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Game alt-tabbing or flashing desktop [merged]


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@Dying Oblivion.8296 said:

@"Wevie.8972" said:I blame windows 10 entirely.

I wouldn't
automatically
blame Windows 10 / April for this. It could easily be GW2 that's doing something wrong that the previous builds of Windows tolerated better than April does. (There was a similar thing on iPhones - Apple released an update to iOS that made it less tolerant of a particular bug in apps, so those apps started crashing out and/or freezing. You'd think that was Apple's fault entirely, but the apps
were
buggy, and
were
doing something that the developer guides said not to do.)

I would.... Lets not forget that GW2 and GW1 have both been out for years as well as Windows 10 (Windows 10 first debuted in 2015), I never had problems with either GW's on Windows 7 and I didnt have any problems on Windows 10 till i updated to 1803 Creators Update. One would assume that Both NCsoft of Microsoft would of had more than enough time to bug fix and optimise their code no??

Not to mention that Microsoft has a history of releasing updates for windows 10 that broke things. Hence why some tech folk call windows 10 users ' Glorified beta testers'.

One would assume that it was the Windows update that borked everything no??? But go ahead pull the wool over your eyes and call GuildWars badly coded. I mean lets just make blind assumptions because we can right?

Not automatically. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. And if you say "I blame windows 10 entirely" like that, aren't you just making a blind assumption?

The key point is that without access to the code behind GW2, we don't know enough to just come out and say that it is Microsoft's fault. My point about the iOS update was that Apple released a new update, and a list of apps were borked as a result. I know, because I used one of them. Shortly after, the app developer released a patch. Given that, who was at fault? Apple for enforcing their rules, or the app developers for breaking them?

Now look at the Windows 10 versus GW1/GW2 situation: other games I've looked at don't do this. What's more likely? Two games do something dubious that's no longer supported fully by Windows, or an actual bug in Windows that only affects those two games?

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Same issue here, started immediately after applying Windows update 1803 which was the only change between not having the issue and having the issue.

Wonder if it's related to those new game related features I noticed, like it "hiding" notifications while in-game etc. That game bar was already annoying but seems they try to get their hooks even more in software you have installed.

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@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:

@"Wevie.8972" said:I blame windows 10 entirely.

I wouldn't
automatically
blame Windows 10 / April for this. It could easily be GW2 that's doing something wrong that the previous builds of Windows tolerated better than April does. (There was a similar thing on iPhones - Apple released an update to iOS that made it less tolerant of a particular bug in apps, so those apps started crashing out and/or freezing. You'd think that was Apple's fault entirely, but the apps
were
buggy, and
were
doing something that the developer guides said not to do.)

I would.... Lets not forget that GW2 and GW1 have both been out for years as well as Windows 10 (Windows 10 first debuted in 2015), I never had problems with either GW's on Windows 7 and I didnt have any problems on Windows 10 till i updated to 1803 Creators Update. One would assume that Both NCsoft of Microsoft would of had more than enough time to bug fix and optimise their code no??

Not to mention that Microsoft has a history of releasing updates for windows 10 that broke things. Hence why some tech folk call windows 10 users ' Glorified beta testers'.

One would assume that it was the Windows update that borked everything no??? But go ahead pull the wool over your eyes and call GuildWars badly coded. I mean lets just make blind assumptions because we can right?

Not
automatically
. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. And if you say "I blame windows 10 entirely" like that, aren't you just making a blind assumption?

The key point is that without access to the code behind GW2, we don't know enough to just come out and say that it is Microsoft's fault. My point about the iOS update was that Apple released a new update, and a list of apps were borked as a result. I know, because I used one of them. Shortly after, the app developer released a patch. Given that, who was at fault? Apple for enforcing their rules, or the app developers for breaking them?

Now look at the Windows 10 versus GW1/GW2 situation: other games I've looked at don't do this. What's more likely? Two games do something dubious that's no longer supported fully by Windows, or an actual bug in Windows that only affects those two games?

So....

