Forums Bug Reports Re: MDI duplicate icons

mIRC 7.64.

I just discovered this strange MDI behavior last night. I'm not entirely sure what prompted it, but I noticed it just after attempting to DCC SEND a wav file to someone.
Note the two MDI window icons, and the two MDI min/max/close icon sets. The extra icons all function normally, accepting clicks, showing menus, etc... just too many of them.
I don't know if I can reproduce this behavior. Just wanted you to know about it.

This is Windows 7 Pro 64.

Thanks, I have seen this as well, across different versions of mIRC, although it happens so rarely that it has been impossible to reproduce. These buttons are drawn by the Windows MDI handler, so mIRC has no control over them. It looks like, in some situations, the MDI handler gets confused and ends up drawing two copies of the buttons in different themes in the menubar. It's quite bizarre. It may be that, in future versions of mIRC, I will have to implement my own MDI handler if the Windows implementation stops working correctly due to Microsoft no longer updating it.

First time I have ever seen it. Also first time in a long time I tried using DCC /send.

It's not strictly related to DCC, probably just general window creation. I reported the problem here:

https://forums.mirc.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/268294/re-duplicate-icons-in-menubar

I believe it was also mentioned in another thread but not the original topic of that thread. Unless you were also using remote desktop, I'd be surprised if we could identify the precise cause.

mIRC beta v7.65.563 - Windows 8.1 Enterprise x64 - Today I also saw and caught such a bug. I just leave it here for you to know. In the screenshot, the locations are marked with red arrows:


It is extremely difficult to determine the cause of this bug. This is the second time this has happened during beta testing. I have not used a remote desktop or remote computer. Not this time, anyway.
If this help to localize the problem, then I have was open at the same time 2 mIRC clients from different independent folders. The client was in a minimized state while I was working in Photoshop.

All icons are clickable, but their dropdown menu has different list of items:

         

In the client "mIRC v7.63" this has never did not have. Bug probably appeared in later versions. This bug is quite rare is not essential and easy to fix (by switching off and on the Menubar), but it can mislead what to click on.

Thanks. Interesting. So the MDI handler is drawing the icons of two different windows on the left, both usable but one of them is actually for the status window, and two different-themed buttons on the right. Bizarre. At this point, there is nothing more I can do, unless someone can find a way of reproducing it. However, even if we do find a way of reproducing it, mIRC has no control over the drawing of the buttons in the menubar, or the way the MDI handler works, so the odds are that it is simply a bug in the way MDI works on versions of Windows later than Windows 7, due to Microsoft no longer updating MDI support. As I mentioned in my previous post, the only solution would be for mIRC to implement its own custom MDI system, a custom menubar, and so on, which is a project in itself.

mIRC beta v7.65.676 ‒ It seems I found a way to reproducing this bug. In any case, I manage to repeat this many times.

     1.Start the mIRC client as usual. Customize so he performed joins to multiple channels at once (standard methods).
     2.Connect to the network and leave one of the channels open. The client does not have to be minimized.
     3.Start the program "Photoshop". I have "Photoshop CS6 x64".
     4.Now go back to the open mIRC client window. ‒ You can already see that the list of nicknames "Listbox" has gone beyond the "Toolbar".
     5.Now click 2 times on any of the nicknames in the list to open the private window. Ready done! All bugs are now visible.

In addition to the previous screenshots left by the posts above, I am attaching a new screenshot, where you can see the shift of the list of nicknames outside the "Toolbar":

     

The list of nicknames is restored if you go to any other window from the list of open windows "Switchbar". The rest of the bugs in "Menubar" remain in place.
For the testing, I am not using any pre-installed scripts or DLLs, so this cannot affect so that cause this bug. This is a new clean version of the mIRC client.

It would be some appactive (not mirc scripting) event issues then.

There are many ways to do that, if you could give exact steps, like if you have an on start even with some /server command, give your on start, the switch on /server like -jn could be the cause.

If this issue is happening when you run Photoshop, Photoshop must be interfering with other Windows applications in some way, possibly by using up available memory. Lack of memory will lead to all kinds of side-effects. If this is what is causing the MDI handler to work incorrectly, and to create duplicate MDI icons, there is little that can be done unfortunately.

Thanks for your reply. I just wanted to show you a way to reproduce this problem. In any case, I succeeded in this way. But we see that this bug occurs not only for me, and perhaps the matter is not at all in the "Photoshop" program. Perhaps this is just one factor that influences this behavior of the mIRC client. Other users probably have something else affecting the appearance of a similar bug, but they have not yet found the cause.

And only because other users have already complained about the same bug, I wanted you to be able to reproduce this yourself to see what it looks like and try to study the problem. This bug appeared after "mIRC v7.63".


In this testing, I set up auto joins to channels through the "Favorites" button on the top "Toolbar".
But you can also use the command for connect so that detection the bug: "/server irc.yourserver.com 6667 -i user user_ user@email user -jn #test,#test2"

This issue was first reported in v7.62 here in relation to remote desktop.

As I said in that thread, I couldn't see anything that changed from v7.61 to v7.62 that would cause the issue, and perhaps the issue was present before that.

If you run mIRC v7.61, 7.62, 7.63, etc. can you reproduce the issue? How about with earlier versions? Is there a version where it definitely starts for you?

But, as I said, if you are seeing this issue when Photoshop is being run, and photoshop is using up available memory/resources, practically anything can and will happen.

If previous users reporting this issue are also seeing it due to lack of available memory/resources/etc. then we know what the cause is and there is nothing that can be done.

If previous users are not seeing this due to lack of memory/resources, the cause is something else.

