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Posted By: addick Mirc black screen - 20/02/11 02:23 PM
I upgraded to 7.17 last week and duely paid the $20 but ever since I have had a problem with mirc whereby previous lines in the window I'm chatting in will go black (seemingly random) and things that were typed hours ago will appear to be the most recent - completely mixing up conversations and even swapping them to another room if I'm in 2 or more.

I have tried uninstalling mirc and, although it might work fine for a while, the blackout happens again. Also, the minimise etc buttons in the top-right of the toolbar also black-out although they do function with guesswork.

No-one else I know that uses mirc has a solution to this so any advice would be appreciated.
Posted By: Riamus2 Re: Mirc black screen - 20/02/11 02:37 PM
Try making sure all scripts are unloaded and that you downloaded mIRC from the official site (mIRC.com). Beyond that, it could be somehow related to graphics drivers, though that seems unlikely.
Posted By: Khaled Re: Mirc black screen - 20/02/11 03:47 PM
Which version of mIRC were you using before you upgraded? If it was very old, or if it was customimzed with addons, dlls, scripts, that may be the cause of the issue.

If you could please type the following command into mIRC in the status window and report the result, that would be helpful:

//echo -a $os $version $beta $md5($mircexe,2) $file($mircexe).sig $script(0) $dll(0) $com(0)
Posted By: addick Re: Mirc black screen - 20/02/11 04:15 PM
Thanks for the replies - I have only ever used the default setting when installing mirc so don't think it's scripts? And I did use mirc.com to d/l from.

Originally I believe I was using 6.something but not sure which version exactly

Have typed the command as requested and got the following:

Vista 7.17 7683908b23e2cfd3ed883d5daf3eacae ok 1 0 0


Thanks smile
Posted By: Khaled Re: Mirc black screen - 20/02/11 07:08 PM
Those results looks fine. The issue you are seeing seems to be the same as the one reported in this post some time ago. I am still working on that issue - unfortunately it has been difficult to track down as only one person has reported it so far.

If you could answer the following questions it may help in tracking down the issue:

1) How many channel/query/etc. windows do you have open in mIRC when this happens?

2) Are the windows open on the desktop or in mIRC? If on the desktop, if you move them inside mIRC, does that help?

3) Are you maximizing the windows? If maximized, if you use them without maximizing them, does that help?

4) How long does it usually take before this issue appears?

Thanks!
Posted By: addick Re: Mirc black screen - 20/02/11 07:35 PM
Originally Posted By: Khaled
Those results looks fine. The issue you are seeing seems to be the same as the one reported in this post some time ago. I am still working on that issue - unfortunately it has been difficult to track down as only one person has reported it so far.

If you could answer the following questions it may help in tracking down the issue:

1) How many channel/query/etc. windows do you have open in mIRC when this happens? maximum 2 or 3

2) Are the windows open on the desktop or in mIRC? If on the desktop, if you move them inside mIRC, does that help? If I've understood the Q right then they open in mIRC and not the desktop

3) Are you maximizing the windows? If maximized, if you use them without maximizing them, does that help? Yes I do usually maximise the windows but changing back after the problem had happened doesn't resolve the issue. I'll try to see if the problem occurs without maximising the windows straight away.

4) How long does it usually take before this issue appears? So far I'd say it has been 10-20 minutes after joining a channel.

Thanks!


Posted By: Rewtor Re: Mirc black screen - 22/02/11 10:00 AM
The end of the last post indicates it MAY be a problem with specific computers, I for one have never experience this behaviour but try downloading the latest graphics drivers for your computer and see if that helps
Posted By: addick Re: Mirc black screen - 22/02/11 01:41 PM
All day yesterday I had no problems but this morning everything was fine...until I went onto the ebay website. If I have ebay and mIRC open everything goes as described in the OP. As soon as I close ebay it reverts back to normal. I've been able to recreate it every time I've opened ebay and so far it's the only thing I can connect to the problem.

I guess the short answer is don't go on ebay!

Also, I checked the log files whilst mIRC was playing up and they all appear as they should be - with the right chat in the right channels and in chronological order.
Posted By: Riamus2 Re: Mirc black screen - 22/02/11 04:27 PM
That is an interesting observation. What browser are you using? If possible, can you try and reproduce it with a different browser? I'm not sure what ebay has running on their pages, but it may be loading flash, silverlight, activex, java, etc and perhaps something there is causing the problem. You should be able to disable some or all of these items in your browser. If you disable them, does the problem still occur? If we can narrow down the specific item that is causing the problem, it will make things much easier for Khaled to try and reproduce on his end while also finding a good fix for the problem.

Considering each of those browser extensions can affect the display, it is easy to believe that there is some error being caused by them or the site involved that is affecting mIRC's display.

