Unable to regain focus and need to kill RDM fairly often

Hello,

We had a case opened already for windows stock in the background and some enhancements have bee made regarding this. We also worked on freeze issue that RDM was having in the latest releases.

That being said, what version of RDM are you currently running?

Best regards,

Jeff,

Doh! Can't believe I left that out. I was most recently at 2021.1.32.0 and just upgraded to 2021.1.36.0 when I made the post. I see 2021.1.40.0 is showing available to me now. I see in the changelog for 2021.1.36.0 "Fixed possible freeze after application is activated after idle", so hopefully that will take care of this!

I'll check back again after some cycles.
Thanks

Jeff,

The crash behaviour is different in 2021.1.36.0 than 32.0, if I am experiencing the same bug. Instead of RDM being minimized to taskbar and can't maximize, the window is still full size but can't click on anything and the mouse is now doing the infinite spinning, like it's waiting on something. Right clicking RDM in the taskbar and selecting "Close" or "Exit" does nothing.

After killing the process, I've restarted RDM and will install 2021.1.40.0 now. There isn't anything in the changelog looking like it's going to resolve this issue, so from your side, do you still show this bug as open and not fixed?

Thanks

Hello,

RDM 2021.1.41.0 has been released this morning and some enhancements have been made for issues like yours.

Could you give it a try? You can download it here
https://remotedesktopmanager.com/home/download

Best regards,

Ran into this problem twice this week. Once on an older version 2021.1.x from a few months ago and again today on a more recent version (it just installed 2021.1.41 after it was running 2021.1.38 or 39 IIRC, now its offering 2021.2.19). It seems to happen when I critically need test results and RDM decides to be a dick.

I first notice I can't get focus on any tab. I minimize all windows to make sure there isn't an RDM window behind everything else. After that, cannot maximize the RDM window again.

I right click on taskbar and tell it to close window, then RDM appears and shows me each of my tabs closing (with all my test results!!!) and then the upgrade screen appears.

At this point, I've lost so much critical data from this bug (happened more than 10 times in last two years), I don't think I can keep using RDM :(

I understand your frustrations. The RDM freeze issue has been haunting us since around version v2020.3.19. We've spent the last 8-10 months chasing this issue and have come a long way since then.

The main issue is we have/had code that would create UI elements when on a background thread (joys of multithreaded applications). More specifically, in the case of RDM the application would be fine until a Windows System Event like hibernate, unlock, minimize would fire and ask RDM to process the message on both UI and no-UI threads and we would freeze (deadlock).

Where are we at now? The latest version v2021.2.20 is our most stable version, it solves the latest freeze where RDM would hang when downloading the new binaries.

If you still experience freezing, you can start RDM with the "deadlock detection" switch. In this mode RDM will try to detect possible freeze issues and generate process & memory dump(s) that help us diagnose these freeze. If you're interested in giving it a try please let me know. I will send you the details. Warning: running with the deadlock switch enabled will cause RDM to take 20-30% of your CPU, over its usual usage, until you disable the switch a restart RDM.

Stefane,

Thanks for those details, that's appreciated. I can say on the multiple PC's that I've run into this, none of them use hibernation or lock screens but the issue is pretty much observed after coming back to an idle bench (ie, running a test overnight and then checking for results the next day). But its also happened a few times while in normal desktop usage. For a long time, I thought it was exacerbated by having multiple monitors but one of the most recent times happened on a headless machine I'm TeamViewered into. I don't know for sure, but its possible that might have actually been the hanging when trying to download new binaries and not the stuck minimized issue.

Please send me the details on using the switch. I don't know if I can run into on all my machines, but I'll try and run in where the additional CPU shouldn't be much of an issue.

Thanks

No problem, here is the procedure to run with the diagnostic enabled.

1. Close RDM
2. Open a command line (cmd)
   1. if you usually run RDM elevated, make sure you start cmd elevated.
3. Execute the following
   1. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Devolutions\Remote Desktop Manager\RemoteDesktopManager64.exe" /Profiler -8192
   2. your install path may vary.

This will start RDM with the "Deadlock detection" profiler enabled. It scans the application and will log any controls/forms that have been created on a non-UI thread. You can now minimize the profiler window.

If/when RDM detects UI code running on non-UI thread RDM will act kind of crazy and start creating mini-dump files (4-5 MB). Each file contains a snapshot of all the threads running at the time of the snapshot and won't stop until the offending non-UI thread stops. The idea is we catch the offending code so that we resolve the issue once and for all. When a mini-dump is created RDM will give you a pop-up message and open the file location of the mini-dump. If you get any, please contact us so that we can send you an upload URL so that you can send us the files.

Important, once you started RDM with the /Profiler -8192 switch the value will stick. Even if you restart RDM normally, it will keep on scanning for deadlocks & consume your CPU. To disable the switch either start the app with /Profiler 1 or in RDM Help > Profiler > Profiler Level = 1 & close the profiler window. You can now stop and start RDM normally.

Best regards,