Windows 10 taskbar freezes on connect or disconnect

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dsm

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Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:42 am

Post by dsm » Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:44 am
Whenever a connection connects or disconnects, including automatic reconnections, my taskbar freezes up on Windows 10. Restarting the Windows Explorer process through task manager gets it working again until the next connect or disconnect event. This is with version 1.6.7 or 1.6.8.

Eric

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Post by Eric » Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:08 am
Hi dsm,

The most likely problem is notifications tiles are freezing explorer rather than any particular applications. Do you have any other applications which show these? Do you have any applications which try to customise your taskbar or Windows 10 experience?

Regards,
Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
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dsm

Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:42 am

Post by dsm » Tue Feb 28, 2017 11:35 am
I have the Cisco AnyConnect client which uses notification tiles, the updater for my Nvidia video driver does also. Those do not cause the taskbar to lock. I don't have any apps that customize any appearance. I do have three monitors with the taskbar across all three but that is all through the native Microsoft functionality.

Eric

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Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:27 am

Post by Eric » Tue Feb 28, 2017 11:44 am
Hi dsm,

Does anything appear in Event Viewer around the time of the freeze?

http://sparklabs.com/support/kb/article ... nt-viewer/

Regards,
Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

dsm

Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:42 am

Post by dsm » Tue Feb 28, 2017 12:02 pm
Nothing in the event log except a couple of DNS client events which look to be expected.

Eric

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Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:27 am

Post by Eric » Tue Feb 28, 2017 12:57 pm
Hi dsm,

We've had a look around and we're pretty confident the change in network state is what is causing the issue. Do have any applications running in your tray like Dropbox, OneDrive, OneNote, or any other cloud sync services? Do you have any applications which attempt to make network changes running the background on your PC? Is AnyConnect always running?

Regards,
Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

dsm

Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:42 am

Post by dsm » Tue Feb 28, 2017 1:51 pm
None of those cloud services, or AnyConnect, are running when this occurs. I have very few background tasks running, pretty much just the Microsoft standard ones.

One thing I tried: disabling notifications in Windows though the "notifications & actions" settings; still freezes the taskbar on connect or disconnect.

And one thing I happened to notice: if I quit Viscosity while connected instead of disconnecting it does not freeze the taskbar.

Lastly, I have been using the Securepoint SSL VPN client as a workaround which does not cause this problem, so it's not something very generically related to OpenVPN assuming both clients use similar underpinnings beneath the user interface.

Eric

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Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:27 am

Post by Eric » Tue Feb 28, 2017 1:56 pm
Hi dsm,

If you open the Preferences Windows, and connect/disconnect by right clicking the connection in the list, does the taskbar still freeze?

Regards,
Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

dsm

Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:42 am

Post by dsm » Tue Feb 28, 2017 2:17 pm
Yes, it does.

Eric

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Posts: 1146
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 3:27 am

Post by Eric » Tue Feb 28, 2017 2:35 pm
Hi dsm,

Please try the following:

Save all work and close any open applications.

Uninstall Viscosity (Keep your settings and connections).
Navigate to C:\Program Files and force delete the Viscosity folder if it still exists.
Empty your Recycle Bin
Restart your PC
Reinstall Viscosity, using a copy downloaded from our website (https://www.sparklabs.com/viscosity/download/) rather than any you have stored.

Connect Viscosity, hanging your task bar
Open Task manager and go to Details
Is Viscosity using anything above 1% CPU or 100,000KB of Memory? Watch it for a few seconds, is the Memory usage climbing rapidly?
Kill Viscosity - Does the taskbar become responsive?
Kill openvpn.exe - Does the taskbar become responsive?
Wait at least 10 seconds then Kill ViscosityService.exe - Does the taskbar become responsive?
Are there any other tasks using a high or a constantly increasing amount of Memory or CPU?
Are there any tasks listed with a Status of Not Responding?
Kill dwm.exe, your desktop should reload. Is your taskbar still unresponsive?

Ideally, we'd like you to then start killing other processes and testing if the taskbar becomes responsive.

Regards,
Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs
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