Bug: Windows Task bar doesn't show that Logos is running
This has been bugging me for years. Logos doesn't consistently show on the Windows Taskbar. See the screenshot below:
If you have the app pinned to the taskbar, the often it's not highlighted to say that it's running. As a result, when you click on it to go back, it tries to load the program from scratch (you get the splashscreen and everything), and it takes much longer to switch.
It's not consistent, and I haven't worked out what causes it to disappear, but it is very annoying.
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I have seen it disappear mostly after I have been in reading view sometime during a session.
But is this a Logos problem or a Windows problem (that Logos needs to work around)?
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I remember reading this and thinking I have not seen it. Just now I noticed it - this is Windows 10, notice the blue bar under the Word icon to its right, this shows the program is running. I am using Verbum, you can see that of course it is running:
I read Sean's post about the reading view, and today for the first time in a long while I used reading view!
So I closed Verbum (6.7), and reopened it - the blue bar is there! I brought up ESV - blue icon is there. I went into show reading view (not using F11 if that matters, but the menu option), then hit Esc to exit reading view. Blue icon is gone!
Congratulations Sean, you nailed it! Bug! Repeatable!
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Sean said:
I have seen it disappear mostly after I have been in reading view sometime during a session.
I never use reading view, but I see this frequently.
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I added a bug for this. Thanks!
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Mark Barnes said:
It's not consistent, and I haven't worked out what causes it to disappear, but it is very annoying.
We can't reproduce this. We're going to need a consistent repro before we can try to investigate and fix it.
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I can't consistently reproduce it, but here's a log from an occasion where it happened again.
For the first time ever I managed to get the icon back, by moving Logos from one screen to another. I'm going to try a screen capture...
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OK, I captured on video the icon appearing/disappearing. Still not entirely reproducible, but a step forward, perhaps.
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We can't reproduce this. We're going to need a consistent repro before we can try to investigate and fix it.
I think I can now give you some steps that will reproduce this:
- Open Logos to a blank layout and maximize it.
- Open a Bible into the right half of the screen (I used the shortcut bar).
- Right-click on the tab that has just opened and choose "Open in a floating window".
- Close the floating window.
Now, move Logos to a different screen, maximize it, and repeat steps 2-4. Keep doing this a few times, whilst observing the icon in the task bar. After a few tries you should notice that when you close the floating window, the indicator that shows Logos is running also disappears. Usually it will happen in the first 3 or 4 attempts. I've done this about 15 times this morning, and every time it's failed during the first 7 attempts.
If anyone else with a dual monitor set up on Windows has five minutes spare and wants to see if they can reproduce this, I'd appreciate that.
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Hi Mark
I've just tried this and it doesn't "break" for me - I think I tried about 10/11 times.
Frustrating because I am seeing this issue more than me but can't work out reliably why it happens.
Graham
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Mark Barnes said:
It's not consistent, and I haven't worked out what causes it to disappear, but it is very annoying.
We can't reproduce this. We're going to need a consistent repro before we can try to investigate and fix it.
Bumping this thread. It really should be in either the Logos 6 or General forum as it's not [just] a beta issue.
Any progress on fixing this problem? It's really getting tedious to have to alt-tab to find Logos or see if I've started it in the current session or not, especially when I've got a lot of other programs running.
I can click on the Logos icon I've got pinned to the taskbar to switch to it, but you've got this annoying thing set where it has to show the splashscreen for a full 3 seconds before returning me to the program. If you can't figure out how to stop the disappearance from the taskbar, at least get rid of that behavior..
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Sean said:
you've got this annoying thing set where it has to show the splashscreen for a full 3 seconds before returning me to the program
There is no intentional delay in the splash screen. As soon as it shows the splash image, it searches for a running instance of Logos.exe and (if it finds it) switches to it immediately. I just ran the splash screen now and it activated my running Logos in well under a second.
I'm not sure if the three second delay is related to the disappearance of the icon from the taskbar. Is it possible that Logos crashed and clicking the taskbar icon is launching a new copy?
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I'm not sure if the three second delay is related to the disappearance of the icon from the taskbar. Is it possible that Logos crashed and clicking the taskbar icon is launching a new copy?
Definately not. I'm set to open to a blank workspace, so I would know if it crashed.
