microsoft/PowerToys

WinUI Settings dialog is blank

ET3117 opened this issue · 43 comments

ET3117 commented

Environment

Windows build number: [run "ver" at a command prompt] 1909 (18363.836)
PowerToys version: 0.18
PowerToy module for which you are reporting the bug (if applicable): settings

Steps to reproduce

Launch Powertoys - right click to bring up settings

Expected behavior

See the settings dialog

Actual behavior

The dialog area is blank. As it opens on the desktop, it briefly flashes the content but then becomes blank

Screenshots

image

a774500050 commented

Same problem here…

crutkas commented

I'm wondering if maybe some setting is causing a crash here. Can you see if the event viewer is having anything added?

Also maybe email / including us the setting for PT zipped (C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\PowerToys)

crutkas commented

xref #3447 which looks to be same issue

crutkas commented

@laviusmotileng-ms for heads up

enricogior commented

@ET3117 @a774500050
did you install PT in the past or is 0.18 the first version you installed?
If you used PT in the past can you try the following steps:

  • exit PowerToys (right click on the PowerToys tray icon and select Exit)
  • go to C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft
  • move the PowerToys folder from C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft to your desktop
  • restart PowerToys

Does the problem still happen?

arntj commented

I'm having the same exact issue. I installed Powertoys for the first time with 0.18.0 and the issue began then. I've since tried to update to 0.18.1 and that didn't help.

arntj commented

PowerToys.zip
Here's my PowerToys appsettings folder.

arntj commented

Running as administrator fixed this issue for me.

I tried looking for PowerTools related items (or items added as I open settings) in Event Viewer and couldn't find anything as I could see. But I'm not sure of exactly what/were I would be looking for.

michaelphilip commented

Running as administrator fixed this issue for me.

Fixed it for me too -- thank you, arntj

arjunbalgovind commented

@ET3117 @arntj @michaelphilip Can you let us know the following information?

  • Is the account where you are facing the blank dialog issue a standard account or an admin account?
  • Are you running PT from the same user account where you installed it?
  • What are your UAC settings? You can check this by searching UAC in Windows Search, this is a screenshot of mine for example
    image
  • If you are able to access Settings when running as admin, can you try disabling each of the PowerToys manually, and then running PowerToys normally (not as admin) and opening Settings and see if that has any effect?
  • What are your display settings on your system? i.e. resolution, scaling % and aspect ratio, multi-monitor or single monitor - Can be checked by searching Display Settings.
  • Even if the Settings appears blank, are you able to launch PowerToys Run by pressing Alt+Space when PowerToys is not running as admin?
  • Did you have an earlier version of PowerToys installed before 0.18 or was this the first time you installed PowerToys?
  • Did you install PowerToys in C:\Program Files (default location) or another location?

We still haven't been able to reproduce the error, so we are trying to identify any possible factor which could be causing this.

michaelphilip commented
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arjunbalgovind commented

Thanks for the response @michaelphilip, what about this?

  • Did you have an earlier version of PowerToys installed before 0.18 or was this the first time you installed PowerToys?
  • Did you install PowerToys in C:\Program Files (default location) or another location?
arntj commented
My answers
  • Is the account where you are facing the blank dialog issue a standard account or an admin account?

Admin account.

  • Are you running PT from the same user account where you installed it?

Yes.

  • What are your UAC settings? You can check this by searching UAC in Windows Search, this is a screenshot of mine for example

Never notify.

  • If you are able to access Settings when running as admin, can you try disabling each of the PowerToys manually, and then running PowerToys normally (not as admin) and opening Settings and see if that has any effect?

Didn't work.

  • What are your display settings on your system? i.e. resolution, scaling % and aspect ratio, multi-monitor or single monitor - Can be checked by searching Display Settings.

I have an external and an internal monitor. I sometime use one and sometime the other, never both at once. I've had the same issue on both monitors.

Internal: 3840 x 2160 pixels, 250 % scaling
External: 2560 x 1440 pixels, 125 % scaling

  • Even if the Settings appears blank, are you able to launch PowerToys Run by pressing Alt+Space when PowerToys is not running as admin?

Yes.

  • Did you have an earlier version of PowerToys installed before 0.18 or was this the first time you installed PowerToys?

0.18.0 was my first version of PowerToys.

  • Did you install PowerToys in C:\Program Files (default location) or another location?

C:\Program Files\PowerToys

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michaelphilip commented
ET3117 commented
LiorBanai commented

some more info regarding compatibility mode:

  • windows 7 compatibility mode for Settings.UI.Runner.exe or powertoys.exe (either one) - UI visible
  • windows 8 compatibility mode for Settings.UI.Runner.exe or powertoys.exe (either one) - UI not visible.
  • DPI options without using compatibility mode - not visible.

my setup - 1 monitor, resolution 1920X1080, 125%

arjunbalgovind commented

@ET3117 @michaelphilip @arntj @LiorBanai trying to found out what is the common factor among all your systems that could cause this issue.

