Missing splash and black icon boxes

[Larry]

All of a sudden htmlpad 2015's splash screen is just a gray box with nothing in it.

I don't know if it's related to a reported problem where my menu icons are black until I hover over them and then they turn to the correct color or the individual command icons to minimize, maximize, or close individual tabs that also disappears when I hover over them.

I've reported to tech support but haven't heard back yet on the black icons but wanted to see if anyone else has these problems.

Windows 7 64bit.

Thanks.

[Aivars]

Did anything else change on your computer (new software, update Htmlpad, new plugins, anything at all?) right before the problem appeared?

I have never heard of such problem but you could try these things:
1) Open %appdata%\Blumentals\htmlpad\settings\layouts folder and empty it.
2) If that doesn't help, uninstall Htmlpad (remove all settings) and reinstall it.

[Larry]

I don't know for sure about other software installs. In October I installed software for my web cam and shortly after that I noticed the black box issue in another program but I don't remember it happening in htmlpad. In December (I think) I noticed htmlpad had the black box issue but I know the splash screen was ok last week (it took that long to discover the black box issue because hadn't used it for a couple months).

Yesterday I decided to see if I could resolve the black box issue and found that I could disable desktop themes for the other program and the black box problem went away. I tried the same setting on htmlpad but it didn't help so I tried global settings and played around with the Advanced Performance settings to see if that made a difference. It's then I discovered the splash screen was blank but didn't fix the black box problem. I reset the settings to the way I had them but still no splash screen. It's at that time I also discovered the disappearing tab controls but I don't know how long that may have been going on because I never use them.

By the way, I did find that when I set setting to Performance in Advanced no boxes but still no splash screen and then when I turned on use visual style in windows and buttons the black boxes appeared.

Today I cleared the layouts folder but that didn't make a difference. I'll have to try the complete uninstall route later.

Thanks.

[Larry]

I did a full uninstall including settings and then reinstalled 2015 v13.1 and it still has the same problems.

[Aivars]

So you're running Htmlpad in compatibility mode? Can you clear that and try to run it normally?

Try another thing - try installing Htmlpad on a Flash drive in portable mode and see if that copy runs for you. If it runs, there is some problem with your current settings or installation; if it doesn't and has the same problem, then there is a problem with your system.

[Larry]

Sorry for the confusion but no I'm not running in compatibility mode. I tried it but it didn't make any difference.

I'll try the portable mode and get back to you.

Assuming it's my system, what would cause it? Is there a menu call using specific dll that might be corrupted? Could an installation of graphic drivers be causing it? I have a NVIDIA Geforce GT 720.

Thanks for your help.

[Aivars]

It's hard to tell, there shouldn't be anything that would cause this. The error apparently happens in loading/initialization process and it's catastrophic enough to prevent any error messages from appearing. One thing that I think might cause something like this could be some problematic intrusive processes (security software, firewalls, debuggers, skinning software, viruses). Another option, maybe some vital resource that is never supposed to be missing in any system is missing in yours and thus causes total failure due to unexpectedness.
If portable version doesn't work, PM me, I'll try to make a special diagnostic version for you to figure out at which point exactly in the initialization the failure occurs.

[Larry]

Thanks for the info.

I tried the portable on another Windows 7 computer. The icons on the menu are fine but the splash screen is a white box.

I've changed my system settings on my desktop to the same as is on my notebook but it didn't make a difference about either black boxes or splash screen on desktop.

[Aivars]

Do you happen to use any software for skinning, visualizations or alike? Can you post or PM me a screenshot?

[Larry]

No extra visualizations. Just Windows 7 offerings.

I did PM you with the screen shots. Did you get them?

Thanks.

[Aivars]

I have them but I can't figure out what causes it. The splash screen, for instance, is just a simple image, nothing fancy or advanced. When think of something, I'll PM you back.

[Larry]

Can you tell me the location and file type of the splash screen? Perhaps I have a default setting messed up.

[Aivars]

The image is built into the executable so it couldn't be lost, and it's a simple bitmap.