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Main => Beta Testing => Topic started by: Alvisar on February 24, 2011, 09:34:54 AM

Title: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Alvisar on February 24, 2011, 09:34:54 AM
My screen starts Flashing when the game starts.  Anyone have any suggestions.  Running the latest Beta Release.

Here's a video of the behavior:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNzNnqnpeQE


Thanks in advance for your help!
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Stuart Murray on February 24, 2011, 09:55:39 AM
I get one screen flash when I start my tourneys and one when I buy in my first player to a new tourney, interesting, yours is obviously a lot worse as it flashes every second.

Unfortunately I don't have an answer for you.

Stu
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on February 24, 2011, 11:05:50 AM
Thank you for posting this so I can see it firsthand.  I've never seen flashing like this.  Is it possible the screen saver (within the TD) is activating?  What are your screen saver preferences?  Are the two settings ("Enable screen saver" and "Suppress Windows screen saver") disabled?  If not, can you post a screen shot of the Preferences tab with the Screen Saver item selected?
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on February 24, 2011, 11:06:19 AM
Also, did this happen with 2.5.11, or is this the first version you've used?
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Alvisar on February 24, 2011, 11:36:00 AM
Both Enable Screen Saver and Suppress Windows Screen saver are unchecked.

I've never had this problem before with prior versions.  Also, this problem didn't immediately start after the upgrade.  I changed something, somehwhere....but can't pinpoint what I changed to cause this behavior.


I tried loading an old "default.tdt" that I had, but that didn't work either. 
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on February 24, 2011, 12:30:53 PM
Very odd.  So it basically just started doing this one day and now, no matter what layout you use or what tournament you load, it always does it?  Would you mind performing a backup of everything and sending it to me?

On the Database tab, press the Backup button, select all checkboxes, then attach the resulting ZIP file to an email to support@thetournamentdirector.net.

I've seen some occasional flashing, but actually on the Settings window and not the Game window.  And I figured it had something to do with IE 8, to be honest.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Alvisar on February 24, 2011, 12:35:41 PM
I think you might have just found the root of the problem.  I'll send you a backup in a couple of minutes, but just realized the "variable" that changed.  I upgraded to IE9 a couple of weeks ago and I think that *might* have been when it started.

Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Magic_fubu on February 24, 2011, 12:46:32 PM
IE9 is going to be the culprit - from other threads, Corey was able to determine it' incompatable at the present time.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Alvisar on February 24, 2011, 01:04:56 PM
Yeah, and uninstalling IE9 on my machine has not been fun so far.  I'm still having issues getting IE to work again in general, but will work around it.

Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on February 24, 2011, 05:09:18 PM
I did restore your backup and tried a few tournaments and everything seemed to work OK.  But IE9 really is the likely cause.  Wait for the final IE9 - that's the best bet.  They worked out all the kinks as far as the TD was concerned by the time IE 7 and IE 8 went RC.  Let's hope IE 9 is the same.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: GreenTurtle on February 27, 2011, 12:20:38 AM
I have EXACTLY the same issue on my computer with TD2.6 Beta 4 (and I've IE9 Final installed). The screen only flashes on Tournament tab. Can it have something to do with custom wallpapers?
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on February 28, 2011, 10:36:49 AM
Well, I'd be willing to bet IE9 is the culprit, but as to why this happens in IE9 is unknown.  Perhaps if you changed the background image or remove it, you wouldn't see this issue.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Alvisar on March 02, 2011, 11:33:20 AM
Removing the background image worked.  I also discovered a couple more interesting things.

1) With the image still being used, when you entered "Design Mode" the flashing begins.
2) Adjusting the Tiling on the Background properties sheet for the main screen also stopped the flashing.  I had tiling selected to Repeat X & Y.  When I checked "Don't Repeat" the flashing stopped and I could use my image. 

I think the fix for me is to change the size of my image to fit the screen instead of using tiling to make the image fit.  I'm sure it something to do with how IE9 handles images now.  Not really sure on that, I'm not an HTML guy.

Alvisar
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Alvisar on March 02, 2011, 11:59:06 AM
I was wrong.  Changing the tiling didn't stop the flashing.  I must have done something else that stopped it.  I didn't save my layout when I exited when I made the flashing go away, so it's back.  Maybe I'll be able to replicate it again.  Grrr.............


I have to completely remove the background image to make the flashing stop for now.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: GreenTurtle on March 03, 2011, 11:50:23 AM
Same here....
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Alvisar on March 03, 2011, 09:33:18 PM
I actually like the black background now instead of having the picture that I had.  The "info" on the screen displays better because of the contrast between the black background and white timer, blinds, etc.  Nice and clean.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on March 04, 2011, 01:55:15 PM
Thanks, Microsoft!  :-)
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: GreenTurtle on March 05, 2011, 12:28:49 AM
I actually like the black background now instead of having the picture that I had.  The "info" on the screen displays better because of the contrast between the black background and white timer, blinds, etc.  Nice and clean.

