"loss of focus" problem. *Testers Wanted* for possible permanent fix

[TheShanMan]

Ummon, just for you I'm fixing it!

[diggso]

Hi all,
I was having this problem every time the machine booted and I traced the problem down to the fact that I had checked the 'Autohide the taskbar' checkbox.
To resolve, just right click the taskbar, select 'Properties' and uncheck this checkbox.
Failing that, also uncheck all the rest of the taskbar property checkboxes.
Cheers, diggso

[loadman]

Hi all,
I was having this problem every time the machine booted and I traced the problem down to the fact that I had checked the 'Autohide the taskbar' checkbox.
To resolve, just right click the taskbar, select 'Properties' and uncheck this checkbox.
Failing that, also uncheck all the rest of the taskbar property checkboxes.
Cheers, diggso

Thanks 4 the tip 

[markronz]

It could be either the DivX codec stealing focus from Mala. There are registry entries you can make to prevent the codec stealing focus. I'm not sure if that is what the problem is but it might be worth checking out.

Here is an example..

Code: [Select]

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DivXNetworks\DivX\SMExclusions]
"Mala"="Mala.exe"

Just wanted to say THANK YOU for this tip.  That Reg fix did the trick for me!  My specific issue was when playing EmuMovies avi files, other than MAME ones.  Like whenever I played an Atari 2600 movie in Mala, it would steal the focus.

Anyway thanks again!

[beercade]

Another taskbar tip;  In the properties of taskbar, uncheck the box called "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows"  This fixed my problem regardless of the tool bar being hidden or not.   

It did not, however fix all of my focus problems.  Here is the senerio; I run mala speech plugin to say the button actions, so for a game like SF it can take 15-20 seconds to speek all the commands.  In that time, while at the "get ready to Play!" screen and while it is speaking, if i move the stick up or down i can hear mala sounds for the game list select and the screen goes black, except for the video snap.  It stays in this state, never launches the game, and escaping brings up the quit mala conframation box, which at that point is all I can do.  Im guessing that in this case that the speech plugin does have focus untill i move the stick, at which point mala re-gains focus and mame never gets a chance to launch, and the speech plugin is in limbo.  I will install the focus loger and see what i can find out.

[kagaden]

So far in Mala, I've gotten a focus issue twice out of approximately 4000 game launches in the past month.

My Mala is shelled on a fresh install of windows xp sp2.
HyperAttract.exe (see software forum) is the only other application running and that runs on Mala load through TheShanMan's launcher plugin.

I'm not running any video in Mala.
I'm not running any sound in Mala.
My toolbar is set to not Auto-hide.
I do have a screensaver that comes on (through Mala), but it doesn't appear to be related to this.

I plan on installing the focus logger tomorrow and seeing what's taking focus if I can catch it. It may take a couple weeks to get it. There shouldn't be anything that's alt-tabbable though to run into.

I reproduced it the first time by launching an emulator (pressing P1 start) and then quickly dropping out before the game fully loaded (Pressing P1 & P2 Start). I've tried to reproduce it a couple times afterwards and it doesn't appear easily reproducible this way.

I hope this helps, I'll post more information as I find it out from the logger.

[TheShanMan]

Cool. It will be good to hear the results. I know this must be a thorn in Loadman's side, so anything that helps him figure out what's going on (assuming it's something he can control) would be good. And hopefully my plugin will help. Might even help you work around the problem by forcing focus back to mala!

[kagaden]

It's happened a couple more times now, I'll pull the logs tomorrow and post them.

So, mala focus logger did not resolve the problem. The logs state that "no window has focus" and then Focus Logger attempts to shift focus to Mala and fails. It doesn't give a detailed reason why it fails, but looking at the log history it seems pretty clear that nothing has focus.


I'm thinking at this point that perhaps Plugins may cause the problem? This problem has actually gotten worse the more plugins I've used. Before I used the autolauncher I never had the problem. After using the autolauncher plugin, I had it twice in the span of a month. Now, since adding in focus logger, I'm getting it about once every 2 days with reasonable consistency. I'm still not sure how to reproduce it reliably though, and it's always after exiting an emulator and losing focus.

Logs coming soon, but they don't appear to tell much other than it's a mystery

Edit: I found the exact line that was in adamc's log file... Malafocuslogger doesn't fix focus for me either, I'm using WinXPsp3.


No window has focus: setting focus to MaLa.
-- Failed to set focus to MaLa.

