Sounds good. Yes, there are situations where we receive a cached version of the wallpaper from Windows even after getting the message. We call on Windows to draw the wallpaper which is blurred, so we have to wait until Windows itself reloads the wallpaper – and that time can be unpredictable. So, we have a backup-sweep kick in 20 seconds after, to ensure the correct wallpaper is captured. Usually, this all works fine right away, but in some cases we've heard about, this cache-issue type problem occurs, hence the fallback mechanism, which we'll continue to refine over time.

The fallback mechanism was previously set up around monitor changes; this extends that to also kick in for regular wallpaper switches. 

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm glad it's now not getting perma-stuck. 🙏 And thanks for your patience.

btw, please tell me more about this?

One more like that and your Fences purchase will be refunded and your account will be closed. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

The strange thing is that I'm seeing the background of the Fences change now even when the Windows Background doesn't change at all... It corrects itself, but it still swaps them multiple times throughout the day.

You have got to be kidding me! Go ahead and refund ALL of my purchases then; I'm doing QA for your team for free, and, in fact, I PAID for the software that I'm helping to troubleshoot so I basically paid you to do QA work, and you pull that kind of crap?

That is the most unprofessional thing I've experienced in a LONG time. I've already got screenshots of this garbage. I know you are a small team, so I don't know how much power you ACTUALLY have as a Project Lifecycle Manager, but that kind of response is ridiculous and I'll make sure that the right people find out about it. 

Check your ego or refund me.

Ego has nothing to do with this, NttR; it is common respect for the people that are are indeed trying to resolve it (3 of us in this thread). You are indeed performing a helpful service to us, one we thank you a great deal for.  However, what will not be tolerated is this

If that can be avoided, we would very much like to continue working with you.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Yikes & noted. Seeing any pattern? Any screenshots or does it correct too quickly? What do the Fence background change to- just “the wrong thing” or any hints where it might be coming from

I can think of a tweak that might help the situation, related to the fix. Will get a new build made this weekend, so new build to share start if next week.

I’ve added a great deal of debug logging, so when Advanced Logging is enabled from Troubleshooting menu, we’ll be gathering some good info/hints. I can think of one additional useful piece of debug that I can add this weekend.

Thank you!

It is always the image from my second monitor. 

I run 2 monitors stacked on top of each other - Both Samsung: 

LC49G95T (top)

Odyssey G95NC (bottom)

The screenshot would be the same I've already given you - you can see that it is from the opposite monitor's background.

I don't love that I don't have an answer to why it's doing this – not sure if it has to do with monitor's going to sleep & waking up, or caching on Windows' side, DisplayFusion or something else still somehow modifying the images etc, but this is behavior I have not seen. For some reason clearly it's loading up at least temporarily some sort of incorrectly positioned image from Windows' PaintDesktop function.

I do assume you're using Windows' "Slideshow" functionality to rotate between the two wallpapers correct. Or is something else responsible for changing them. In the log I see it moving between C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\DisplayFusion\Wallpaper_2.jpg and C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\DisplayFusion\Wallpaper_1.jpg

Made another swing at it and put even more more debug data in there to try to help figure it out, as well as more tuning of the algorithm (which could help or hurt, tbd). More on Monday.

When advanced logging is on, am now checksumming both the wallpaper file reported by windows as well as the result of the PrintDesktop function (+ other related critical data), so this should help give us an idea of where things are going terribly terribly wrong

I'm not too familiar with how DisplayFusion sorts the images, but it looks like it uses a single picture and changes the image that Windows uses. 

Thanks for the screenshot - helpful. So it seems it's not even using Windows' Slideshow functionality – it manually changes the images, which I assume you have multiple images set in DF to rotate through. (Possibly possibly possibly, even when you've shut it down; could be some background service or Scheduled Task in play continuing the rotation; unclear.) In either case it does seem like a caching issue with Windows' PaintDesktop function, which when the wallpaper is changed in the manner in which DF is changing it, doesn't react fast enough and causes OUR caching to display some goofiness. In regular scenarios of changing the wallpaper via Windows settings or "Set as desktop wallpaper" context menu item, PaintDesktop's cache is already invalidated by the time the WM_SETTINGCHANGE message comes in, but with DF (or possibly any external app) changing it, there's a delay.

Odd because lots of our users use DisplayFusion, but we have not heard of this one before.

As discussed, I did take some additional swings at tuning the mechanism (we'll see if that helps/resolves – specifically, it breaking at random time intervals), in addition to adding just a ton of more debug code. So hopefully one of the two gets us closer or resolves. You can download it here:

https://cdn.stardock.us/support/uploads/Fences5_5.8.6.2-j149-Setup.exe

Per last time, you can turn on Advanced Debug Logging from troubleshooting and then install the new build, reboot, and it'll then be collecting data. After a sufficient # of times it has broken are collected, do the "Create Error Report Log" and send the latest and we can go eyes-on to look for clues for the next round of questions.

Ty for the help! Hopefully we can get this resolved or moved forward for you.

Uploaded. I haven't noticed the issue since the new install though... That being said, I've been working and haven't been able to watch the Fences the entire time. 

Also, if it helps, I have DisplayFusion Pro 10.1.2

Hi NttR, just checking to see how this is going for you. Still no issue since new install? (I understand you've been working so may not notice.)

I was just going to check in with you guys. 

I didn't notice it for a while, but I do see it happen when the desktops change still. However, it does correct itself about 15-25s after the change. So, ultimately it seem to be ok now and isn't getting stuck.