What processes should normally be running? Just Logos.exe and LogosCEF.exe?
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I'm not sure if the three second delay is related to the disappearance of the icon from the taskbar. Is it possible that Logos crashed and clicking the taskbar icon is launching a new copy?
No, it's not possible. I experience very few crashes with Logos these days.
A few times later in the day it was faster but definitely more than a second. But even that becomes tedious when I'm switching back and forth between windows C&P-ing verses etc.
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Sean said:
A few times later in the day it was faster but definitely more than a second. But even that becomes tedious when I'm switching back and forth between windows C&P-ing verses etc.
You make it sound like it's happening for you frequently, maybe even every few minutes; is that the case? Can you capture a screencast or steps to reproduce?
I'm just not even sure what could be causing this problem, and without a consistent repro here it's going to be very hard to track it down. (Generally the Window Styles control whether a window has a taskbar button—see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2262726/determining-if-a-window-has-a-taskbar-button—but Logos isn't changing the window style at runtime, so I don't know why the taskbar button would just disappear.)
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Just to confirm: when this problem happens, the Logos window still appears in the Alt+Tab task switcher; is that correct?
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Yes. Logos always appears in the alt-tab switcher, and that works.
The problem is not the lag with the splashscreen when clicking the icon after the program is already running. The problem is the running Logos program disappearing from the taskbar, necessitating either alt-tabbing or clicking the icon & waiting through the splashscreen.
Logos is the only program I've ever experienced to disappear from the taskbar like this. I'd guess the phenomenon happens 100% of the time after I've been in reading mode, which I usually do every day the first time I run the program. I don't know why Logos does this when no other program I have does.
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You make it sound like it's happening for you frequently, maybe even every few minutes; is that the case? Can you capture a screencast or steps to reproduce?
It's not that the taskbar icon disappears frequently, it's that it disappears almost permanently (until you restart). If you switch to Logos using the pinned taskbar icon (rather than ALT+TAB, which is fine), then Logos will re-load, showing the splashscreen, which does take a few seconds longer. If you frequently switch between Logos and other apps using the mouse, this can quickly get very annoying.
I will capture this on video next time it happens.
Can I ask two questions of everyone experiencing this problem:
- Do you have the Logos icon pinned to the taskbar?
- Do you have multiple monitors?
Personally, I never use Reading View, so in my case the problem isn't linked to that feature.
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Mark Barnes said:
Can I ask two questions of everyone experiencing this problem:
- Do you have the Logos icon pinned to the taskbar?
- Do you have multiple monitors?
Yes to both (two monitors)
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I have a preliminary new observation: If I have more than one Logos window open, as illustrated below, the second one remains on the taskbar even if the first one for the main program disappears.
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Doesn't really help much.
ETA: And, the main window also just came back. Normally it doesn't do that, and, when I used this layout with two windows earlier, it didn't disappear at all. Perhaps herein lies a temporary work around, at least until FL comes up with a solution that I'm sure they're very diligently working on?
Mark Barnes said:Can I ask two questions of everyone experiencing this problem:
- Do you have the Logos icon pinned to the taskbar?
- Do you have multiple monitors?
1. Yes.
2. No, never.
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Bradley,
Which app should be pinned to the taskbar?
C:\Users\mark\AppData\Local\Logos\Logos.exe or
C:\Users\mark\AppData\Local\Logos\System\Logos.exeIn my case, it's the former.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Can you capture a screencast or steps to reproduce?
Here's a screen capture of it happening, captured this morning. I reduced the resolution for reasons of space, but hopefully it's still useful. If not, I have the original capture file at high-res. I also saved a log from process monitor if it's helpful.
In the video I thought the icon disappeared after opening a floating window, but if you look closely (around 1:23) it actually goes when I open the NIV resource for the second time, before I pop-it up in a floating window.
You'll be better off downloading the video rather than viewing it in the browser. My browser cuts off a few crucial pixels at the bottom.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Mark Barnes said:
Which app should be pinned to the taskbar?
C:\Users\mark\AppData\Local\Logos\Logos.exe or
C:\Users\mark\AppData\Local\Logos\System\Logos.exeIn my case, it's the former.
That is correct.
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Has there been any progress towards resolving this problem? It's getting increasingly annoying as it interferes with my workflow.
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Do you have consistent steps to repro?