Just to check something... since you seem to be able to reproduce this on demand with ebay, maximize 2 windows with different text in them. Don't use active windows (such as a channel) unless you have the window scrolled up so that the text stays in one place. Now, open ebay so that the problems occur. For the text that seems to appear in the wrong window, is it still in the same place it would be if the bottom window was on top? For example, if you were to cut a "hole" through the top window, would you see the text that you're seeing with this error? I'm wondering if the text appearing in the wrong window isn't an issue with the text going to the wrong place, but an issue where the top window is missing sections of it so the text from the bottom window shows through instead. If you can verify that the text is in the right location from the bottom window and not just randomly put somewhere else on the top window, then that should help to clear up whether or not this has anything to do with the text itself or just with the display of the windows.

One other thing I'd test. While the problem is happening, take a screenshot (press the print screen button on your keyboard) and paste that into Word or MSPaint or some other location that accepts the pasting of pictures. Does the screenshot show the graphics glitches, or does it show correctly? Screenshots aren't really a "photograph" of what you see and are rendered through Windows, so it may not show the glitches. It will be interesting to see if this affects screenshots as well or just the display. If you do get the errors in the screenshot, then just so it's easier for people to know what you're seeing, take a screenshot of one window maximized with text, then one with a second window maximized with text, then one with ebay open and one of those two windows maximized over the top of the other window (as when you were testing what I said in the paragraph above). Then display those 3 images here. There are a variety of free sites to post images and you can then link to them from here. That will help us to see exactly what is happening and how the text is showing up incorrectly.
Posted By: addick Re: Mirc black screen - 22/02/11 06:28 PM
Originally Posted By: Riamus2
That is an interesting observation. What browser are you using? Firefox

If possible, can you try and reproduce it with a different browser? Tried IE and Chrome and got same results

I'm not sure what ebay has running on their pages, but it may be loading flash, silverlight, activex, java, etc and perhaps something there is causing the problem. You should be able to disable some or all of these items in your browser. If you disable them, does the problem still occur? If we can narrow down the specific item that is causing the problem, it will make things much easier for Khaled to try and reproduce on his end while also finding a good fix for the problem. Tried disabling them 1 at a time and got same results

Considering each of those browser extensions can affect the display, it is easy to believe that there is some error being caused by them or the site involved that is affecting mIRC's display.

Just to check something... since you seem to be able to reproduce this on demand with ebay, maximize 2 windows with different text in them. Don't use active windows (such as a channel) unless you have the window scrolled up so that the text stays in one place. Now, open ebay so that the problems occur. For the text that seems to appear in the wrong window, is it still in the same place it would be if the bottom window was on top? For example, if you were to cut a "hole" through the top window, would you see the text that you're seeing with this error? No, it would appear to take random lines of text and insert it into each window differently

I'm wondering if the text appearing in the wrong window isn't an issue with the text going to the wrong place, but an issue where the top window is missing sections of it so the text from the bottom window shows through instead. If you can verify that the text is in the right location from the bottom window and not just randomly put somewhere else on the top window, then that should help to clear up whether or not this has anything to do with the text itself or just with the display of the windows.

One other thing I'd test. While the problem is happening, take a screenshot (press the print screen button on your keyboard) and paste that into Word or MSPaint or some other location that accepts the pasting of pictures. Does the screenshot show the graphics glitches, or does it show correctly? Screenshots aren't really a "photograph" of what you see and are rendered through Windows, so it may not show the glitches. It will be interesting to see if this affects screenshots as well or just the display. If you do get the errors in the screenshot, then just so it's easier for people to know what you're seeing, take a screenshot of one window maximized with text, then one with a second window maximized with text, then one with ebay open and one of those two windows maximized over the top of the other window (as when you were testing what I said in the paragraph above). Then display those 3 images here. There are a variety of free sites to post images and you can then link to them from here. That will help us to see exactly what is happening and how the text is showing up incorrectly. See links below


Original window text was in

QuakeNet window with some text

Another window I had open that also had text transferred to
Posted By: Riamus2 Re: Mirc black screen - 22/02/11 07:55 PM
The text that is there and shouldn't be doesn't seem to line up with other windows. Is that text from another window that is also open?
Posted By: addick Re: Mirc black screen - 22/02/11 08:22 PM
Originally Posted By: Riamus2
The text that is there and shouldn't be doesn't seem to line up with other windows. Is that text from another window that is also open?