  • Have you every changed any group policy settings or something that affects user/admin access on your system?
  • What hardware does your computer use? Processor name/model, graphics card (if your system has one)
  • Windows 10 edition - Can be checked in Settings->System->About (such as Windows 10 Pro, Home, etc)
  • Windows display language and whether this was the language chosen at the time of installation of Windows.
michaelphilip commented
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arjunbalgovind commented

@michaelphilip @arntj @LiorBanai Can you trying the following if you are comfortable doing it?
While not running as admin/compatibility mode, (i.e. in the situation where it appears blank)

  • Does any part of the scrollbar in the right pane draw (when moving the mouse over it when the Settings UI is resized small enough to need a scrollbar)?
  • Does resizing the window cause anything to appear?
  • If the display driver is temporarily disabled (in Device Manager, expand Display adapters, select the appropriate adapter, right-click "Disable device"), does it render then?
LiorBanai commented

resizing ui:
powertoys

display driver is temporarily disabled - did not helped.

what did help: using rdp mode. when using remote desktop the ui is visible. also in this mode the display adapter list is showing:
powertoys2

arjunbalgovind commented

@LiorBanai do you mean when you RDP to the same machine where it shows the blank error it starts working?

LiorBanai commented

Correct.

edit: actually in rdp mode it has no consistency. sometimes is shown and sometimes it does not (with restart between tries)

michaelphilip commented
arntj commented

It's an interesting observation that you can still click on controls even though they are not visible.

Here's a GIF reproducing the issue and showing the fact that you can click on the "Restart as administrator" button. I'll get back to the other questions later.

powertoys

LiorBanai commented

Yeah, all ui elements are still functioning (included different left panel items and their views) but just not visible. The Mouse cursor even changes image when hovering on them.

arntj commented
  • Have you every changed any group policy settings or something that affects user/admin access on your system?

I can't specifically remember doing so, but I can't exclude ever having done so over the four years I've had this computer.

  • What hardware does your computer use? Processor name/model, graphics card (if your system has one)

Intel core i7-6820HQ 2.70GHz
Two graphics cards:

  • Intel HD Graphics 530
  • Nvidia Quadro M2000M
  • Windows 10 edition - Can be checked in Settings->System->About (such as Windows 10 Pro, Home, etc)

Windows 10 Enterprise 2004

  • Windows display language and whether this was the language chosen at the time of installation of Windows.

OS language is English, but Microsoft Store and other localized UWP apps are in Norwegian.

arntj commented
  • Does any part of the scrollbar in the right pane draw (when moving the mouse over it when the Settings UI is resized small enough to need a scrollbar)?
  • Does resizing the window cause anything to appear?

No to both questions, see my GIF above.

  • If the display driver is temporarily disabled (in Device Manager, expand Display adapters, select the appropriate adapter, right-click "Disable device"), does it render then?

Now this is where things get interesting. I found that disabling the most powerful graphics card (the Nvidia one) and then rebooting fixed this issue! If I re-enabled the Nvidia graphics card and then rebooted, the problem would re-appear. Enabling/disabling the Intel device doesn't seem to do any difference either way.

Note, the "rebooting" part is very important. Just disabling the graphics card doesn't do anything by itself, I had to disable the Nvidia and then reboot to notice any change here.

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michaelphilip commented
arjunbalgovind commented

Can any of you share a heap dump of the Microsoft.PowerToys.Settings.UI.Runner process? Once you reproduce that blank dialog, open Task Manager and you should see a running app like this
image
Then right-click on that entry and press Create dump file. It will create a .dmp file in UserName\AppData\Local\Temp. That file should contain information that can help us debug more. The file would be fairly large though (like 500MB).
image

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michaelphilip commented
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arntj commented

Here's my dumpfile.

(I shared wrong file at first, fixed now. Sorry about that.)

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crutkas commented

Update: We noticed an oddity in the heap dumps everyone shared. Extremely useful and is helping track down a possible cause

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mccrispy commented

Good to hear that there's some indications that the problem will get fixed - perhaps in 0.19. I'll just pile on now and say that I am still experiencing the issue with 0.18.2 having just updated (including clearing %appdata%) from 0.18.1 today

crutkas commented

@mccrispy we didn't get it solved in .18.2 (why this is still open :))

we know the issue now, and what is causing it, now to figure out how we can work around it.

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LiorBanai commented

@crutkas, out of curiosity, what is the cause of the issue?

crutkas commented

How we can repro it is with systems running Nvidia's nView Desktop Manager . Here is the issue with the basic WPF Xaml Island Sample (https://github.com/microsoft/Xaml-Islands-Samples - WPF_XAMLIslands_v1).

When nView is disabled
image

When nView is enabled
image

Reason why when settings is run as Admin no one hits it is nView runs on the user level. When Settings is elevate, nView can't touch the process.

Under the hood, basically a visibility flag is getting set when it shouldn't. More importantly, we didn't.

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mccrispy commented

@mccrispy we didn't get it solved in .18.2 (why this is still open :))

we know the issue now, and what is causing it, now to figure out how we can work around it.

I know, it's not fixed in 0.18.2. That's why I said "Good to hear that there's some indications that the problem will get fixed - perhaps in 0.19". I was attempting to provide additional information about my configuration, hoping that would be useful to you.

How we can repro it is with systems running Nvidia's nView Desktop Manager .

I can confirm that disabling nView Desktop Manager restores the expected behaviour of the Settings Panel

Aaron-Junker commented

I think this happen, when you open settings, during PowerToys starting up.

crutkas commented

@Aaron-Junker, we have a fix for this.

michaelphilip commented
crutkas commented

soon, 0.19 will have the fix. targeting end of month (literally writing release notes right now)

michaelphilip commented
crutkas commented

Fixed in 0.19.0, please visit https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/releases/ for the latest release

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