Strange window focus "flickering" on Windows 11

[ChrisKret]

Hi all,

I got a strange issue on my machine...  whenever I start using my Affinity tools, its only a matter of minutes until the focus handling of all my opened programs/windows starts to behave strange. In an interval of about a second or two, the icons in the bottom right corner of windows start to flash and it "feels" as if someone presses ALT + TAB all the time.

Even if I close the Affinity-Tools, the issue goes on. I need to restart the PC / relogon to stop this issue. I can't see anything strange in the task manager. My device drivers are up to date... I'm running a pretty recent system (Ryzen 3900x / RTX 2080).

Please note, that this issue only appears with Affinity Designer / Publisher / Photo and no other program.

Has anyone experienced similar issues?

 

Best regards

Chris

[Komatös]

Hi @ChrisKret

Please try with deactivated hardware acceleration in the Affinity programmes. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Performance. Untick Hardware Acceleration (OpenCL).

[v_kyr]

Hi and welcome!

Do you have in the Affinity apps the OpenCL hardware acceleration settings (under the Affinity Preferences -> Performance options settings) enabled or disabled? - If they are per default enabled, disable them and resstart the Affinity apps for tryouts if the problem goes away then or persists!

[ChrisKret]

1 minute ago, Komatös said:

Hi @ChrisKret

Please try with deactivated hardware acceleration in the Affinity programmes. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Performance. Untick Hardware Acceleration (OpenCL).

Hi @Komatös

I already deactivated that some weeks ago. I read it somewhere but the problem still occurs.

[Dan C]

Hi @ChrisKret,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

30 minutes ago, ChrisKret said:

Even if I close the Affinity-Tools, the issue goes on

30 minutes ago, ChrisKret said:

Has anyone experienced similar issues?

I can confirm this has been reported previously in the below thread - however it's also been reported elsewhere online for other apps running on Windows 11. Affinity has no control over this area of your taskbar and as the issues persists once the Affinity app has been closed, this would indicate the issue is with Windows 11 itself.

More information can be found here -

I'd recommend contacting Microsoft to report this issue to them directly. It's possible this is caused due to how Microsoft are handling the Affinity clipboard data, as the clipboard was overhauled for Windows 11 and there are no such issues on Windows 7, 8 or 10.

It may be worth trying with Windows Clipboard History disabled, as well as 'Clipboard Sharing' disabled, which is also a new Windows 11 feature.

I hope this helps!

[ChrisKret]

3 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Hi @ChrisKret,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

I can confirm this has been reported previously in the below thread - however it's also been reported elsewhere online for other apps running on Windows 11. Affinity has no control over this area of your taskbar and as the issues persists once the Affinity app has been closed, this would indicate the issue is with Windows 11 itself.

More information can be found here -

I'd recommend contacting Microsoft to report this issue to them directly. It's possible this is caused due to how Microsoft are handling the Affinity clipboard data, as the clipboard was overhauled for Windows 11 and there are no such issues on Windows 7, 8 or 10.

It may be worth trying with Windows Clipboard History disabled, as well as 'Clipboard Sharing' disabled, which is also a new Windows 11 feature.

I hope this helps!

Hi and thank you

I checked both settings and they were disabled all the time...

BUT: if I think about it, it might be right, that it has something to do with the clipboard. I'll look at this a bit more and try to figure out when it happens

 

[ChrisKret]

43 minutes ago, ChrisKret said:

Hi and thank you

I checked both settings and they were disabled all the time...

BUT: if I think about it, it might be right, that it has something to do with the clipboard. I'll look at this a bit more and try to figure out when it happens

 

Funny thing: I enabled "Copy as SVG" in the options (I read it somewhere) and re-enabled the hardware acceleration.

It seems to work for the moment...

[Dan C]

3 minutes ago, ChrisKret said:

I enabled "Copy as SVG" in the options

Thanks for letting me know and I'm glad to hear this has helped - enabling this option changes the way that Affinity saves data to the clipboard and no longer writes it in the Affinity format, which I believe Windows 11 has issues handling currently.

I'll certainly bear this in mind, should any other users report this problem here

[fentas]

I have a simalar issue but more like this one: 

 

 

Wired thing is that it happens as soon I open a second file. Windows 11 will go down. Makes no difference if I close Affinity. Have to sign out/in at least.

I observed also in the task manager that it seems that windows reinitilizes all open user applications (appear and disapper) in the same time when e.g. context (right click) disappears or the keyboard is unresponsive.

Will try the svg thing though. Let's see if this will help.

EDIT: this "Copy as SVG" option seemed to fixed it, funny enough.

Edited July 24, 2022 by fentas

[Dan C]

Hi @fentas,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

Sorry to hear you're having trouble! I'm glad to hear that the Copy as SVG option has reduced this issues occurrence, but as mentioned in previous threads reporting this issue here and the Reddit thread provided, it's understood this is an issue with the Windows 11 installation itself.

Have you tried reinstalling Windows 11 from scratch, as the Reddit thread links suggests?

I have had at least 2 users here on the Affinity Forums confirmed this resolved the issue, but I do understand the frustrations with reinstalling your OS.

I hope this helps!