The text was all originally in the 1st link window and appears in the others when I have ebay open too. After closing ebay if I go from whatever the current window happens to be into one of the others, everything corrects itself.
Posted By: argv0 Re: Mirc black screen - 22/02/11 08:33 PM
Did you update your graphics drivers like you were told?
Posted By: Khaled Re: Mirc black screen - 23/02/11 04:15 PM
Thanks, appreciate the feedback. It does sound like it might be a graphics driver issue - if you update your graphics driver, does that help? In any case, I will be making a small change to the next version of mIRC that might help. A beta version of mIRC should hopefully be released in the next week or so.
Posted By: addick Re: Mirc black screen - 23/02/11 08:06 PM
Have tried to find updates for my graphics driver (I'm very unsure of anything remotely technical when it comes to PCs) and it looks like the ones for my particular driver (ATI Radeon Xpress 1250) have been moved to something called legacy support? I don't want to be downloading the wrong things if it creates more problems so now I know roughly what was causing the issue I think I'll leave it at that.

Thanks for everyone's help though.
Posted By: argv0 Re: Mirc black screen - 23/02/11 08:35 PM
If your card is old (3+ years), then legacy support sounds right. You can google around for driver advice for your card to see if other users have reported issues, but I would assume that ATI would not publish drivers if they had significant breakage issues. In short: give it a shot.
Posted By: Riamus2 Re: Mirc black screen - 23/02/11 09:04 PM
Even if there was a problem with the new drivers, it's very easy to rollback to an older driver. I'd definitely try to update the driver to whatever ATI has as the newest version.
Posted By: Khaled Re: Mirc black screen - 24/02/11 05:11 PM
I have just released a public beta that includes a change that may resolve this issue for you. You can find the beta in the "mIRC Beta" post in the Bug Reports section. If you could try it out and let us know how it goes that would be appreciated.
Posted By: addick Re: Mirc black screen - 25/02/11 08:19 AM
I updated the drivers to the ones suggested by ATI and that had no effect, nor has the new mIRC beta frown
Posted By: Riamus2 Re: Mirc black screen - 25/02/11 11:12 AM
It may not matter, but because you said this can be reproduced for you by visiting a website, you might want to try updating the browser plugins mentioned before. Java, Silverlight, Flash, Shockwave, etc.

EDIT: You might also try reinstalling DirectX.
Posted By: Khaled Re: Mirc black screen - 25/02/11 11:56 AM
Thanks for the feedback. I have just received an email from the person I mentioned in my previous post, who was experiencing a similar issue, and it turns out that the issue disappeared after a re-installation of Windows. I am not suggesting you do that, however it is possible that the issue is due to your system configuration. Since it is only happening when you use Firefox, perhaps you could disable/remove all of the Firefox addons/plugins/extensions to see if that helps, or perhaps even uninstall and reinstall Firefox.
Posted By: drum Re: Mirc black screen - 25/02/11 02:50 PM
Originally Posted By: Khaled
Since it is only happening when you use Firefox, perhaps you could disable/remove all of the Firefox addons/plugins/extensions to see if that helps, or perhaps even uninstall and reinstall Firefox.


He said it happens with Firefox, Chrome, and IE.
Posted By: Riamus2 Re: Mirc black screen - 25/02/11 03:13 PM
True, but they would all most likely have the same main graphics items (Flash, etc) in them. Because it happens while on a website, it makes sense that some part of the browser that is the same for all 3 browsers is related.

Anyhow, I think he already tried removing them when I suggested it before. Maybe updating them as I mentioned in my last post will help.
Posted By: drum Re: Mirc black screen - 25/02/11 05:40 PM
addick, this is a shot in the dark but I discovered a problem with a recent Flash Player update (I'm not sure which version exactly, it was one from within the past year I believe) that created an erroneous entry in the registry which caused visual problems with particular programs. Since your problem seems to be somehow connected to the web browser, I thought this could possibly be related.

Open up the registry editor and browse to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\

There should be 5 subkeys: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4

If you see another entry before 0 which looks like a weird symbol (shaped like a capital L), delete that entry, reboot, and check to see if the problem is fixed. If everything looks normal, then this isn't the problem and you can disregard this.
Posted By: addick Re: Mirc black screen - 27/02/11 07:47 PM
Originally Posted By: Riamus2
Anyhow, I think he already tried removing them when I suggested it before. Maybe updating them as I mentioned in my last post will help.
Yep, they are updated.

Originally Posted By: drum
addick, this is a shot in the dark but I discovered a problem with a recent Flash Player update (I'm not sure which version exactly, it was one from within the past year I believe) that created an erroneous entry in the registry which caused visual problems with particular programs. Since your problem seems to be somehow connected to the web browser, I thought this could possibly be related.

Open up the registry editor and browse to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\

There should be 5 subkeys: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4

If you see another entry before 0 which looks like a weird symbol (shaped like a capital L), delete that entry, reboot, and check to see if the problem is fixed. If everything looks normal, then this isn't the problem and you can disregard this.


Found the registry! An achievement in itself. There were only the 5 subkeys in there. Thanks for still throwing out suggestions though.
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