I've had this issue for a long time now, but I'm finally tired of dealing with it.
I use Forxit Reader to open PDF docs in Windows 10 Pro (64-bit).
After double-clicking maybe 3 to 4 PDFs within DOpus 12 and having them open with Foxit Reader, the DOpus lister will refuse to come forward any longer. The tab for the DOpus lister still appears in the taskbar, but clicking it won't pop the lister up. Even if I jump back out to the desktop. That particular DOpus lister is useless.
So, I right-click on the tab for that lister and Close it. Them I have to open another DOpus lister and continue to open PDFs until that one will no longer popup, etc.
It doen't seem to matter what version of Foxit Reader, or DOpus, I use -- it's all the same in the end.
Does anything similar happen if you do the same thing in File Explorer?
Does the Opus window reappear if you:
hover over the Opus taskbar button so that the window's thumbnail pops up
move over the thumbnail and right-click
select Move
tap one of the arrow/cursor keys on the keyboard
move the mouse around
?
(I'm not sure why Windows makes that operation so cumbersome, but it will let you move a window back on-screen if something has positioned it off-screen.)
OK, I just opened six PDFs and then it happened again.
If I hover over the taskbar button so that the thumbnail pops up and then just left-click it does nothing.
If I open a new Lister, it defaults to its home dir, but the old one still won't pop up.
If I move the mouse around, nothing.
If I hover over the taskbar button so that the thumbnail pops up and then right-click it will reappear.
I tried again, but this time I only had to open two PDFs before it disappeared.
I hovered over the taskbar button so that the thumbnail appeared. Then I right-clicked to get its popup menu. Next, I hovered over the menu for a few seconds without clicking anything and it reappeared.
So, those will fix the issue, but it's very annoying when it happens.
Just so that I'm clear... you mean just opening a Lister and browsing around files/dirs on one of my hard drives without having a PDF open via Foxit Reader?
We mean doing the same thing you are doing in Opus, but using Explorer instead of Opus.
In other words, test what happens if Opus is not part of the picture at all, and you're double-clicking some PDF files in File Explorer to open them in FoxIt. Does the File Explorer window you were using also vanish after a while?
Do you have anything installed which automatically moves/positions windows, or a "multi-monitor" tool or anything like that?
Are your GPU drivers up to date? Windows can do strange things if they aren't, and Windows 10 updates sometimes replace good drivers with bad ones. It sounds like the window exists but has been made invisible by something else, which is quite odd.
Can you remember roughly when you first started seeing this issue?
OK, I opened Windows Explorer and opened 11 PDFs in a row. No disappearing at all of that window. DOpus would have disappeared after 3-6 of those 11 openings.
No apps installed to move windows and no multi-monitor stuff.
I don't allow Windows to ever update any drivers automatically. I only use the WHQL nVidia drivers (no beta) and my drivers are currently only one version behind.
I don't remember this happening under Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. I think it only started with Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (clean install on an SSD drive with all Windows updates installed -- I download my own drivers for the mobo, monitor and GPU from their official sites and never let Windows touch them). I started using Windows 10 on April Fool's day 2019 -- maybe that's the problem! :;
If I make the Lister on-top, as suggested, then the problem goes away. But, that's an annoying thing to have the lister in the way. Sure, I can minimize it in case I want to open subsequent PDFs, but I'm hoping you guys can figure out what's going on for a possible fix within DOpus.
Sorry to sound ignorant, but what do you mean by having the viewer pane open? I just use a normal Lister that shows the contents of a single drive or dir. If I copy files, etc. then I have two of those Listers open.
You can open a panel on the right which shows the selected document or image. If it is open when you double-click, it might be important to understanding what's going wrong.
I have installed Foxit Reader but could not reproduce the problem on my machine.
I did run into an issue where every program (not just Opus) including the taskbar stopped drawing properly until I rebooted the machine. But I can't say for sure if Foxit was involved or not, and it only happened to me once, after changing the system DPI to see if it might be a factor.
OK, that's a feature I never use, but I turned it on. As I clicked each PDF I could see a small view of it in the Lister on the right. After three PDFs the Lister crapped out and is on the taskbar and unusable.
If I get the tumbnail of the Lister to come up on the desktop and then click on the popup menu the Lister comes back as it should.
