Rhino window deactivating

Hi everyone!
I’m currently working in a worksession with more than 10 files. It often happens that, while a command is active (quite a lot of them, not one or some in particular) the Rhino window will flicker or deactivate, so keyboard commands won’t work and I have to click in the window to make it active again. But even after clicking the window will often deactivate again.
I’ve searched the forum and found nothing. Any ideas what it could be?

Thanks!
P

Hi Pietro - Is this in Rhino V6? Can you please run the SystemInfo command and paste the results here?

thanks,

-Pascal

No, it happens in v5, don’t know if it happens in v6 too since I didn’t use it extensively yet. Anyway, I guess you were referring to the v6 command since there is no such command on v5! Here are the results:

Rhino 6 SR1 2018-2-6 (Rhino 6, 6.1.18037.13441, Git hash:master @ 5a33e6871b94d32ba552468218cef0ad8d3d1263)

Windows 8.1 (Physical RAM: 8Gb)

AMD Radeon R7 200 Series (OpenGL ver:4.5.13476 Compatibility Profile Context 22.19.171.1024)

OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On

Anti-alias mode: 4x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Height

Vendor Name: ATI Technologies Inc.
Render version: 4.5
Shading Language: 4.50
Driver Date: 7-4-2017
Driver Version: 22.19.171.1024
Maximum Texture size: 16384 x 16384
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 16384 x 16384
Total Video Memory: 1 GB

C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp “Renderer Development Kit”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\RhinoRender.rhp “Rhino Render”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk_etoui.rhp “RDK_EtoUI”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk_ui.rhp “Renderer Development Kit UI”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\NamedSnapshots.rhp “Snapshots”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\RhinoCycles.rhp “RhinoCycles”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp “Toolbars”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\3dxrhino.rhp “3Dconnexion 3D Mouse”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Displacement.rhp “Displacement”

Hi Pietro - I do not have an idea -

Can you tell me exactly what you mean - what is it that fails to respond, the command line, or interaction with Rhino’s viewport, and what exactly do you do to get it back again?

(btw, I changed the category to Rhino for Windows; Serengeti is for reporting problems etc with the ‘WIP’ version of Rhino, currently V7)

thanks,
-Pascal

Well, it’s quite unpredictable so it’s not easy to get a screen capture of it. Let’s say that I am tracing a polyline (but that’s just an example) by inputting lengths via keyboard. It will sometimes happen that I cannot input them anymore or that I cannot confirm the one I inputted as the Rhino window is no more active, thus not responding to keyboard inputs as if I switched to another window (like when using alt+tab to switch windows).
To make it active again I have to click somewhere inside it with the mouse or use alt+tab from the keyboard. Nevertheless, it will sometimes keep deactivating right after I have clicked on it.

Hope I was clearer!

Oh yeah, sorry about that!

Hi Pietro - thanks - I do not have a good idea yet - what is the PC that you’re running on?
@JohnM, @stevebaer - does either of you have an idea what might cause this? Rhino 5.

-Pascal

The only thing that comes to mind is that a modeless container in Rhino has input focus. For example if you have the object properties panel open and click in it mouse and keyboard input will get set there. You can tell if the Rhino application is still the active application by checking the color of the title bar at the top of the main Rhino window.

The bar colour actually changes when the rhino window deactivates, but
there aren’t any other active rhino windows open! Are you referring to a
floating proprieties window, for example?

Bump.
I get this in v6 (also sometimes in v5). One instance when Rhino becomes an un-active window is when I click on overlapping items and get the pop-up “Selection Menu” to choose which item to select. When I select an item it de-ativates the Rhino window, so I have to click in Rhino to re-activate it to use any shortcut keys.

It doesn’t do it every session but I haven’t identified any variable yet.

It just did it also when I make a selection by layer.

3 Likes

Hello - thanks for the clip, I’ll see if I can reproduce this…

-Pascal

That’s exactly what happens to me! Moreover, it sometimes starts to flicker between activated and deactivated status, slowing to a crawl!

Same thing happens here. It was the same in V5 as it is now in V6. I haven’t tried it without un-docking the panel.

Likewise - Same issue here. When I select on a object (or layer), the rhino file name on the top left corner of the window becomes grayed out. When I type a command, while the rhino file name is grayed out, it does not enter that text I typed into the command bar. I will have to click somewhere else in the viewport, or directly on the command bar in order to type in the command.

Significantly slowing work.

Same here! Any solutions? Very frustrating for work flow

Are those of you with this problem using a 3dconnexion device?
If you are, does the problem go away if you start Rhino with it disconnected?

Not using any 3dconnexion device here…

It is as if I have clicked out of the rhino application window into another app/windows to make the Rhino window turn pale grey as if deselected. Then I cannot type any commands without actually clicking within the command bar. Happens irregularly but often when I use the gumball.

I’m having the same issue as other describe and have had it for quite some time in both 5 and 6. It is usually more frequent with larger files. Has there been any resoloutiuon to this? It is infuriatingly disruptive to any semblance of a workflow. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

Please fix this!!!

As far as I can tell, we haven’t been able to reproduce this behavior.
Could you try to describe in detail in which situations this occurs?
Does it also happen when you run Rhino in safe mode?
Please post a screenshot of the entire Windows workspace and the results of the Rhino 6 SystemInfo command.
CC: @JohnM, @stevebaer

@JohnM please take a look at the video post above. This looks to me like something that may have to do with the auto-hiding of floating windows.