Windows 10 Setup a Mess - Several Things

[Maavalous]

Relates to Windows 10 latest build and NextPVR v 4.0.4 (170730). Brand new PC first booted and updated 8/15/17.

I LOVE NextPVR! I've been a user and donate to the development for years now. But... the move to Win10 was as rough as it gets.

1) After initial install I discovered no video. Finally found the post on Win10 not having MPEG2 decoder anymore. Hunted down the LAV Filters on GitHub and installed those. FYI... you only need the x86, skip the install on the files marked 64. Just pull down the install.exe and run it and uncheck the 64's.
However, I discovered that the LAV decoders for Audio do NOT do 5.1 sound. So, luckily, the Win10 audio decoders did work and so I had both sound and video. YES! Use LAV for all video and Win10 for all audio.

2) Mouse issue others have reported is happening to me as well. No matter where I point, when I click I get something else. Click Guide and I get Search etc. I can click the NPVR title bar icons/buttons though... odd.

3) Full screen mode is broken completely now. Unusable.

4) Help me! Full screen destoryed usability. After all the setup and doing the install twice, I had everything working in window mode. All things were fine. So I tried full screen mode and BANG.

a) I lost 1/3 of all the menus and screens other than viewing a video (that still works in a window). All I see in NPVR is 2/3 of any screen except the Settings windows and when viewing a video/TV in window mode. It's like it's zoomed in. Yes, I checked and I do have the Display Scaling set to 100% so that's not it.

b) After I gave up on full screen I noticed that the NPVR Service icon in the Task Bar menu is gone. The one that turns red when recording. It was there right up until I tried full screen. I checked services and it 'appears' to be running. Guess I won't know for sure until a get/miss a scheduled recording. Just WEIRD thing to have happen.

So, full screen has been a problem for years. On every install I had to do a hokey pokey dance of right click, left click, get thrown out to menu and back. But eventually it worked. Not any more. I can NOT use full screen mode in Win10. Would be nice to see that finally fixed.

Real thing I need help with now is getting the screens/menus scaled back down to usable size. I can't see what's going on or where I am in most screens. Again, in a window only, video live/recorded seems to be correctly sized. Though I'm holding my breath right now after all this.

Any ideas???

[sub]

2) Mouse issue others have reported is happening to me as well. No matter where I point, when I click I get something else. Click Guide and I get Search etc. I can click the NPVR title bar icons/buttons though... odd.

Have you got Windows set to use a text size greater than 100%? This is known to cause it. You can either set it back to 100%, or view the properties and select the 'override high DPI scaling behaviour' check box (and set it to Application).

3) Full screen mode is broken completely now. Unusable.

In what way? There is stacks of people using NextPVR fullscreen on Win10, and I'm not aware of any reported issues with this.

Probably best to reproduce this problem, and post the logs.

a) I lost 1/3 of all the menus and screens other than viewing a video (that still works in a window). All I see in NPVR is 2/3 of any screen except the Settings windows and when viewing a video/TV in window mode. It's like it's zoomed in. Yes, I checked and I do have the Display Scaling set to 100% so that's not it.

See comment above about Windows text size.

b) After I gave up on full screen I noticed that the NPVR Service icon in the Task Bar menu is gone. The one that turns red when recording. It was there right up until I tried full screen. I checked services and it 'appears' to be running. Guess I won't know for sure until a get/miss a scheduled recording. Just WEIRD thing to have happen.

The NTray.exe utilities doesn't actually get started until you reboot after your upgrade/install. So...try a reboot and it'll most likely show up.

[Maavalous]

Have you got Windows set to use a text size greater than 100%? This is known to cause it. You can either set it back to 100%, or view the properties and select the 'override high DPI scaling behaviour' check box (and set it to Application).

In what way? There is stacks of people using NextPVR fullscreen on Win10, and I'm not aware of any reported issues with this.

Probably best to reproduce this problem, and post the logs.

See comment above about Windows text size.

The NTray.exe utilities doesn't actually get started until you reboot after your upgrade/install. So...try a reboot and it'll most likely show up.

