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Black Screensaver

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 8:52 am
by rp01
Hi,

Produced a very simple image rotation screensaver, fades in/out 8 screenshots in a random order. I then have this saved as an scr file and distribute it to a number of machines.

The issue is the screensaver works fine initially, but then on occasion I come in and see them sitting with a black screen. I check the the processes on the box and the screensaver is running, and if I kill the screensaver process remotely the screen comes back on, and the 5 mins later the screensaver will kick in again.

Is there a setting I'm missing to stop this happening? It's like the screensaver has a time limit on how long it will run and when it hits that it goes to a black screen. I can confirm it's not the monitor as the screen is still active and on.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
R

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 11:01 am
by gpb
Hi,
screen savers created by gPhotoShow have no time limit but there a couple of things that can cause a black screen. Standalone screen saver include everything inside the scr file, when a new file should be displayed it is extracted from the scr and copied to a temporary folder. When something goes wrong because the scr file can't be opened or because it is not able to find a temporary folder where to write files the screen saver displays a black screen. It's hard to give you more details without a log file. To create a log file from a standalone screen saver you need to edit the system registry or a special build of the gpsengine. If you know how to use the program regedit do the following:
- run regedit
- open the key (if subkey Settings doesn't exists then create it)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\gpsScreenSavers\YourScreenSavername\Settings
- create a new DWORD value
Trace=1
- run the screen saver as usual, when you see a black screen stop it
- get the log file from C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\YourScreenSaverName
- send me the log file

Of course change YourScreenSaverName with the real name of your screen saver (its file name without the scr file extension)

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:26 pm
by rp01
Thanks for the response.

I'm able to get the log file creation so will continue to run the screensaver until it goes black and see from there.

One thing though, we run the screensaver on the ctrl-alt-del login screen, and this is where I've seen the issue (as when someone is logged in it's unlikely they leave their PC for too long). Is there any way of creating the same log file for the screensaver running here - as no user is logged in?

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 9:31 pm
by gpb
Logon screen saver is particular case and has its own issues, it runs under a very limited user account and can't access the user profile. In addition the registry location for the settings is different and depends on windows version you are using. To create a log file it is better I send you a version of the engine that has error logging enabled by default, but you will need to create and install the screen saver again.
Which gPhotoShow Pro version did you use to create the screen saver ?
Which windows version ?

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:24 am
by rp01
Hi,

Using version 6.1 on windows 7 enterprise 64bit.

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 12:29 pm
by rp01
Some further investigation and i've found the following:

On the ctrl-alt-del screen, when the screensaver runs, it stores its temp files in c:\windows\temp. Now, on a screen showing the blank screensaver I've checked this dir and it doesn't have the .gss or any of the image files. So, it's possible we have something cleaning up that directory periodically so looking into it.

But, is there anyway to get the screensaver to exit if the .gss file no longer exists? As I'd be happy enough for it to stop and then kick in again after 15 mins creating the temp files it needs.

Thanks

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:28 pm
by gpb
You are right, when running as logon screen saver gPhotoShow stores extracted files to the windows/temp folder. The gss file is loaded on startup then it can be deleted without problem but images should stay there. If gPhotoShow doesn't find them any longer it displayes a black screen. In the standalone screen saver creation window there is setting labeled "Remove temporary files when program exits" make sure it is NOT ticked and create the screen saver again. When this option is ticked gPhotoShow leaves the images in the temp folder and deletes them only when it exits. If it not ticked it extracts images from scr every time it has to display a slide, if the temp folder is cleaned periodically leaving this option cleared should fix the problem. If the issue is still there then maybe the temp folder became write protected for some reason.

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:21 am
by rp01
Sorry about the late reply to this...been away.

I've set this up as suggested, and it almost works!!! Now, the images do display, but we get the "created with unregistered version of gphotoshow.com" message displayed over the top of the screensaver. I'm guessing this is because the .gss file has been deleted?

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 11:53 am
by gpb
Yes, the reason is the deleted gss. The file should stay there for the time in which the screen saver is running, if it is deleted gPhotoShow display that message and some settings could be reverted to defaults.

Re: Black Screensaver

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:50 am
by rp01
Well, the reason the file is getting deleted still escapes me...though I'm sure it's something within our environment (I created some test file in the Windows\Temp directory and left the screensaver running, those files have remained but the gss file is gone which has stumped me a little).

In terms of the gss file, can these settings be piped into the registry somewhere? Is there a default location that scr file will look first?