Again, I'll post the log tomorrow. The only out of the box thing I've done with Mala was use plugins, and it seems to get worse with more plugins. Now I'm curious, how does Mala handle plugins, is it attempting to reload them or something which can steal focus if timed properly? I'm still even using the default layout with a different background/wallpaper and this is a squeaky clean install of xp.

[kagaden]

Loadman,

Since you're trying to reproduce the issue, I recommend adding some plugins to your test environment if you haven't already. Just in case

I'm currently using:
Autolauncher w/ hyperattract.exe
Malafocuslogger

It seems to happen pretty frequently now, I'd put it at about 5% of the time that it will lose focus.


TheShanMan,

Can you think of any reason why the focuslogger would fail when attempting to shift focus back to Mala? I have my install set to my D: drive in a media\Mala folder and MaLa.exe is not renamed or anything. It's an active process running... weird.

[Luigi]

I installed a Mame cab for a friend without any plugins but the problem's there, too.

[TheShanMan]

Yeah, I don't think the plugins have anything to do with it. If by "autolauncher" you mean my MaLaLauncher plugin, I have both plugins running and don't have any trouble with them. I don't recall exactly what the causes of not being able to set focus, but I seem to recall that it does depend on the OS. What version of Windows are you running? I'm running XP SP3. I just call a Windows API function to change the focus and report back whether or not it succeeded, so I'm afraid it's not something I have much control over.

And just for the sake of accuracy, "no window has focus" doesn't mean another app isn't stealing focus. The logger uses a polling method of checking focus, and as I recall I think it's every 0.25 seconds. So it certainly can miss some focus changes if they happen in rapid succession. The goal of the plugin was not so much about 100% accuracy with logging as it was with minimizing cpu cycles and trying to set focus back.

Sorry none of that helps you. I wish it was as successful for you as it has been for me.

[kagaden]

Yeah, I don't think the plugins have anything to do with it. If by "autolauncher" you mean my MaLaLauncher plugin, I have both plugins running and don't have any trouble with them. I don't recall exactly what the causes of not being able to set focus, but I seem to recall that it does depend on the OS. What version of Windows are you running? I'm running XP SP3. I just call a Windows API function to change the focus and report back whether or not it succeeded, so I'm afraid it's not something I have much control over.

And just for the sake of accuracy, "no window has focus" doesn't mean another app isn't stealing focus. The logger uses a polling method of checking focus, and as I recall I think it's every 0.25 seconds. So it certainly can miss some focus changes if they happen in rapid succession. The goal of the plugin was not so much about 100% accuracy with logging as it was with minimizing cpu cycles and trying to set focus back.

Sorry none of that helps you. I wish it was as successful for you as it has been for me.

I'm using xp service pack 3 (fresh install) as well and the refocus fails There are no other tabbable applications running to take focus.

It's interesting I'm getting this problem MUCH more often now. It happened 3 times today so far. =/ Each time I'll reboot, it'll be fine for a couple hours, and then it'll happen again out of nowhere. Weird.

[TheShanMan]

It doesn't have to be an alt-tabbable action. If you're convinced that the plugins are somehow involved, remove them and see what happens.

[kagaden]

It doesn't have to be an alt-tabbable action. If you're convinced that the plugins are somehow involved, remove them and see what happens.

Exactly what I intend to do when I get a moment to work on it.

[slapaham]

Add me to the list of people having this problem. Havent tried all the solutions here yet but thought I should let people know!

[TheShanMan]

One thing people have to bear in mind is that you have to be really careful about what software you let run on your system, and that includes stuff like drivers that have tray icons or other "background" tasks. If the logger can't tell you what has focus then I'd recommend looking at task manager and making a note of all the running processes (process tab, not application tab) and find out what each process is for (search for the filename on google). Of course there will be necessary/harmless ones like svchost but if there are exe's that aren't absolutely necessary for your system to run, then try eliminating all of those and see if the problem goes away. Then if there are some processes that you would like to have running, add them back one at a time and see when the problems return.

I bet most if not all people who have this problem can eliminate it by taking these steps. Yeah, it's a pain, but how badly do you want to eliminate the need to pull out the mouse or keyboard to correct it?

[slapaham]

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you TheShanMan!

I have tried EVERYTHING to solve my loss of focus problem today! And nothing worked apart from your plugin (which, stupidly, I tried last! )

I'm cautiously saying it has solved the problem (I have been playing my cab for a while without any problems so far - don't want to jinx it though! ) - I got the problem everytime I booted my cab up into Mala (which autoloaded the last game - usually Mortal Kombat for me at the moment! ) Whenever I played to around the third fight (2-3 minutes) and then exited, I'd lose focus - that would be EVERY TIME - I have now tried it twice since installing the plugin and it hasn't done it yet - fingers crossed for the future!

