Ignition 8.0.3 Designer Black Screen

When developing Perspective views in the 8.0.3 designer, I’ve begun to run into the issue where the view window is completely black for every screen. I can still view the live screen in a browser fine, and uninstalling and reinstalling the designer usually fixes the issue for ~10 minutes before every view is black again. No amount of restarting or reinstalling seems to provide a permanent fix for the issue.

We’ve got a big upgrade to the underlying browser component coming up in 8.0.4 or 8.0.5 that we hope will solve these kind of issues.

Those updates are still awhile away aren’t they? Is there currently a recommended workaround/way to avoid it until then?

I get these rarely, but for some reason @bzink1 gets them all the time.

Cheers,
Roger

The upgrade in progress is expected to help overall stability on virtualized systems and Mac, and general performance on all platforms, but this does not seem to be an issue that I’ve seen before.

When the screen goes black, is the web page still active? Should be able to use the “Tools > Perspective > Launch External Debugger” and see the chromium debug tool window. If not, then copy the debug URL and paste it into a chrome browser tab.

Is that displaying appropriate debug information?

The goal is to figure out if you’ve got some sort of styling issue that is turning your views black, or if there is an actual system error that is preventing the internal browser from loading correctly.

Edit: Based on the size, it looks to me like it may be a system issue, but just want to rule out the styling possibility.

Also, can you provide info about the OS, version of Ignition, and any settings you may have changed from defaults?

The debugger is an empty debugger:

The view still loads fine in a Perspective Session, and the screen hasn’t been edited in some time.

Windows 10 Pro for Workstation x64, Ignition v8.0.3, there shouldn’t be any project properties that have been changed from the default.

Ok, does indeed look like an issue with the underlying browser engine or page loading. How are the system memory/cpu resources?

Can you try running the project in a 8.0.4 nightly and see if you incur the same issues? There have been a fair number of bug and stability fixes into 8.0.4 which could address your issue.

Also, does restarting the computer seem to make any difference in following designer launches?

My resources are fine (~20% CPU, ~40% Memory) and restarting the computer has not helped.

I followed the procedure to upgrade to 8.0.4 nightly and on my computer the Ignition/lib/install-info lists 8.0.4, however after stopping and starting everything, the gateway and designer list 8.0.3 and the black screen is still an issue.

can you post a screenshot of the modules status page that shows the versions? Something seems off about your upgrade, they definitely should not show version 8.0.3 still if the upgrade completed successfully.

Re-downloaded and updated to 8.0.4 nightly on 8/17, fixed the issue. The 8/18 nightly, however, broke expressions and we needed to revert back to the 8/17 one.

Just wanted to circle back here @bzink1 and make sure that everything is working as desired for you in 8.0.4. Let us know if you continue to experience any issues with either the Designer or expressions.

edit: Just to clarify, the browser engine upgrade is still pending, but is actively in development. It’s been more work than initially envisioned, and ICC took some time away from development, but we’re still hoping to bring it out in 8.0.5 or 8.0.6 (roughly 4-8 weeks for the release, sooner for nightlies).

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Yes, everything is working well now. Thank you.

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