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• tbd

I recently performed a fresh install of Windows 11 after 24H2 was officially released. That coincided with the 5.84 release of Fences, but the issue I'm having has persisted with the 5.85 release of Fences.

Whenever I leave my PC for a while with my monitor turned off, no matter if I lock Windows or not, when I get back Fences are completely messed up. Icons are randomly tossed around, Fences have moved and sometimes Fences seem to have disappeared altogether and my icons are randomly on the normal desktop.

Restoring a backup does absolutely nothing, everything remains the same after I restore a backup. What *does* fix the issue, however, is simply logging off and logging back in.

This is on Windows 11 24H2 (build 26100.2033) with Fences 5.85 (problem also occured with 5.84) on a single monitor setup (3840x2160 resolution). To be perfectly clear, I did not have this issue with my previous Windows installation but that was Windows 11 23H2 and although I cannot check (obviously), I think that was a Fences version prior to 5.84.

I have to leave now, but when I get back I'm sure everything will be messed up again. I'll grab a screenshot then to show the problem.

-- EDIT: well, I'm back home and yup, it happened again. I'm attaching a screenshot to show what happened. For a fullscreen image (3840x2160 resolution), click here -- you can then also clearly see some Fences that have been moved to a random location on the desktop (and they're empty). And as I've said before, simply logging out and logging back in fixes everything.

(oh, if you're seeing that Cheats folder -- don't worry, I'm not into multiplayer at all, those are for my singleplayer stuff only; and even if I did play multiplayer games I wouldn't even dare think of cheating)

I think you're misunderstanding, I'm not putting my PC into sleep mode. I have that disabled. No sleep mode or anything like that. I just turn off my monitor and Windows remains active, after a while I come back and turn my monitor back only to then notice the issues I've described. So this is, by default, *not* an issue with sleep mode or anything like that because I don't use sleep mode.

When it happens again, I'll check.

If you are physically turning off the monitor, try leaving the power on but setting your Windows power setting to just black it out

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

I am not presenting it as a 'solution', While4fire.  However, you just named 2 gigantic variables (and just the ones we know of) - not the least of which is a major update to Windows. That is why I said 'try' as I want to know if it works.

Please humor me and tell me if it works, changing the power options and not turning the power off to the monitor itself. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Thank you for the effort. 

Since you do not sleep your PC, the power it uses does not seem to be a concern for you - you just want the monitor not to render anything when you are not using it.  Thus, what you did with the power reads like a workable solution, yes?

However, I would like to know more...

If you were to turn the monitor off, wait a few seconds, and turn it back on, is Fencs messed up even with that act?  If Fences are NOT fine, but you wait a few seconds (10 let's say), does Fences right itself?

If the Fences are fine just after you turn off \ on the monitor, how long do you have to leave it off for it to fail?  Also, if given time (again, 10 seconds or so), does Fences right itself?

How is your monitor connected - HDMI, DVI, etc?  If its connected to a video hub, and it's removed so that just the monitor is plugged into the PC, does it work?

Lastly, if you can reproduce the issue reliably (Fences does not right itself after 10 seconds or so), I would like to collect some logs from you.  This page will detail how to accomplish that

https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1439531023/Fences+Debug+Logging

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Hi Wild4fire, I think this may be one we can only get a closer look at with advanced logging, if you wouldn't mind sending us a report.

Steps are, open up the About dialog and select Enabled Advanced Logging, log out / log back in (or reboot) – then begin doing the steps to reproduce the issue. Reproduce & fix it several times over if you can, include doing things like restoring backups to attempt to fix, etc. Try to document it the best you can the steps you're taking, and include it with the error report or post it here. Once you've been able to demonstrate the problem a couple times and have futzed around with it, hit Create Error Report Package, which will guide you to uploading the report to us.

This might be a tricky one to solve, but we're more than happy to dive into the logs and see what we can find. Looking forward to finding a fix.

Just got back home, my fences were messed up again. Tried restoring a Fences backup, didn't work. However, thankfully the backup feature shows that a backup was taken at 08:10 this morning, about an hour after I turned my monitor off. That backup shows the messed up fences, so apparently the fences getting messed up occur with about an hour after turning the monitor off.

I'll keep Fences logging until I've had two more occurances of this issue.

So just noticing – any reason you're not using this (new default) setting? We're looking at fixing the issue you pointed out as well with the legacy system and are taking steps based on your log, but you might see better results with this option. Curious if using that option resolves the issue in a way that's satisfactory.

Quoting Dr W - Fences Support,

reply 20

So just noticing – any reason you're not using this (new default) setting? We're looking at fixing the issue you pointed out as well with the legacy system and are taking steps based on your log, but you might see better results with this option. Curious if using that option resolves the issue in a way that's satisfactory.

We need to remove those other options as soon as possible....

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Roger that. Able to upload again the new log? Thanks again