But that's not a solution (only a workaround). I like my background and have no plans to change it. Hopefully Corey will come up with a proper solution!
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on March 05, 2011, 09:19:38 AM
No, I won't, because this is not a Tournament Director bug.  It's an Internet Explorer bug.  You are using a *beta* version of Internet Explorer.  It will (and obviously does) have bugs.  This will most likely be resolved when IE9 is officially released.  If it does not, then I'll look into the TD possibly working around the bug.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: GreenTurtle on March 05, 2011, 10:11:07 AM
Nope, not using IE9 Beta, I've have IE9 Final installed .....
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on March 05, 2011, 10:40:35 AM
Uh, nope, IE9 has not been officially released yet.  You may have the RC version, but as the name implies, it is a Release *Candidate*.  It is not the official final version.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on March 07, 2011, 10:18:57 AM
Just as a followup: because the TD is hosted within IE, there is very little that the TD can do that cannot be done on a web site (some, but not much), so any problems that one sees with IE within the TD will also be a problem on a website that happens to use the same IE feature.  Thus, Microsoft has every incentive to fix these issues.  There were similar issues with IE7 and IE8 and the TD, if I recall correctly, all the way up to the RC versions.  When the final version was released, the issues were resolved and the TD continued to work just fine.  I'm crossing my fingers this will be the case with IE9.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Double Eagle on March 22, 2011, 10:09:05 PM
Any updates on this issue?  My TD started the flashing this last weekend also.  And yes, I downloaded and installed IE9 which was just published last week.

It seems the flashing may be at one second intervals that sync with the clock.  I can get it to stop by bringing up the menu, clicking one of the tabs and then clicking the Tournament button at the top.  It just randomly starts doing this.  So far, I have been able to get it to stop but it is annoying.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on March 23, 2011, 10:47:49 AM
Honestly I was expecting to hear from someone by now as to whether or not this was still an issue, and had assumed that no news was good news.  I began the process of upgrading one of my browsers to IE9 for testing but I've had some unexpected difficulties with the VM I need to use.  I've also had a family emergency this past week which has severely limited my time.  What version of the TD are you using?
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Alvisar on March 23, 2011, 11:23:38 AM
I still have the Flashing issue if I leave the image as a background. 

IE9 RTM version 9.0.8112.16421
TD: 2.6.b4

Alvisar
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Double Eagle on March 23, 2011, 12:13:54 PM
Honestly I was expecting to hear from someone by now as to whether or not this was still an issue, and had assumed that no news was good news.  I began the process of upgrading one of my browsers to IE9 for testing but I've had some unexpected difficulties with the VM I need to use.  I've also had a family emergency this past week which has severely limited my time.  What version of the TD are you using?

I am using the current version, 2.5.11.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on March 23, 2011, 10:43:17 PM
Thanks everyone.  As suspected this issue happens due to the TD setting the background properties on each screen update (which is at least once per second, sometimes more).  IE typically does not care if the visual properties of an element are updated to the same value, so the TD sets the screen's background image properties on every screen update, even if the properties haven't changed.  There's nothing wrong with doing this, and it has never caused a problem before.  IE9, for whatever reason, removes the background image and then re-renders it when you set the background image to the same value as it is currently set to (at least sometimes; in my brief testing and from your shared experiences, it doesn't appear to do this consistently).  That's why it appears to "flash" - the background color (white) is displayed for a second and then the background image is rendered again.  I fixed this by explicitly only setting the background properties when necessary.  It will be in 2.6 beta 5.
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: D71J on December 04, 2011, 06:03:07 AM
It seems this issue hasen't been resolved yet. Haven't used TD for a while (2 months), started using it again and
immediately the screen starts flashing when I run a tournament. Any solutions?

Best regards,

Dave
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on December 04, 2011, 10:49:38 AM
It's completely fixed for me, and I've heard of zero issues since releasing version 2.5.12.  What version of the software are you using?
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: D71J on December 05, 2011, 12:51:35 PM
I'm running 2.5.11 version. Wanted to update but it seems I have to pay again
to get the 3.0 version.

Best regards,

Dave
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: Corey Cooper on December 05, 2011, 12:56:56 PM
Download version 2.5.12 from the Tournament Director "download" page, using the link at the bottom of the page.

http://www.thetournamentdirector.net/download.html
Title: Re: Screen Flashing when Tournament Starts
Post by: D71J on December 05, 2011, 01:10:37 PM
Thx, Corey.
I will upgrade to version 3.0 in the future but I'm
going to wait until my season ends.

Best regards,

Dave