My eyesight isn't what it used to be and I have Custom Scaling at 135% (100%-500% range) -- maybe that's the culprit for some reason?
Scaling can cause strange issues if it has been changed since the last reboot (including things like docking a laptop to a screen which wants a different DPI, as well as changing it manually).
It might be worth checking if the problem still happens immediately after a reboot.
Try turning off Preferences / Display / Transition Animations / Enable transition animations as well, as the way the animations are done can cause problems with some scenarios (it's rare, but worth checking).
OK, I couldn't find Transition Animations/Enable Transition Animations in the Display area, so...
I went to the old school Control Panel and selected Ease of Access/Ease of Access Center/Make the Computer Easier to See and then checked the box for Turn of Unnecessary Animations (when possible)
Next, I went to Control Panel/System and Security/System/Advanced System Settings/Performance (clicked settings)/Visual Effects tab and clicked the Custom radio button. Then I turned off everything by unchecking the boxes.
I did a reboot of the computer and then opened a Lister and started clicking PDF files. After about 10 files the Lister wouldn't come to the front any more. But, when I just went back to the desktop, the Lister was there (not minimized) and then I could get it to come to the front of Foxit Reader again. After a few more PDFs it would again stop coming to the front, but I could just go back to the desktop and it was still there (not minimized).
So, better, but not how it should be. This seems to be the only program that messes with DOpus Listers coming to the front.
Sorry, Leo, I thought you meant some type of Windows setting, not DOpus itself.
So, I unchecked that box, it was originally checked, but both times I looked at that setting (checked and unchecked) it says this: Transition animations are not currently available because there are multiple monitors with different DPI settings or the system was not rebooted since DPI settings were changed.
I don't have multiple monitors and I have rebooted the system since turning off the transition animations within DOpus.
After turning off the transition animations and rebooting, I tried to open PDFs. I got to eight before the Lister wouldn't come forward anymore. However, if I go back to the desktop, the Lister is open and I can make it be in front of the Foxit Reader window until it stops working again.
That means Opus is not running in the same DPI that Windows is running in.
If you only have one monitor, it can happen for these reasons:
Changing system DPI and not rebooting afterwards. (Either changing it manually, or because a different monitor was plugged in, or a laptop was docked, etc.)
If dopus.exe's compatibility settings have been modified to override the scaling mode. All compatibility settings for the exe should be turned off. (You can check them by right-clicking the exe and choosing Properties, then Compatibility. Reboot after making any changes.)
I would get to the bottom of that first, as it's quite possibly involved in what you're seeing. Mixed DPI in Windows can cause a lot of strange bugs, and also causes Opus to enable some extra workarounds which try to mitigate some of those bugs, but can cause other problems at the same time.
If everything is normal, the Transition Animations Preferences page won't display any extra message at the bottom.
I rebooted after changing the Custom Scaling back to 135 via Windows when I was experimenting the other day.
I checked DOpus' exe, but I have never messed with that in the past, and all its compatibility settings are unchecked (always have been).
I turned off the Custom Scaling (went back to the default of 100% from my setting of 135%) and from the Scale and Layout setting area I put it back to 100%. I don't want to run it that way, but I temporarily tried it to see if that's the issue.
After changing those settings back to default, I rebooted. I then opened DOpus and checked its Transition Animations settings. That warning about mixed DPI is now gone.
So, I opened about 12 PDFs via DOpus/Foxit Reader and it still crapped out with the Lister not coming to the front. I can click the desktop gadget on the toolbar and the Lister will be there (not minimized) and I can go back to Foxit Reader and bring the Lister to the front (until it craps out again).
I hope this helps in finding some sort of resolution.
Thanks for trying that. That rules out that as a possible cause. You should find 135% works the same, in that case, as long as the message in Preferences isn't there after a reboot (i.e. reboot after changing back to 135%).
At the moment I can't think of any other possible causes of this, and we don't have any similar reports to go from, but if we find anything we'll update the thread.
Setting Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced [Troubleshooting]: mixed_dpi_mitigations to False was the only other thing I could think of potentially being worth a try, but if the warning about mixed DPI is not there in Preferences then it probably won't make a difference (as long as it is not set to True; the Automatic and False settings should be the same unless mixed DPI is detected).