Thanks again!

[TheShanMan]

Cool! Nothing is more annoying than having to pull out your keyboard or mouse to get your cab working right again, so I'm glad it has helped you.

[kagaden]

It doesn't have to be an alt-tabbable action. If you're convinced that the plugins are somehow involved, remove them and see what happens.

Exactly what I intend to do when I get a moment to work on it.

Before Autolauncher being installed, I had never gotten a focus issue.

After Autolauncher was installed, I was getting loss of focus once or twice per month.

After Malafocuslogger was installed I'd get loss of focus about 2-3 times a day with the same amount of use. Malafocuslogger failing to restore focus probably compounded this problem on my XP-SP3 system. This was consistent for several weeks.

After I removed Malafocuslogger, I haven't had another loss in focus problem again yet (knock on wood). It's been roughly a month. I'd much rather deal with 1-2 times per month than 2-3 times per day.

[TheShanMan]

Sorry to hear that. Both work flawlessly on my XP SP3 system. If I had any idea how to reproduce it I'd look into fixing it. Do you have explorer or mala set to be your windows shell (if you have a start menu/task bar then it's explorer)? I don't know if that would matter but that's the only thing I can think of. I have mala set to be my shell, so explorer doesn't run on my cab.

[kagaden]

Sorry to hear that. Both work flawlessly on my XP SP3 system. If I had any idea how to reproduce it I'd look into fixing it. Do you have explorer or mala set to be your windows shell (if you have a start menu/task bar then it's explorer)? I don't know if that would matter but that's the only thing I can think of. I have mala set to be my shell, so explorer doesn't run on my cab.

Same, I'm shelled with mala using Instant Sheller. It's no biggie, it's livable

[loadman]

FYI.

This issue has not gone off my radar.

\

[kagaden]

Just a quick update:
Since removing the focuslogger about a month ago, I haven't seen a single instance of loss of focus since *knock on wood*. Really strange but thanks for focuslogger cause uninstalling it seemed to fix the issue ;P

This is on a machine thats running 24/7 and is getting a little over 2700 plays a month.

 

[loadman]

Just a quick update:
Since removing the focuslogger about a month ago, I haven't seen a single instance of loss of focus since *knock on wood*. Really strange but thanks for focuslogger cause uninstalling it seemed to fix the issue ;P

This is on a machine thats running 24/7 and gets a little over 2700 plays a month.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

What version are you using?

[kagaden]

1.0.5.8 is the version I'm using.

And I meant the thanks in a sincere way. Whatever happened after installing the plugin, running it for awhile (which made it worse), and then removing it seems to have totally cured my lack of focus issue.

[kagaden]

Just thought I'd note that I -completely forgot- to mention when I adjusted the plugin's earlier this year (see earlier post) I ALSO disabled the screensaver built into mala as well... I had about 20 pictures that would cycle through after 2 minutes of inactivity. It very well could have been disabling the screensaver that fixed the loss of focus problem for me.

I haven't had a single instance of it since I made the adjustment. It runs beautifully besides j-pac freaking out every once in awhile after being on for weeks at a time and needing a reboot.

[loadman]

Again, I suggest looking at the malafocuslogger.log file to see what is happening with focus at that point (it will tell you what app, if any, has focus).

Also, you may have more luck if you set up mala to be your windows shell rather than explorer (on your cab only, of course). You can find info on that by searching the forums or the wiki.

Love the Plug-in. ;-)

No offense, but I am making some changes to MaLa so hopefully this plug-in won't be required anymore.

In the meantime I am using this as a tool. Is there any chance you could update the plug-in to put a date/time stamp on each log entry?  That way I can marry each entry up with the MaLa logs to dbug the issue.

Thanks in advance

Loadman

[loadman]

Again, I suggest looking at the malafocuslogger.log file to see what is happening with focus at that point (it will tell you what app, if any, has focus).

Also, you may have more luck if you set up mala to be your windows shell rather than explorer (on your cab only, of course). You can find info on that by searching the forums or the wiki.

Love the Plug-in. ;-)

No offense, but I am making some changes to MaLa so hopefully this plug-in won't be required anymore.

In the meantime I am using this as a tool. Is there any chance you could update the plug-in to put a date/time stamp on each log entry?  That way I can marry each entry up with the MaLa logs to dbug the issue.

Thanks in advance

Loadman

NAG   

[Henrik68000]

Here an example of loss of focus. Running Actionmax emulator and then ending a game makes the whole screnn cluttered. I run 1280 x 800 in resolution for my menu. This actionmax emu is just one of more that won't return to a normal menu screen. Very annoying..