Answer: I found a very old post for v3.9.2 that mentioned the DPI scaling. That change did the trick. Though the instructions were wrong. You can't do in Start Menu. Have to go to File Mangler and find the NPVR exe file and right click that, Properties, uncheck the DPI setting. But, as with the old post, if you go to full screen, sooner or later it reverts back and you have to do it again.
Oh, you must have missed it, I already said I have Display Scaling set to 100%. Tried that first.

Answer: Ask the stacks of people how many times they have to right click, left click, bounce back to menu and restart recording/viewing before it works. It's been doing this for years on my systems from Win7 onward. I drink a bit... but not that much :O)

Answer: Rebooted more times than I wanted to between the two installs of NPVR. Once I hit full screen, service icon gone. Even though it showed the service running, I went to the NPVR apps and ran Start NPVR Service. Now the icon appears. But, original comment is still true. Going to full screen made it disappear.

So, except for not being able to use full screen in Win10, things are working better. And, I know what to fix when the menu problems return. Oh, and mouse issue still comes and goes. Full screen... I'd love to find out how people are getting that to work without fail. I can't on 3 machines and 3 versions of windows.

You guys are GREAT... don't take my 'short' reply as hostility. I'm a loyal user!! Annual donations will continue!!

Thanks!!

[sub]

Answer: I found a very old post for v3.9.2 that mentioned the DPI scaling. That change did the trick. Though the instructions were wrong. You can't do in Start Menu. Have to go to File Mangler and find the NPVR exe file and right click that, Properties, uncheck the DPI setting. But, as with the old post, if you go to full screen, sooner or later it reverts back and you have to do it again.
Oh, you must have missed it, I already said I have Display Scaling set to 100%. Tried that first.

Answer: Ask the stacks of people how many times they have to right click, left click, bounce back to menu and restart recording/viewing before it works. It's been doing this for years on my systems from Win7 onward. I drink a bit... but not that much :O)

I'm personally using Win10 here, and I do a shitload of everything in NextPVR, fullscreen and windowed, and I've never seen what you're describing. If you can provide some screenshots, it might give some clues. I'm sure it's something about your Windows settings.

You're not got your video renderer set to 'VMR9 FSE'? That does some different stuff with fullscreen mode. Realistically I wouldn't use that renderer these days - you'd be better of just using EVR on modern versions of Windows like Win10.

Answer: Rebooted more times than I wanted to between the two installs of NPVR. Once I hit full screen, service icon gone. Even though it showed the service running, I went to the NPVR apps and ran Start NPVR Service. Now the icon appears. But, original comment is still true. Going to full screen made it disappear.

Going fullscreen shouldn't have had any effect on it - they're two entirely separate applications. It's probably just a coincidence that Windows decided to hide it about the same time.

Check it's actually running - ntray.exe in the task manager process list.

From Windows 8, Microsoft tried to minimize the use of the system tray, so started hiding these icons after a few minutes by default. You can see them by clicking the 'up' arrow.

[Maavalous]

Again... REALLY appreciate all you do and having NextPVR!

Just a quick spec check for you...
Lenovo Ideapad 510s
Intel i5
Intel HD 520 graphics
Running 1920x1080 mode.
I hit power button, spent 6 hours waiting on all the updates... GEEZ! Then uninstalled bloatware, ran disk cleanup, installed Norton AV, installed Hauppauge drivers for my dual tuner. So, by time I started the two installs of NextPVR the machine was a virgin a Win10 machine as you can get. Standard down the line and how I've done four of these over the years. I don't use the HTPC for anything but HT. Between first and second install of NPVR is when I installed the LAV decoders. Nothing else.

Today's updates:
1) I've done several reboots and tried full screen again.
2) The DPI setting did the trick for the menus AND the mouse. Menus are now rightly sized and mouse clicks where I point it... YES!! But, as the other posters noted, if I use full screen a few times my bet is it will revert back to messed up.
3) Tried full screen and it's still a bust. Same hokey pokey... right click, left click, thrown back to menus, go back in, have sound not picture, right click and sometimes it works. Not very often.
4) Yes, I use the EVR setting for video rendering.
5) The NPVR Service icon... Yeah, I know about clicking the arrow :O) Been building and admining systems since 1990 :O)
After several reboots it still only shows up if I run the Service Start utility. Win10 Services show Nrecord.exe running and using 21mb or memory but Ntray.exe is NOT running. NPVRrecordingservice shows up in my startup services. Ntray does not. I'm certain it was there after both installs and before I tried full screen mode. Again, the icon and the Ntray service seem to both have been lost by attempting full screen. Sorry... nothing else was happening at the time.
Is Ntray necessary for recording? I know that running the Service Start utility makes it come back and Ntray appears in services. Is recording still broken?
6) Hard to imagine anything in my Win10 settings. Other than turning off the MS Spyware settings, all is default Win10. Could be... hard to think of what.

