Problem: episodic FARR error - a non-appearing active FARR window.

[IainB]

Anyone have any ideas about this?
Ever since going to Win 8 (now using Win8.1-64 PRO)  I have been having an annoying episodic error with FARR, and which is not always repeatable. DcUpdater says I have the current/latest version of FARR as 2.213.01.

The symptoms are this:

• 1. The FARR process has been started and is already running.
• 2. The hotkey combo has already been set as FN+Pause.
• 3. Pressing the hotkeys, FARR sometimes does not display at all, or the display is barely perceptible as a very faint image, as though it was partially hidden by the background or semi-transparent. At these times, it is unusable - it can't be clicked on or brought to front as the active window. It can only be closed by terminating the FARR process via the Task Manager, or similar.
  As a test, I set a sound file to run when the FARR display is brought up, and that seems to consistently work OK.
• 4. Restarting FARR does not always fix this problem.

Thinking it might be some incompatibility/conflict that would disappear after a Windows Update, I have waited in vain for this FARR display error to cease. I have started avoiding using FARR because it is made unreliable/unusable and a PITA by this error.

Not sure whether this is related, but I have also been having a problem with InfoSelect 8, where, though the proggie starts up OK and works OK, the screen display does not refresh after you move the navigation keys - even after several moves/changes - that is until you move the mouse over the middle to RHS of the screen and that then seems to force a refresh to what the latest state of the screen should be after the navigation changes/moves.
I have spent hours checking, reinstalling and resetting IS8 features, thinking that there might be some kind of corrupted file or database, but all seems tickety-boo.

The screen display seems to work fine in all other situations otherwise and tests out OK and with current drivers, etc., so I think it cannot be a GPU display issue per se.

[mouser]

Do you have any network mapped drives? Launched any files that are on sometimes-removable hard drives?  If you open your file explorer, do you seen any drive letters that are from a scanner or similar device?

[IainB]

@mouser: In response to your Qs:
1. Network mapped drives: There are no network mapped drives.
2. Launching files from removable hard drives: I do sometimes launch files (videos) that are on removable hard drives, but this is relatively rare. I wouldn't usually want to invoke FARR whilst a video was playing though.
3. Drive letters from scanner or similar device: There are no such and no other attached devices. The only drives are:

• C: the main hard disk drive.
• D: a DVD drive, but it cannot see/play DVDs due to a so far unfixed and apparently common Toshiba+Win8 error.
• E: an SDHC card, entirely used for Readyboost function.
• W: A Wuala encrypted partition on the C: drive, that Windows thinks is a "disconnected network drive" when it is not in use - which is most of the time.

The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L855D and has an optionally installed proprietary Toshiba hard disk read/write caching accelerator which occupies a segment of RAM.

[IainB]

Just an update.
After further puzzling, I've determined to resolve this problem. I'll try to make a note of what's running whenever this problem occurs again, and post it as a note in this thread. That could be useful.
I hadn't been doing that (making a note) so far, as I had been lazily waiting for the problem to "go away" with a system update.
I suspect it might not be a problem with FARR, but something in the system that is somehow causing an interrupt to the screen refresh task in FARR.
FARR is one of the most useful tools in my toolbox and I want to get it back functioning properly and consistently.

[IainB]

Update: 2016-07-21 2300hrs
Using Win10-64 PRO.
This event of a non-display of the FARR UI in the foreground still keeps recurring, and I haven't found any other application of note that coincides with the event(s).
I now know that it is happening (I can see the FARR UI sort of dimly flickering in the background, as it were) and my workaround is to press the "tilde" key slowly a few times until the FARR UI comes up to the foreground.

I have also noticed that when the FARR UI is in the foreground, it stays there just fine, but when I select Help | Check for updates, the FARR UI does not go away but persists unaltered and I can't see the DCupdater window - though I suspect that the latter has come up behind the FARR UI. My workaround is to repeat the Help | Check for updates steps until the FARR UI suddenly goes away to reveal several DCupdater windows in progress. Since this is a tad annoying I generally only check for updates infrequently.

[IainB]

I might have accidentally stumbled upon the cause of this.
I was fiddling with FARR OPTIONS - Advanced Visuals today. I switched off all transparency and unticked Alpha Fade into view. This seems as though it may have stopped the problem from recurring - touch wood.
Not sure whether it was one or both settings that did it though.

Shall report back if it recurs.

[IainB]

Well, it has not recurred so far.
So an effective workaround seems to be:
In Options | Advanced Visuals:

• Switch off all transparency and
• untick Alpha Fade into view

_______________________
FARR version is v2.226.01
OS is Win10-64 PRO