1.10.5 update gives me a blank screen

[Ted Meikle]

I updated to 1.10.5, and a few seconds after the update, I just got a black screen--no menus, no toolbars.

The program is running (it shows in task manager), but I cannot get out of this black screen.

I tried uninstalling the program, and reinstalling it, no joy. I tried uninstalling it and rebooting the computer and then reinstalling it, no joy.

Can anybody tell me how to get the menus back?

Thanks.

 

[Ted Meikle]

Update on my attempts to get my toolbars and menus back.  I uninstalled 1.10.5 and reinstalled 1.10.4, and I still have the same problem. Is there some magic shortcut key I accidentally hit that made all toolbars and menus disappear? Is there a magic shortcut I can hit to bring them back? I tried going through Ctrl + combinations, and Ctrl + N opens a New Document dialog box, but I cannot get anything else.

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, Ted.

A screenshot of the complete application window might help.

Tab would get rid of almost everything, and would be remembered across application restarts, but the basic Windows menu line (application icon in upper left, File, Edit, etc.) should be present.

If you've ever had multiple monitors, perhaps it's all showing up on a monitor you don't have connected at the moment?

[Ted Meikle]

Thanks for the reply.

Here are two screenshots. The blank one is what I get when I open Affinity, and the other, when I push Ctrl-N. I cannot get any other dialogs to open.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Ted Meikle

[walt.farrell]

And what do you get if, from the totally black one, you press Tab?

Do you have, or have you had, multiple monitors?

[Ted Meikle]

Tab has no effect.

I have three monitors, placed horizontally. The blank screen fills the center monitor with no overlap onto the left and right monitor.

 

[walt.farrell]

My only other idea at this point is some kind of application reset.

That can be done by holding the Ctrl key while starting the application, until you get a Clear User Data dialog. Depending on how your Windows system behaves, you might need to watch for the application icon on the taskbar and click on it before you release the Ctrl key. Then you would select all, and press Clear. But that will require you to reinstall any brushes, assets, presets, etc. that you've created or added (except anything synchronized from the Affinity Store using the My Account feature.

Alternatively, before starting the applicatioon, you could press the Windows key and R, and then type or paste this into the dialog box: %appdata%\affinity\photo
Then press OK. In the File Explorer dialog comes up, rename the 1.0 directory to something else like 1.0x, and then start the application. It will recreate that directory with fresh contents.

If that works, and you have any brushes, assets, etc. that you want to recover, you can stop the application again and copy the relevant files from 1.0x\user into the new 1.0x\user, replacing files that are already there. For examples, your brushes would be in raster_brushes.propcol, and your assets in assets.propcol.

[Ted Meikle]

Thanks! I did not have any custom brushes or such that I cared about, so I just did the hold-Ctrl option, and I the program opened with all the borders and menus etc., in a window spread across about 2/3 of my multiple monitors. I can then resize the window to what I want.

I can live with this. However, for some reason, if I click in the upper right to make it full screen, it goes back to the totally black screen, and to get out of that condition I have to do the Ctrl-open process again.

This is the only program that exhibits this behavior with my display setup.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Ted Meikle

[walt.farrell]

I think you should check the list of third-party software that is known to cause problems, as this has been reported before:

In that list, for example, Nvidia Surround causes your symptom, I think. And Duet Display can cause something similar.

[Ted Meikle]

Yup, my displays are run by NVidia Surround.

And like the report in the listing of known issues, if I put the window in the left monitor, I can maximize it just fine. But if I put it in the center or right monitor, it goes to the unresponsive all-black screen

Thanks for helping me figure out how to work around this.

 

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.