[sub]

3) Tried full screen and it's still a bust. Same hokey pokey... right click, left click, thrown back to menus, go back in, have sound not picture, right click and sometimes it works. Not very often.

Can you reproduce this and post the logs?

After several reboots it still only shows up if I run the Service Start utility. Win10 Services show Nrecord.exe running and using 21mb or memory but Ntray.exe is NOT running. NPVRrecordingservice shows up in my startup services. Ntray does not. I'm certain it was there after both installs and before I tried full screen mode. Again, the icon and the Ntray service seem to both have been lost by attempting full screen. Sorry... nothing else was happening at the time.
Is Ntray necessary for recording? I know that running the Service Start utility makes it come back and Ntray appears in services. Is recording still broken?

NTray.exe doesn't do anything other than show a little icon in your system tray, to give you an indication of what is happening. It's not needed for recording or anything else.

If you manually run ntray.exe, does it then show up?

Normally it'd be started automatically via a shortcut in your startup folder. If it's not starting automatically, maybe something has deleted that shortcut? Alternatively open Task Manager, go to the Startup tab, and check that NTray.exe startup is set to Enabled.

[Maavalous]

I've attached the logs. They should show at least 3 attempts at full screen. Those are over reboots between each one. Always the same. End up back at the Menu, sometimes with audio still playing but no video. As it stands, with this build I have never gotten stable full screen.

I checked the startup files and Ntray was NOT there. I added it for grins, rebooted and it now shows. Yeah, I figured it was just a status script. Still, it's nice to have to tell when background recording is going on. A warm fuzzy that things are working.

Let me know what you see cause I see nothing out of whack.

[sub]

I've attached the logs. They should show at least 3 attempts at full screen. Those are over reboots between each one. Always the same. End up back at the Menu, sometimes with audio still playing but no video. As it stands, with this build I have never gotten stable full screen.

When you say "audio still playing but no video", what had you actually tried to do? Watch Live TV, or watch a recording, or something else? You logs don't appear to show any attempt to do anything. It just looks like it shows it starting and that's all.

2017-08-17 13:31:44.450 [INFO][1] StartClientHost()

Actually...after seeing this log message...are you using an alternative client like nlite, or other XNEWA or MVP/NMT other client? (rather than NextPVR.exe)

[Maavalous]

How odd, logs should show at least three attempts. A live TV, watch a recording and a live TV again. But, whenever I tried full screen the program crashes at least back to the main menu so logging may be failing as well.

NO, trust me, if I were using anything but NPVR during all of this I would have said so. This is all happening on a virgin machine with NPVR the only app I'm running.

PROVEN! While I was waiting for you to look at logs I did 2 complete uninstalls and reinstalls of NPVR. In each case I the Ntray icon was there. Ran the app but did NOT go to full screen. Icon still there. Reboot. Icon still there. Go to NPVR and hit full screen... BAM! Icon gone.
Did that test TWICE which now makes it FOUR times it has happened.
Like it or not, full screen is a mess. Something is rotten in the libraries you are using or something. There is no 'logical' reason for that icon to do anything after the install but sit there. Full screen wipes it out every time... along with failing every time.

Remember the First Law of Programming... just because it doesn't happen in your lab doesn't mean it isn't happening in the real world. These are the worst bugs to figure out. Trust me, I've spent decades working in IT... I've seen it all :O)

[sub]

How odd, logs should show at least three attempts. A live TV, watch a recording and a live TV again. But, whenever I tried full screen the program crashes at least back to the main menu so logging may be failing as well.

No, the logging isn't failing. We just haven't been able to piece together what is happening yet.

Try stopping the recording service, delete the files from the c:\users\public\npvr\logs directory, then reboot, reproduce the problem and repost the logs.