The cause I do not believe is because of Photoshop, because I also have Photoshop and followed the steps and I was unable to reproduce the problem and I have 32GB of RAM, and before that I had problems with some beta versions of mIRC 7.64 and Khaled somehow managed make adjustments and currently I still can't see the problem again. But certainly the problem must go through some more adjustments, but as Khaled himself, without knowing the cause of this problem is happening, it is difficult for him to solve the problem or at least try.

mIRC v7.61, v7.62, v7.63, v7.64 ‒ No bug found. I installed each version of the client from the official distribution kit (.exe) and tested it at least 3 times. I only get this bug in mIRC v7.65.
This appeared after the update of the MDI only in this version, and, probably, the reason for this client behavior should be looked for in this version (I do not exclude that I can be wrong).

As for the reason related to the lack of available memory, there this may also be. Although I cannot say that I have a small amount of RAM. But why then, when I run older versions of the client, this bug is not there?
Has the new version mIRC client with updated MDI windows become as demanding on computer resources as new computer game? ... :-]

If you could not reproduce this bug, then I recorded a for you Video ➔ http://epicnet.ru/video/mIRC_v7.65_Bug_(MDI_duplicate_icons).webm

Apparently something needs to be fixed, unless of course it is possibly.

Right. This means that the issue you are seeing is not the same as the one reported in this or the other thread, where it was happening with v7.62/63/64 and possibly earlier versions.


Because the changes to the MDI display require allocation of memory. Note that this will not only affect the MDI. Internally, it will affect many other features. The MDI just happens to be more visible.


No, it requires very few resources, but since it is GUI-related, it will be visible, compared to internal allocations for other features.


In general, when I ask users to reproduce an issue, I usually mean using a method that does not involve 1) downloading and installing a one gigabyte application, 2) that is no longer being updated, and 3) that is no longer being officially distributed :-]


As I have explained, when it comes to memory issues, all bets are off - anything can happen. This has been discussed many times in previous threads.

Thanks for trying to track it down but the issue you have found is related to memory. It is not related to the issue being reported in this thread.

However, since we are here, we might as well follow the usual steps:

1) Install mIRC into a clean, empty folder with no DLLs, scripts, etc. using the portable option in the installer.
2) Run mIRC, maximize the status window, connect to a server, join two channels.
3) Run Photoshop. Do you see the same issue?

If you follow the above steps and run other applications, other than Photoshop, can you reproduce the issue?

Yes. The most interesting thing is that I even installed a newer version of "Photoshop 2020" and this bug has not gone anywhere.


No. Apparently, this bug, which I see, is solely related to the run of the "Photoshop" program. It's funny.


Well, if other users could not detect this bug in the new version of the mIRC client 7.65+, then will have to wait for someone to find bug and will leave (write) your own his a report about it here.
Perhaps this bug will manifest itself in the future due to something else. In addition, probably not everyone has migrated to the most recent version of the client yet or vice versa rolled back to the old version.

Let's wait...
          

You know what, I think you're onto something here. Photoshop does very nasty things to MDI windows, and I wonder if their tom-foolery is screwing with mIRC's MDI window as well. I wouldn't put it past Adobe to use a system level hack to apply styles and hook MDI behaviors to achieve their unique layout.

This is happening to me again right now. I have not been using remote desktop or any resource intensive applications. Just mIRC and Chrome really, although earlier I was plugging in my laptop to a dock for external monitor testing.

The min/max/close buttons are different styles as in the previous posts. When I switch to a different window, the duplicated icons on the left both update to show the appropriate server/channel/query icons. But only leftmost of those icons updates the menu when left clicking. Server menu is apparent because 'Certificate' is in the menu. 'Channel' is apparent because 'Nick List' is in the menu. The right duplicated icon is always showing the channel menu, even if I'm now looking at a server window. Selecting 'Nick List' at this point causes mIRC to beep. When on a channel window, it correctly sets that channel's nicklist state.

In addition to the previous method, I found another new way to reproduce this bug on my computer.

On the desktop I right-click item "Personalization" ➔ "Change the color of borders, windows and taskbar".
As soon as I move the sliders to change the color, then the mIRC client breaks down and starts displaying the same bug described posts above.

I'm not sure it's only lack of RAM. It seems to me that this bug occurs when is used on the computer external or system applications, that affect all system windows and begins to interact with MDI windows, affecting their appearance during general modification and reconfiguration. As you correctly noted "Photoshop" also has its own unique window design, and it probably during launch automatically reconfigures its windows to this unique style by interacting with the system Windows, which theoretically somehow affects other open applications, including MDI windows that are used in the mIRC client and then it breaks them.

Most likely, be necessary to find some way to protect mIRC from any systemic negative impact that can disfigures an windows and their icons in mIRC client, and causes this bug.

I believe more that it has to do with some models of graphics cards because I followed the steps you indicated and I was unable to reproduce the bug.

:-] Hold my beer while I dismantle the three versions of Windows/Photoshop I downloaded and installed on VirtualBox yesterday.

On the plus side, I tracked down the issue.

The issue doesn't actually appear when I run Photoshop. However, when Photoshop starts up, mIRC redraws its windows, indicating that Photoshop has made a system-wide change. Long-story-short: a change made to mIRC a few versions of ago adjusts the MDI window layout when system settings change but only in certain conditions. It turns out that when an MDI window is already maximized and an API call is made to move/size it, this causes the MDI handler (which is managed by Windows itself) to malfunction and miscount the number of system/min/max/close buttons it needs to display. The only way to force the MDI handler to reset its count is by recreating the main menubar. This issue is also present in Windows XP.

In any case, I have made a change that should resolve this in the next beta.