Youre comparing some app coded in Java or C++ for a mobile OS thats made by mostly by anons -- the 'one-man-in his-bedroom' on a weekend type programmers who make an app which probably comes to a few kilobytes in code to Guildwars who had probably a team 10-20 if not more skilled and qualified programmers (and god knows how many animators) writing code for as a day job for a game that weighs way into the gigabytes, has multiple expansions on both games and probably made on a budget enough to buy a mansion in every major country in the world...

With that kind of statement, Im not going to waste my time debating further with you as its clear that you live in a different world.

All you need to know is the Windows update messed up guild wars as well as other non gaming apps. Google is rife with reports of Creators Update 1803 issues.

but cool... if you think its the guildwars team that has coded the game badly, then more power to you.

Dont forget your tinfoil hat on the way out.

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Created a ticket last night, got a quick response with the log app. Hopefully as many people as possible are sending their logs into support to get this figured out. Clearly there are people running the latest windows on both nvidia and ati cards that arent getting this so all the help the people that are getting the bug can give should help them fix this for us that much quicker. It only takes like 5 minutes to run the game adviser program they send you.

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@"Trae.2384" said:Created a ticket last night, got a quick response with the log app. Hopefully as many people as possible are sending their logs into support to get this figured out. Clearly there are people running the latest windows on both nvidia and ati cards that arent getting this so all the help the people that are getting the bug can give should help them fix this for us that much quicker. It only takes like 5 minutes to run the game adviser program they send you.

I created a ticket 2days ago -- they accessed it after 8hrs but didnt say a single word and its not been touched for the last 18hrs...

I mean, I know they are busy but a "hi, we're looking into it" would of been nice to show that they have seen my ticket. My experience of NCsoft CS has been rather poor at best throughout the years tbh.

The only positive I take away from the whole experience is that I maybe need to deal with them once in a blue moon.

As always with things like Customer Services. YMMV

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@Dying Oblivion.8296 said:

@"Trae.2384" said:Created a ticket last night, got a quick response with the log app. Hopefully as many people as possible are sending their logs into support to get this figured out. Clearly there are people running the latest windows on both nvidia and ati cards that arent getting this so all the help the people that are getting the bug can give should help them fix this for us that much quicker. It only takes like 5 minutes to run the game adviser program they send you.

I created a ticket 2days ago -- they accessed it after 8hrs but didnt say a single word and its not been touched for the last 18hrs...

I mean, I know they are busy but a "hi, we're looking into it" would of been nice to show that they have seen my ticket. My experience of NCsoft CS has been rather poor at best throughout the years tbh.

The only positive I take away from the whole experience is that I maybe need to deal with them once in a blue moon.

As always with things like Customer Services. YMMV

You will be happy to know that you are not dealing with NCSoft CS, but with the ArenaNet CS Team. It's been many years since NCSoft had anything to do with CS.

Good luck.

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@Dying Oblivion.8296 said:

@"Trae.2384" said:Created a ticket last night, got a quick response with the log app. Hopefully as many people as possible are sending their logs into support to get this figured out. Clearly there are people running the latest windows on both nvidia and ati cards that arent getting this so all the help the people that are getting the bug can give should help them fix this for us that much quicker. It only takes like 5 minutes to run the game adviser program they send you.

I created a ticket 2days ago -- they accessed it after 8hrs but didnt say a single word and its not been touched for the last 18hrs...

I mean, I know they are busy but a "hi, we're looking into it" would of been nice to show that they have seen my ticket. My experience of NCsoft CS has been rather poor at best throughout the years tbh.

The only positive I take away from the whole experience is that I maybe need to deal with them once in a blue moon.

As always with things like Customer Services. YMMV

hmm im surprised they didnt at least give you the same copy/paste looking response with the app link in it. They emphasized how important it was to get as many report files as possible in this thread here so thats odd.

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After last night win10 update, I can't ALT-TAB quickly anymore into GW2. When I wish to ALT-TAB into GW2 from another application (say browser), it shows me a blank screen with small rectangle in left upper corner with "GuildWars2 title". Then it takes a 3-5 seconds delay before GW2 graphics shows. I run in full screen highest available resolution mode.

