Critical multiple monitor bug

[Windrunner]

I installed the software yesterday and its caused severe bugs on my system that remain even after stopping the software and several restarts.

I'm using
- Win 10
- RX 580 with newest drivers
- 144Hz FullHD Freesync display
- 75Hz 2K Freesync display

When I boot my system, windows has stopped recoginising both displays, sometimes recognises both as one giant display or only recognises one. I can boot with only one monitor on and get a working display, but the second I turn the second monitor on, the first turns off. Windows and Radeon settings only show one monitor as connected.

This behaviour began immediately after the first reboot after my wallpaper engine install, so I suspect a faulty interaction with Radeon GPU drivers or windows. Stopping it, removing it from autorun and uninstalling it has not fixed my issue.

I'm going to try reinstalling gpu drivers. I really hope I won't have to reinstall windows.

[Windrunner]

Uninstalling wallpaper engine and then reinstalling the GPU drivers fixed the issue.There seems to be some bad interaction going on with wallpaper engine and radeon drivers.

I kind of dont want to kill my system again, are there any options or flags I can tweak that will prevent another malfunction?

I'm going to reinstall the software and experiment a bit. Maybe I can reproduce the issue or track it down to one specific setting. My first step is gonna be not setting it to run on startup since it seemed to be working fine when launched manually.

Other software I tracked down it could have possibly have had a faulty interaction with:
- f.lux (dynamic change of display brightness/color warmth)
- rainmeter (desktop ui overlay).
Disabling these did not fix the issue earlier, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been caused by them. I've read f.lux is somewhat known to show unwanted interactions with other software, usually only affecting performance though.

[GameTerrific]

Sounds like a you problem, but I'm glad it worked out.

[Biohazard]

I don't think anyone else reported such incompatibilities with f.lux, rainmeter or the driver before.

Do you have overclocking programs installed, especially Afterburner? Or recording hooks like AMD ReLive active?

Edit: Also, without setting it to auto start, could you perhaps try this: http://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/2/1473095331509794520/ because there were some graphics mods for other games before that caused weird problems, this might help detect them.

[Windrunner]

Regarding the overclocking, I have Ryzen Master and Sapphire Trixx installed, never used them for overclocking though (Only for performance monitoring and changing LED function on my graphics card).

As I'm really the first one I feel kinda obliged to try and reproduce it, so I'm gonna run a cycle of
- adding the program(wallpaper engine, then f.lux, then rainmeter) to auto start one by one
- rebooting
- record if issue reoccurs
- repeat with next program

I'm gonna report back when I have some results.

Edit: Okay, I'll add running the debug after each reboot too

[Biohazard]

Thanks for doing those tests to help figure it out.

If Ryzen Master and Sapphire Trixx aren't on auto start, I suppose they aren't related to this. I know that Afterburner has an option that makes changes to the graphics driver, which can make it go haywire in conjunction with 3D accelerated programs and damage the driver and clock rate settings. Your description sounded like something similar to that happened.

I would be very surprised if Rainmeter is related though, I don't think it comes with any features that can change settings in your driver or Windows (unless there are some plugins for that) and I know that many people use it in conjunction with Wallpaper Engine too.

When was the driver released that you are using now?

[eXcalpius]

The December x64 build on my multimonitor W10x64 FCU OS works flawlessly. But any of the recent betas will hard Freeze/BSOD my system after a time.

In an effort to help, my setup is probably pretty unique in that I'm using 3x30" (2560x1600) monitors on an nvidia 970. But the key difference, and why I have to use the x64 build, is that I run a number of HD resolution 1 hour long videos on one of my monitors and I cache it all in RAM (to avoid constant disk access) when they play. I have 12 GB of RAM and so even taking 5 gb or so doesn't affect my other applications.

Otherwise, I assume my setup is like any other multimonitor user. And it runs for days on the Dec release build with no problems.

Is there a change that was made to these beta builds that might be the culprit?

Note that I am running the 390.77 drivers as recommended. Newer sets have crashed, so that doesn't seem to be the culprit.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide with your AMAZING program.

[Biohazard]

Can you link the wallpapers that you are using here? I would have to check to be sure but I don't think I touched video wallpapers at all since then.

If you switch back to the normal version, not the beta, you don't have any issues?

Edit: I did find a small change concering the startup/shutdown of Windows' video engine I'm using. Does your issue occur while the wallpaper is playing? Or perhaps only when your display/system goes asleep - or something similar happens?

[eXcalpius]

There is never any problem during the normal version. This occasional freeze behavior only occurs if I switch to any of the recent beta builds. Previous beta builds would occasionally crash Wallpaper Engine (of course) but never would freeze the whole system.

I randomly shuffle through anywhere from 20 to 50 wallpapers (scenes, videos, web apps) on each monitor, changing hourly (no change on pause). Mostly the greatest hits of your "approved of" selections. One playlist per monitor. I am absolutely an extreme test case for this wonderful product. :)

There is no sound playing as Video Audio Output is unchecked in settings. Video Framework is Prefer Media Foundation. In Memory/Device Path/DX11 are the other key settings. The GF970 has 3.5.4 gb of video ram but running MS Afterburner/etc. seems to show no significant usage issues there.

I rarely run Audio responsive wallpapers so none of them were running at any of these crashes. And no music player was running at the time, so I don't think this is audio related.

Regarding your Windows Video Engine question: To the best of my understanding, the crashes have been happening when the wallpapers are actively playing as I am always using the machine when they crash. However, they might be paused on a per screen basis by a full screen app like MPC-HC or PotPlayer playing video (using MadVR as the rendering engine). It has never crashes upon the monitors going to sleep or waking up from sleep. The system itself never sleeps.

Does any of that help you track things down? Would you like me to test an alternate setting/approach under the beta builds?

[Biohazard]

Thanks for the additional info, for now, perhaps you could do this:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/2/1473095331509794520/

Also did you make sure Afterburner/RTSS does not affect Wallpaper Engine? Because yes, that will screw up your graphics driver, Afterburner/RTSS may load into Wallpaper Engine by default and then bug itself and your drivers.

[eXcalpius]

Afterburner and Riva Statistics Server were running in the background but never seemed to hook into Wallpaper Engine as my shortcut toggle would never give the overlay results on any WE screen. I have now disabled them from starting at boot since they were part of another test process a while ago.


Here is the pastebin run with the released version of WE:

https://pastebin.com/ASYLqJu4

I will reboot, confirm afterburner and RSS are not running, update to the beta and check that. :).

Running beta now. One thing: When Steam installs and tries to restart, it ran the 32 bit version, which clearly causes the large custom video wallpapers to lose their preview images in the playlist. When I reload the playlist, those items are unchecked and won't even load up, even in the 64 bit version. I have to quit out, run it again in x64, recheck the missing items (thank you for the folders, that helps speed this up), and resave the playlist. The x64 version plays as normal going forward, after a reboot, etc. So this is more of an installing new version hiccup issue. In my case, I will never want to run the x32 version, so I'm sure a toggle for this is on your to do list somewhere. :)

I'll let you know if it crashes.

Edit: 48 hours later. So far so good. With afterburner and RSS offline, this beta has been as stable as the release was with them enabled. That does point to some kind of conflict between them. Good call. I'll only reply again if it bombs out, of course. Thanks! :)