 

[loadman]

Here an example of loss of focus. Running Actionmax emulator and then ending a game makes the whole screnn cluttered. I run 1280 x 800 i resolution for my menu. This actionmax emu is just one of more that wont return to a normal menu screen. Very annoying..

 

What command line are you using?

Have you tried the option  Gui-Game Start/Quit - ReOrder Layout after Game QUit  ?

[Henrik68000]

I use the command line  "%path%\%rom%.%ext%". The games are run from bats. ( the only way to run them)

The bats are like this : @singedaphne.exe singe vldp -framefile singe/ActionMax/frame_BlueThunder.txt singe/ActionMax/BlueThunder.singe -fullscreen

I have turned on the *reorder layout if clustered after game quit* but this feature seems to have no effect at all?

I have the same problem with AAE emulator. The commandline here is : %rom%

It's a really big shame that i cant run the AAE emu. I would love to have that one in my setup.  I gave up on a setup of PC games (run with bats) since really many of them clustered the layout after game quit.

I think the cluster happens when you quit from one resolution to another (from emu resolution to layout resolution), but this is not a consistant fact.

[loadman]

I have heard of these issues but I have never seen it so it hard to fix...

I only use MAME really so for other emulators I would need someone to send me the software and instructions (for at least 1 game) so I can set it up to test it.

PM me if interested in doing that

[Henrik68000]

ok. Ill contact you reading passing over files of my setup to you.

[loadman]

ok. Ill contact you reading passing over files of my setup to you.

Another Option is to send a VM image of your PC  ;-)   

[Henrik68000]

 HI  Again, This way you  suggest i do not know. Can i send a DVD?

[javeryh]

Not sure if this helps but autohotkey fixed this issue for me.  It runs a script after the "ESC" button is pressed so that 0.5 seconds after the button press a left mouse click is simulated.  This returns focus to MaLa as the top window.  I've been running it for a few months with no problems - it used to happen EVERY time I initially booted my machine - I had MaLa set to run at startup and launch DK.  When I was done playing and wanted to play something else I'd hit the ESC button to go back to the gamelist and MaLa would lose focus every single time.   Not anymore! 

[Henrik68000]

Not sure if this helps but autohotkey fixed this issue for me.  It runs a script after the "ESC" button is pressed so that 0.5 seconds after the button press a left mouse click is simulated.  This returns focus to MaLa as the top window.  I've been running it for a few months with no problems - it used to happen EVERY time I initially booted my machine - I had MaLa set to run at startup and launch DK.  When I was done playing and wanted to play something else I'd hit the ESC button to go back to the gamelist and MaLa would lose focus every single time.   Not anymore!  

I've send you a personal message since i would like to hear more about your solution. Theres certain things i dont understand 'bout your trick.

[loadman]

HI  Again, This way you  suggest i do not know. Can i send a DVD?

FYI.

I have not yet received anything :-(

[loadman]

I've been manually closing processes until I've found the problem: CTFMON.exe. Once it's killed, no more focus loss. That's the reason I do not have any problem when MaLa loads at startup before explorer, because there are no processes in memory. When I launch MaLa from Windows, if ctfmon is running, the problem of focus is there. I have tried with the focus logger plugin. Is this plugin supposed to do something or it just writes information in the log file? the log file says that no window has focus, and failed to set focus to MaLa. I've tried putting all the files in the plugin folder as well as in the MaLa root folder. Anyway, I can fix the problem, either but removing the ctfmon program from the registry, or automatically killing it when MaLa is launched from Windows (I run a MaLa-launcher.exe in this case which uses AutoHotkey commands to hide and restore mouse pointers on the fly). I'll just have to add a line: process, close, ctfmon.exe

Can people please let me know if they have success by removing/disabling ctfmon.

http://www.pchell.com/support/ctfmon.shtml

[Henrik68000]

I had no luck with my clutter problem after disabling ctfmon.  My clutter is not at mala startup, but when certain games/emu's are closed by 'esc' (AAE /ActionMax and many pc games, and a few emu's i can nolonger remember).

Loadman i will still send a harddrive to you but i'm a bit disabled after a carcrash. I can't sit at the monitor/keyboard more than 30 minutes a few times aday right now. (And  i'm not sending a 2 TB hd with the full setup , i found a 250 Gb that can do if i edit things out and leave the important stuff.
I need to finish that hd ASAP and mail it. Expect it to arrive in 3 weeks (as i expect it takes 2 weeks to Austarial (i have a lot of family there)!

Henrik