Well done Microsoft... What an annoyance. :#

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@"Dying Oblivion.8296" said:but cool... if you think its the guildwars team that has coded the game badly, then more power to you.

That's not what I said. I said that you can't just blame it automatically, as a matter of course, without further knowledge, on the Windows update. It might be, but it might not be. Heck, it might even be caused by this thing in Windows 1803 (a bug) interacting with that thing in GW1 and GW2 (which is also a bug).

Without being able to look at the code in either one(1), I couldn't begin to speculate whose bug or bugs it is, whereas you jumped straight to "it's Microsoft's fault'.

(1) I work as a programmer, and the things I've seen over the years have lead me to put almost zero trust in a snap analysis of a problem. "I updated Windows and these two games from the same company do something odd, but no other games do that thing, THEREFORE it is 100% the fault of the update" is a snap analysis.

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I've just started having this issue today as well after a windows 10 update.Is anyone able to post a list of the current suggested fixes? (a summary/dot points with links would be wonderful)There is just way too many posts to sort through ^_^The issue seems to happen more to me on first game load, less so between loading different areas.

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@"Rayti.6531" said:This suggestion from "eragon03" on reddit fixed it for me.

  • In case you enabled it when asked for it after the last Win 10 update: DISable the option that prevents notifications from showing while you play fullscreen games (clicking the notification symbol in the lower right corner of your screen while having a game open should give you the option directly)
  • Go to the folder containing your GW2 executable, right-click the GW2 EXE file (presumably the 64-bit one for most people), go to properties -> compatibility, and check "disable fullscreen optimization"

I hope this helps some of you getting rid of the flashing to desktop (or at least improve it)...

Fullscreen optimization made things worse for me. I went from a long wait at the desktop, to flickering between desktop and game with some alternating black and white flashes in between. Restoring the optimization, but leaving the DISable suggestion you had, does slightly reduce the flashing to desktop issue.

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Here is what helped for my wife's computer and mine. Running Win 10 with the recent update:

  • Go to Focus Assist Settings
  • Under Focus Assist select Priority Only
  • Under When I'm Playing a Game select OFF
  • The game will still go to the desktop when changing zones, but it comes back very quickly, as opposed to previously when it would go to the desktop and stay there for a while. It's more usable and less intrusive now. Good luck!

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@"Rayti.6531" said:This suggestion from "eragon03" on reddit fixed it for me.

  • In case you enabled it when asked for it after the last Win 10 update: DISable the option that prevents notifications from showing while you play fullscreen games (clicking the notification symbol in the lower right corner of your screen while having a game open should give you the option directly)
  • Go to the folder containing your GW2 executable, right-click the GW2 EXE file (presumably the 64-bit one for most people), go to properties -> compatibility, and check "disable fullscreen optimization"

I hope this helps some of you getting rid of the flashing to desktop (or at least improve it)...

I tried this fix. Definitely didn't work for me. Disabling fullscreen optimization caused GW2 to consistantly crash while loading the launcher.

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Was happening to me alot too, saw someone had posted to turn off the "focus feature" in the win 10 April update, that helped some but still get the minimized game on occasion from a load screen. Windows is also revamping how the alt tab works.... that should screw it up even more. The focus feature is under settings, system. Turn it all off. The only downside is you will get some windows notifications on top of the game, don't click them and it won't take you out of the game to windows. I hope this helps.

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I went into my update manager. Found the particular updates ( yes there is more than on that day lol, wtf ) And used the Repair option, on them all. Helped a bit with the dropped to desktop issue. Still not like it was before though. Hope this helps.

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Guys just raise a ticket as they asked people to do.

Things might make it "slightly" better but there is no fix on our end.

The more tickets they get the more likely they are to fix it as they ask people questions so they can find the problem

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:Hey folks,

Even while the CS Team is super busy, we would like to ask you to submit a ticket to them, so that they can gather more information and help you out, too! You should use "technical support" as the reason or the "bucket" for your ticket, to best assign it.

They may well ask you to send in a report or a log, and that would be very helpful because it helps identify common issues and parse those that are distinctive to separate individuals and then provide assistance in either area, as they are able to.

Thanks so much!

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