(Sorry to sound like a broken record, but unless we can reliably reproduce the problem—which, so far we've been unable to do—it's hard to diagnose the cause, and also hard to know that any potential fix is actually effective.)
Even if it's not 100% reproducible, capturing a screencast would be helpful because it might give us some clues as to how it's happening.
(The link to Mark's screencast posted earlier appears to be dead, so we currently don't have anything.)
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(The link to Mark's screencast posted earlier appears to be dead, so we currently don't have anything.)
The first video I uploaded has disappeared (and I don't have a copy), but the second one is still available. The proviso still applies:
Mark Barnes said:I reduced the resolution for reasons of space, but hopefully it's still useful. If not, I have the original capture file at high-res. I also saved a log from process monitor if it's helpful.
In the video I thought the icon disappeared after opening a floating window, but if you look closely (around 1:23) it actually goes when I open the NIV resource for the second time, before I pop-it up in a floating window.
You'll be better off downloading the video rather than viewing it in the browser. My browser cuts off a few crucial pixels at the bottom.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Do you have consistent steps to repro?
This nearly always makes it happen for me:
- Start Logos
- Open a book to read
- Press F11 to enter reading mode
- Press F11 to exit--> Logos disappears from taskbar.
[quote](Sorry to sound like a broken record, but unless we can reliably reproduce the problem—which, so far we've been unable to do—it's hard to diagnose the cause, and also hard to know that any potential fix is actually effective.)
Even if it's not 100% reproducible, capturing a screencast would be helpful because it might give us some clues as to how it's happening.
Sorry, don't have one & don't have the time to learn how to do that. No other software I use does this. If it would help I'll attach logs, but you guys need to figure out what's wrong with your product. As Mark posted originally, this problem has been around for years, and two users already told you in posts #2 & #3 how it triggers for them--eight months ago.
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Sean said:
This nearly always makes it happen for me:
- Start Logos
- Open a book to read
- Press F11 to enter reading mode
- Press F11 to exit--> Logos disappears from taskbar.
FWIW, I've never been able to reproduce the problem by going into reading mode. For me it's always opening or docking floating windows.
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I do not know how to make a video. This sequence of screenshots, however, shows exactly what happens, exactly as I described above. Note that this was after I had been using Logos for some time during the day. The icon with program name at some point came back on the taskbar, but then simply opening a book in a blank layout and switching in and out of the F11 Reading View made it disappear again.
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OK, here's another video that shows it occurring on demand. On my setup it's 100% repeatable. Here are repeatable steps to reproduce the error, as shown on the video:
- Open Logos maximised to a blank workspace.
- Open a resource by dragging from the shortcut bar.
- Move Logos to the other screen and maximise it.
- Move it back to the first screen and maximise it.
- Open the existing resource in a floating window. At this point the floating window will show in the taskbar, but the main desktop will disappear.
But you can actually do it even quicker.
- Open Logos maximised to a blank workspace.
- Move Logos to the other screen and maximise it. (Don't click anywhere except the title bar.)
- Move it back to the first screen. At this point the icon will disappear.
Dual-screen setup. Windows 10 Pro. nVidia graphics.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Thanks for the video and detailed instructions, Mark. So far, it hasn't happened to me (on a three-monitor system) by performing those steps.
For those who are affected, does entering "set custom chrome to no" into the command box prevent the problem from happening? (That command will take effect immediately, but it may be worth restarting the program before attempting to reproduce the problem.)
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For those who are affected, does entering "set custom chrome to no" into the command box prevent the problem from happening? (That command will take effect immediately, but it may be worth restarting the program before attempting to reproduce the problem.)
I cannot reproduce this when custom chrome is set to "no". That does seem to be a workaround (and more importantly, I guess, narrows the problem down).
If I turn custom chrome back on, I can then reproduce it using the first set of steps (without needing to restart).
If the icon has disappeared with custom chrome on, then turning custom chrome off doesn't bring it back.
<edit>I'll leave custom chrome off for a few days to see whether the bug occurs under normal use.</edit>
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Thanks for the video and detailed instructions, Mark. So far, it hasn't happened to me (on a three-monitor system) by performing those steps.
For those who are affected, does entering "set custom chrome to no" into the command box prevent the problem from happening? (That command will take effect immediately, but it may be worth restarting the program before attempting to reproduce the problem.)
