmigaLink.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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Quoting sdrohan,

reply 23

Your images are too small

Fixed.

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All,

I have updated the build to Fences 5.82 Revision 4. The link and changelog are at the top of the thread

https://forums.stardock.com/529991/page/1/#3941197:~:text=Fences%205.82%20(Revision%204)

Again, if your Fences and icons are mispositioned on reboot post-install, position your Fences and icons as you want them and reboot again. If they are messed up again on reboot, please create the support package as detailed in the thread and we will evaluate it.

Again, thanks for your time and effort.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

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