White window (4K Problem)

[Slymi100]

So i had the problem that when i start WE i would only see a white box with a blue glow.
I just figured out how i can get it to work and its seems like its only a 4K Resulution problem.
So when i want to change my Wallpaper its seems like the whole WE stuff isnt loading. (You only see this)[prntscr.com]
But the settings and Wallpaper creation tool was opening correctly.
After some reinstalls and googling i found nothing that has fixed it so i started to go throug the compatibility thing and stuff like that. But still nothing.

After a while i tried the Windows Scaling option (I have it on 175%) and i found out that when i set it to 125% i see this[prntscr.com] and when i set it to 100% i will see everything fine. (Screenshot)[prntscr.com]

So i think the whole WE stuff just goes somewhere else where it is not in the window.
But as i said "I think" so its just an assumption.

So if you have the scaling above 100% it could be the error.
You can just set it to 100% to change the Wallpaper after that you can set it back to the % you had befor. So everytime you want to change your Wallpaper you have to set the Windows scaling to 100%.

This fixed it for me.
I hope this will fix it for you aswell.

[Litvi]

I have the same issue, did what you said with the scalings and the window appeared again. The problem only started today after I installed a bunch of new wallpapers.

What seemed to cause it was installing a wallpaper and unsubscribing from it before the install was complete. From the point that I did that the ui was always white. I tried reinstalling a bunch of times, onto different drives too and with complete clean installs (deleting the folder in my steam directory) but that didnt help.
Thought it could've been directx that caused it but that had no recent updates, nor any of my other drivers.

Like you said, it could be a 4k issue with the UI but idk :/

[Biohazard]

There were some confirmations now that a part of the program 'ZoneAlarm' simply blocks the UI because it doesn't work right.

In general the UI supports any scaling in Windows, on Windows 7, 8 and 10. The inner window being offset like that makes it look like something is manipulating the program - because it specifically is set to not do this.

If you don't even have ZoneAlarm please share this log: https://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/1/3307213006836797842/

If you do have ZoneAlarm, try getting rid of it's 'Antitheft' feature. I don't know what that is, but that was causing this for someone else.

[Litvi]

I do not have ZoneAlarm so here you go: https://pastebin.com/0ninBnyS
Hope it helps.

[Tim]

ZoneAlarm uses core parts of Kaspersky, so that is likely the issue. Can you try adding an exception for the wallpaper_engine directory / executable in Kaspersky? Also try to generally completely disable and Kaspersky processes and see if the problem goes away.

[Litvi]

I've tried completely disabling Kaspersky and that didnt work. I'll try adding an exception but I dont understand how this just suddenly appears, I've used Kaspersky for well over 3 years now and never had this problem with WE.

[Biohazard]

Originally posted by Litvi:

I've tried completely disabling Kaspersky and that didnt work. I'll try adding an exception but I dont understand how this just suddenly appears, I've used Kaspersky for well over 3 years now and never had this problem with WE.

Any idea what recently changed on the PC?

This window that stays white is based on Google Chromium so it's like a web browser. What we know so far is that some anti-viruses just block it from loading its own files due to false detections. Unfortunately there is no log to understand what blocked it exactly and why.

Have you tried unsubscribing all the recent wallpapers in Steam that you subscribed just before this started? I can't imagine how, but if it's somehow caused by a wallpaper from Workshop, that should fix the issue then.

Can you provide another one of these log files, perhaps while the window is open? You have to open the white window and then you can run it from here if Steam doesn't allow you to run it: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine\bin\diagnostics64.exe

[Litvi]

To my knowledge nothing has changed on the PC. Definitely not in the middle of downloading a bunch of wallpapers. I was just browsing the workshop and suddenly the issue appeared. Unsubscribing from all the workshop wallpapers I had was one of the first things I did followed by a clean install. To no avail. Only following Slymi100's suggestion of Windows 10 scaling to reset the window worked thus far.
Steam didnt let me run the diagnostic so I did what you said and launched it directly, Here's the log: https://pastebin.com/SPL15Q5i

[Biohazard]

Thanks. Was this while Kaspersky was supposed to be disabled or did you have it enabled again? If it was enabled here, can you disable it another time and share this log while it's disabled? I'd like to see if it fully closes down and also doesn't load into the program anymore.

I'm looking into the scaling and subscriptions you mentioned, but so far I cannot draw any relation between these things. The scaling option in Windows works as expected for me. Is there maybe something more to it that I'm missing?

Please also share these two logs on pastebin, if they are too big, just share a bunch of the last lines that were logged:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine\bin\log.txt
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine\bin\debug.log

[Litvi]

This was while I had the WE launcher, 32bit.exe and 64bit.exe in my Kaskersky program exclusions.
As to the scaling options, I have 2 monitors. 1 that is 4k and another that is 1080p. The WE UI loads fine when I open and close the wallpaper engine window on my main 4k monitor. But when I have the WE window on my 1080p monitor and do the same it comes up white upon opening and closing the window. The UI scaling thing fixes it somehow. I have my resolution scaling set to 150% scaling. This causes the white window to occur. However, when I set it to 100% scaling and completely close out of WE and reload it, everything is fine. Mind you, the white error only happens on my 1080p monitor. Regardless of scaling, the window is always visible on my main 4k monitor.
Here are the logs you requested.
Log.txt: https://pastebin.com/YyRMh4C6
Debug log: https://pastebin.com/Y6zebawz

[Biohazard]

What if you resize the window after this happened?

I did see your two monitors in the log and tried the same already but to no avail. Is the 1080p monitor left or right from the 4k monitor in Windows? Can you try flipping them so the 1080p is on the left (not physically, just in Windows)?

[Litvi]

I cant resize the window while it's white (the white UI box just becomes unmovable), but I did try to resize it through windows with the scalings and that didnt work either.
My 4k monitor is on the left with the 1080p on the right. By flipping you mean just changing the resolution of my 4k monitor to 1080p?

[Biohazard]

I mean resizing the actual window, but you're right, you can't do that then.

In the Windows display options where you also have that scale option, you can choose whether the 1080p monitor is left or right from the 4k. I believe I figured out that this is a bug from Google Chromium and it will only happen when the window is opened on the right monitor with high DPI.

So if you order them in Windows to make the 1080p one virtually left of the 4k one, it should work on the 1080p one and break on the other. Just to confirm my suspicion.

Edit: Actually it is also dependent on where your primary monitor is. Suffice to say a lot of factors need to be met to replicate this. Besides that the same is caused by ZoneAlarm for a few people (though from what you are saying, I'm pretty sure now it is not related to any of that).

[Litvi]

Yeah I dunno really what else I can try. At least the windows scaling solution makes the program usable but if that didnt work I'd be at a complete loss for what to do.

[Biohazard]

Can you restart Steam and try the beta version: https://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/1/1746720717352689476/ (restarting makes sure that you have the latest.)

Yes, it is too complicated to understand the circumstances really, but I think I found a work around to whatever is screwed up in Chromium and hopefully it is fixed on the beta now.

[Litvi]

I just updated to the beta, it went through the initial install again. Opened fine on 4k screen but when I dragged it to the 1080p one and reopened the UI it's a white screen with a small fraction of the UI visible in the bottom right corner.
Edit: basically the same issue is persisting.