setup refusing to open window

[VK4BXI]

Hi to all,
I've run into an annoying issue with startup...when I try to run it from the setup pull-down it goes straight into minimised form and won't expand when I click on its minimised icon.

My setup is 7000dle mark II running V2.10.3.8 and firmware is V2.2.2 protocol 2. The computer is a HP elite desk I 5 running windows 11 home. With one receiver on and 768k band width, the computer loading is ~20%

windows is up to date .....but I've been working on the windows setup trying to "turnoff" un-necessary things. Possibly its a windows update, perhaps its my tinkering....but the problem didn't happen immediately. I went into database and loaded an older version. That seemed to work, I reverted to the current version and that worked as well. Until I switched the next day and now doing the same trick doesn't work.

Please has anyone "hit" this problem before or can give me guidance on where to start looking.

Bob VK4BXI

[w-u-2-o]

Can you get into the database manager? If so, then create a new, fresh database and make that the active one. See if Thetis setup works properly with the new, fresh database.

[VK4BXI]

Yes thanks Scott I have managed to get into the database manager. I will set-up a new “clean” data base. Along the way more evidence has emerged, I run a shared screen between the radio computer and the “shack” computer via a hdmi switch. My issues appear to be linked to which order the two are started up. So it’s going to be a windows issue and not Thesis one I suspect. Thanks for all your great work and support.

Bob VK4BXI

[VK4BXI]

Ok, I think that I have the issue that I was having reduced down to being able to cause it and recover from it at will.

To start it I need to have thesis running on both the main screen and the shared screen with the other computer off.
Then I need to start setup and shift the setup screen to shared screen. That sets the setup to the shared screen, If I switch off the computer, setup will expect to be on the shared screen.
If I restart the (radio)computer and start the (shack) computer which then shows on the shared screen, then start thesis on the (radio) computer....all is fine but if I try and launch setup then setup starts minimised and won't come out of it. It will now stay that way despite multiple (radio)computer restarts or starting or restarting thesis.
To fix it I need to close the minimised startup from the from the launch bar. Shut everything down. Re-start the (radio) computer only, run thesis and launch setup. It will appear correctly on the shared screen. Move the setup box back to the main screen by dragging it there. Close setup and all is now fine.
I don't know if this is a windows 11 issue that I have caused by trying to trim unwanted bits. Or perhaps thesis has issues recovering a minimised box when the screen it was running on is no longer there. Anyway it's been both interesting and frustrating tracking this one down.

[w-u-2-o]

Thetis, not Thesis

To start it I need to have thesis running on both the main screen and the shared screen with the other computer off.
Then I need to start setup and shift the setup screen to shared screen. That sets the setup to the shared screen, If I switch off the computer, setup will expect to be on the shared screen.

Ah ha! Now the root of the issue becomes (mostly) clear

As you surmise, this is not a Thetis issue per se, but rather a unique combination of application, Windows, and user actions all put together.

When working with multiple screens it is not unusual for an application to have a window or windows that gets "lost" when the display environment changes. However, this does not ordinarily happen with Thetis. Therefore you must be doing something a bit different.

For example, I have triple 4K monitors. If I put Thetis on the righthand monitor, with or without an open setup window, if I turn that monitor off then Thetis automatically moves itself and all open child windows to the main monitor. Sadly, it's not smart enough to move back when the monitor is switched on again, but moving app's between monitors is easy, just click the window to make it the active one and use WindowsKey+Shift+Left (or Right) Arrow.

What exactly do you mean when you write "main screen" and "shared screen"? Is the main screen attached to the PC running Thetis? Is the "shared screen" attached to another PC? When you write "shared" do you mean you are using it somehow as an extra display for the Thetis PC? How is it being shared? There's not enough information in your post to really understand the setup and how to possibly improve it.

[VK4BXI]

Hi Scott,
What I’m doing is to have my big wide screen driven only by the ‘radio’ PC and Thetis. A second smaller screen is connected to both Thetis and my ‘shack’ computer using a HDMI switch box with the default to the ‘radio’ PC. I have set it up so that my mouse can travel off the RHS of the big screen and on to the LHS of the second screen. I have further used a usb switch box to switch the mouse and the keyboard between the two computers as required with the switch on default to the ‘radio’ computer.
When I turn on the ‘shack’ computer it takes over the second screen and I can then use that to do ‘housekeeping’ and other ham radio programs including HRD.

IMG_8591.jpeg (3.86 MiB) Viewed 1062 times

[w-u-2-o]

That's pretty complicated. Why not run everything on the radio PC and simply add the second screen permanently to that PC? HRD does not require very much CPU at all, it should not affect Thetis in any way. You can easily try it to prove that's the case.

Also, with that arrangement of screens, why not have the mouse move across the bottom and top edges of the two screens?

[VK4BXI]

Thanks Scott I didn't realise that I could move the second screen under the first one and thus enable the mouse to go straight up and down between screens...thanks ! That shows how familiar I am with window 10/11.

I, like many others...I suspect... have a love / hate relationship with windows 11. While my computer(I5) runs Thetis nicely at ~20% of total cpu time, starting or ending another program causes the total loading to jump up to 30 ~60 %. Whilst this only takes a few seconds it causes the audio output of Thetis to go rather strange and not good at all if I happen to be transmitting at the time. And of course Windows 11 in its wisdom also decides to do some odd things some times which also push's up the percentage to 50~60% for some 10's of seconds.

For these sorts of reasons I resolved to make the loading on the 'radio' computer as light as possible and run nothing else on it. So to that end HRD is run on the 'shack' computer when I need it. I use a pair of usb to serial adapters between the two computers and feed the HRD program via a virtual serial port. The HRD is still the last "free" version that they issued and works nicely for me. I can start and use internet browsers and QRZ etc. without worrying about what Thetis is doing.

As for a solution to my original problem, I went looking in the windows 11 setup section and "drilled" down to system...display....multiple displays and looked at the item below which had a box ticked and was "minimise windows when a monitor is disconnected" . I unchecked that one and now when the 'shack' computer starts up and "steals" the second screen, any boxes that are open on the second screen jump back to the main screen. And of course if I shutdown the shack computer and switch the screen back to the 'radio' computer the boxes that had moved to the main screen now jump back to the second screen to where they were originally.
Not quite a full solution .....but good enough for government work. I can now get back to radio and DX.

Bob VK4BXI