Initial tests show that that immediately fixed the problem for me.
Also--just having initially loaded a layout--Logos is now running, or at least loading resources and windows, MUCH faster. Seriously, layouts are loading in a fraction of the time previously.
What on earth was that setting, and why was it causing so much trouble?
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Sean said:
Thanks for the video and detailed instructions, Mark. So far, it hasn't happened to me (on a three-monitor system) by performing those steps.
For those who are affected, does entering "set custom chrome to no" into the command box prevent the problem from happening? (That command will take effect immediately, but it may be worth restarting the program before attempting to reproduce the problem.)
Initial tests show that that immediately fixed the problem for me.
Also--just having initially loaded a layout--Logos is now running, or at least loading resources and windows, MUCH faster. Seriously, layouts are loading in a fraction of the time previously.
What on earth was that setting, and why was it causing so much trouble?
My question as well: bump!
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Sean said:
What on earth was that setting, and why was it causing so much trouble?
It was introduced in 4.0a to solve a display problem - discussion at https://community.logos.com/forums/t/7480.aspx
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Graham Criddle said:Sean said:
What on earth was that setting, and why was it causing so much trouble?
It was introduced in 4.0a to solve a display problem - discussion at https://community.logos.com/forums/t/7480.aspx
Yes, but of what value is setting custom chrome to yes? Setting it to "no" greatly improved performance; by implication the reverse, the default of setting of "yes", greatly degrades it, at least in terms of rendering windows. The only advantage I see from the default "yes" is very slight and aesthetic only. It seems a very poor design decision if this is the case.
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Setting it to "yes" alllows the Home, Library, and Search buttons to paint over the top of the standard Windows application title bar:
And setting it to "no" fits everything within a standard Windows window "chrome" (the parts of the window that the OS renders):
Note that in my second screen shot, there is a white title bar above the Home, Library, Search buttons, and in the first screen shot, there is a blue title bar that goes behind them.
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Yes, but it is worth the performance hit?
My system is an i5-2450M with 4 GB memory & 1 GB of video. On a similar machine try loading a medium or large layout with chrome on then off. Which do you think the user would prefer--the aesthetic of the former or the speed of the latter?
If the past X years I had tracked all the time I spent waiting for resources to open up because "custom chrome" was set by default to "yes", added it up & billed someone for it--well, let's just say I'd be a good ways to a Logos 7 Gold package.
How much lag is acceptable for more pretties? Which do you prioritize in your design?
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The fastest thing would be to have no UI at all. [;)]
But seriously, this is the first I've heard that the custom window chrome comes with any noticable performance penalty. I just changed that setting, and it doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever in speed on my machine. (Not that I ran any benchmarks.) I also can't make the start button disappear, so I suspect that there's something more complicated than just "pretties are expensive" going on here, ie, some combination of multiple factors. We may (or may not) have discovered one of them in custom chrome. I wonder what the other (as yet) unknown factors are?
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Eli Evans said:
The fastest thing would be to have no UI at all.
But seriously, this is the first I've heard that the custom window chrome comes with any noticable performance penalty. I just changed that setting, and it doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever in speed on my machine. (Not that I ran any benchmarks.) I also can't make the start button disappear, so I suspect that there's something more complicated than just "pretties are expensive" going on here, ie, some combination of multiple factors. We may (or may not) have discovered one of them in custom chrome. I wonder what the other (as yet) unknown factors are?
Do please try to find out. I've never complained about the speed & performance of Logos before, just accepting it for what it was, but changing this made the difference between night & day.
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Users have reported performance benefits previously: Set Custom Chrome to No Performance Boost. Personally, I experience no benefit.
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Mark Barnes said:
Users have reported performance benefits previously: Set Custom Chrome to No Performance Boost. Personally, I experience no benefit.
Yes, people have posted that link a few time. It's from 2009.
In 2009 I had a 2002 Pentium 5 running Libronix. When I did finally get to upgrade to a better system a few years later, I didn't think I would need to scan through years of old forum threads for performance tips.
If it was known issue, it needed to be publicized more widely by the company. But it doesn't appear to have been that widely known.
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Sean said:
But it doesn't appear to have been that widely known.
Judging by the lack of interest since that post, it looks like it helps a very small percentage of people.
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