Wallpaper not working properly with sleep

[oh $NaP]

I have a 3 monitor setup. My main monitor is 3440x1440 and when I put the computer to sleep it comes back as the default windows desktop as opposed to what wallpaper engine has set for it. The other 2 monitors will retain their wallpaper engine wallpapers.

If I put the computer to sleep again the wallpaper engine wallpaper will display correctly on the 3440x1440 monitor. So it's almost like sleep is toggling it on and off. Any ideas on how to fix this?

[Tim]

Could be some issue with the graphics card driver giving that monitor a new identifier when your computer wakes up from sleep. Are all monitors connected to your main graphics card? If not, this can cause problems with the drivers / overall performance.

What you can try is to go to the Wallpaper Engine settings and in the "General" tab set "Monitor identification" to "Device Path All", you may need to re-assign the monitor one more time for this to take an effect. If that does not work, I would recommend you try to do a clean re-installation of all graphics card drivers (so if you have Nvidia and Intel, for example, delete both drivers and install them from scratch).

[oh $NaP]

All monitors are connected to my 2080 ti. I actually just reformatted so it's a brand new install of Windows 10 with clean nvidia drivers. I just tried the device path all fix. Manually forcing the computer to go to sleep didn't cause the wallpaper to not show up. So lets hope this works.

[Tim]

If that fixes it, it's likely what I wrote above: The graphics card driver keeps assigning a new internal ID to the monitor for some reason. Usually this is a sign of "some" underlying problem, I would still recommend you tick the "Perform clean re-installation" checkbox the next time you install your Nvidia drivers just to be sure.

[oh $NaP]

So I'm still having issues with it. Installed drivers using "Perform clean re-installation" checkbox. Did not fix the issue. Could it be a problem that I'm using wallpaper engine 32 bit? Would it be helpful to examine the crash mdmp files? Since on wake up it is starting to just crash outright.

[Tim]

You can send me the latest crash dump files you have and a copy of our scan tool log to [e-mail] and I will let you know if I can see anything else that may be the cause of this. A guide for the scan tool can be found here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/1/3307213006836797842/

32 vs. 64 Bit should not matter except in cases where another program injects into Wallpaper Engine but only for either of those versions - you can definitely give it a try and see if that fixes it for you. Generally these types of crashes are related to some sort of interference by other software or faulty drivers, so the scan tool log in combination with the dump file may help.

[oh $NaP]

Sent you the log and dump files. Thanks for looking into it.

[Tim]

Hey,

this is a bit of a tricky issue and we'd like to look into it more. We have spent a lot of time trying to reproduce this crash and it simply never occurs on our systems but usually we hear from a few users every month who have this problem.

The next time the crash occurs, can you let me know which exact wallpapers you were using at the time of the crash? It would also be interesting to know if the crash occurs with all wallpaper types or just a specific type.

Could you try this for a while: Before you put your computer to sleep, could you use the "Pause" functionality of Wallpaper Engine manually by either right-clicking the tray icon or by creating a hotkey for this? We think the crash may go away if you manually pause it but we need to be sure of this.

Let me know if anything is unclear!

[oh $NaP]

I've been using the Pause function before putting the computer to sleep. Haven't crashed or had any issues so far.

[oh $NaP]

So when the PC wakes up from sleep my main monitor always goes back to the default windows wallpaper, while the other two are still the normal wallpaper engine wallpapers. Pausing and unpausing doesn't seem to fix this. It also happens on every wallpaper that I have tried it with.

[Biohazard]

Thanks for checking!

Originally posted by oh $NaP:

I've been using the Pause function before putting the computer to sleep. Haven't crashed or had any issues so far.

That likely means that Windows makes Wallpaper Engine continue before your driver has been restored from sleep. A program like Wallpaper Engine cannot know whether the driver is ready or not, it will just get a random error then since there is no way to check this.

The best I can try is not immediately reacting to the 'event' Windows sends but delaying it until the next time Wallpaper Engine continues to idle on its own, if that makes sense.

I could put that on the beta soonish for you to try out.

Beyond this there is no telling how many seconds Windows is messing this up and it could change and increase randomly every time you use sleep. What rather needs to happen is that the driver gets fully ready before it allows Windows to resume the programs that were running before sleeping.

Originally posted by oh $NaP:

So when the PC wakes up from sleep my main monitor always goes back to the default windows wallpaper, while the other two are still the normal wallpaper engine wallpapers. Pausing and unpausing doesn't seem to fix this. It also happens on every wallpaper that I have tried it with.

- When that happens and you immediately open the browser and choose a wallpaper there, does it appear or does it not appear then?

- What is 'Monitor identification' currently set to when you have this issue?

In general, this second issue you describe comes from the driver changing the name of the monitor. Wallpaper Engine must have some way of figuring out which wallpaper goes where and it offers all of the things that Microsoft and Nvidia make available which you can choose from those options.

The 'device path' options are not supposed to change under no circumstance unless you actually replace the monitor, they basically include the name of your video adapter and the ID of the monitor. But if they are changing after all the issue is so fundamental that Wallpaper Engine really can't work around that, unfortunately the driver just has to get fixed eventually to work better with sleep.

[oh $NaP]

So as soon as I open the browser I see all 3 monitors with the primary monitor having no wallpaper associated to it. If i select the same wallpaper it does not work. If i select a different wallpaper it doesn't work. If I click remove wallpaper and change it to another wallpaper it still doesn't work. The only way to get it back is to restart wallpaper engine and select the wallpaper again.

Monitor identification is set to drive path all.

[Biohazard]

Thanks, what you describe gives me another idea to try and see what is happening:

When it happens the next time, can you change the resolution of the main monitor (the one that doesn't work) to some other resolution and then change it back? Please make sure that the browser is not open yet when you do this.

Changing the resolution will tell Wallpaper Engine to re-discover the monitors.

After that, open the browser and see if it allows you to change the wallpaper now.

[oh $NaP]

So when I change the resolution, the wallpaper actually comes back immediately. Wallpaper engine works normally after that point.

[Biohazard]

Originally posted by oh $NaP:

So when I change the resolution, the wallpaper actually comes back immediately. Wallpaper engine works normally after that point.

Okay, that means that the driver is erratically changing the names of your adapters (as in the display port adapters you have) and Windows isn't notifying applications about it, at least it eventually restores them and doesn't assign some random new name based on what you said. Wallpaper Engine is actually able to refresh itself if anything like that happens but if Windows just doesn't work right, there is little possible to compensate for that.

Since you also have that crash issue I can only imagine the driver is going through some sort of reset while Windows is already continuing Wallpaper Engine, when it just shouldn't.

I changed the beta to not immediately act to waking up from sleep and to forcibly re-discovering monitors right after that, please try that: http://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/2/350544272219415004/

If this doesn't work there aren't really any alternatives I can think of right now because I can't make it do this like every second, it would be too detriment to the entire program.