Having some issues with games....

[Homerboy]

I guess this is as good of a place to post this as any...

I don't do a ton of gaming anymore, but I usually will play a little bit every day (older games like TF2, and for some reason I'm going through TQ again).

Anyways, for some reason, I am continuously being dropped back to desktop (game is not crashing, just minimizing). It will happen randomly throughout my playing time. I tried new video drivers, nothing else in running in the background. No errors or anything (unless TF2 gets sick of it and crashes)... but as you can imagine it's a pain in the ass.

Sadly I don't recall EXACTLY when it started, so I can't really trace it back to something being installed or something like that.

I guess I'm just looking for ideas/suggestions before I just format and start over.


Thanks

 

[SMOGZINN]

To you have anything giving windows notifications? That tends to drop me to the desktop in some games.

 

[Homerboy]

To you have anything giving windows notifications? That tends to drop me to the desktop in some games.

nope nothing. I tried turning off all the gadgets etc too.
It just drops me to desktop. No messages. No pop-ups, no errors nothing. Just my desktop as-is.

 

[sigurros81]

I hope it's not the case for you, but there's a chance that it could be a virus or trojan that's running in the background. I've experienced a similar experience a long time ago when I was running WindowsXP, and I found out after some digging that it was from some malware on my computer that I got after a long session of midget porn.

 

[Homerboy]

Hmmmm I mean I GUESS that is possible, though I'd imagine painfully unlikely.
I will run some scanners this weekend (malwarbytes etc) and see what comes up if anything.

I can see where that would be a possibility, but I just can't imagine there is something there. Better safe than sorry though!

 

[SMOGZINN]

Um, make sure you are not hitting the windows key? Sounds silly, but you never know.

 

[Homerboy]

Um, make sure you are not hitting the windows key? Sounds silly, but you never know.

heh not silly at all. In fact I thought of that. and was conscious of it. In fact so much that I even swapped out keyboards to make sure it wasn't just acting up or something goofy. Besides, if it was the Windows key, then my start menu should be popping up....

 

[Athadeus]

You on a desktop or laptop?

 

[Homerboy]

You on a desktop or laptop?

desktop

 

[Homerboy]

malware scan was negative.
Still doing it this morning too.

 

[Barfo]

Try running the game only, with no other program in the background. I had this problem and it turned out my audio control panel was causing it.

 

[Homerboy]

honestly there is nothing except Steam, AV (already tried disabled), WHS Connector, a couple of gadgets (tried disabling them too).

Something I have noticed too (in fact while typing this post out) is sometimes when typing (posts, emails, Word, whatever) my cursor will get "lost" and I will have to re-click on the text box window. Very odd.

Hmmmm... maybe mouse?

 

[Homerboy]

nope. Not mouse either.
Just plugged in known working simple 2-button Dell wired mouse and same thing.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

 

[BD231]

It's a DX10 issue, use dx 9 and the issue will go away.

 

[Homerboy]

It's a DX10 issue, use dx 9 and the issue will go away.

I think Ive been on DX10 forever.
Now all of a sudden problems?

 

[BD231]

I think Ive been on DX10 forever.
Now all of a sudden problems?

Driver update or game patch might have triggered it, but, for the most part *some* DX10 titles do have issues crashing to the desktop with no error. Never looked for a fix though as I don't play to many dx 10 titles right now, just tom clanceys hawx and that game crashes like clockwork in dx 10.1.

 

[StormSide]

Try this util:

WinFocusMon is a tiny, portable tool used to diagnose why a specified window loses focus.

WinFocusMon monitors a program window (GUI) for changes to its state and logs what caused the change. Ever been typing in your word processor, browser, or writing an email only to discover that some of what you typed is missing? Playing a game that loses keyboard focus or minimizes to the desktop? WinFocusMon may be able to tell you why.

http://12bytes.org/software/winfocusmon

 

[Homerboy]

:thumbsup:

 

[Homerboy]

================================================================================
DATE: 17-04-2011
TIME: 06:25:18
MONITORING WINDOW: Titan Quest
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Titan Quest" LOST FOCUS DUE TO THE FOLLOWING PROCESS:
WINDOW TITLE = TheWorld Browser
PROCESS PID = -1
WINDOW HANDLE =




Now the trick is I can NOT find this thing on my PC anywhere!

(super cool app by the way)

 

[BFG10K]

Now the trick is I can NOT find this thing on my PC anywhere!

You should be able to see it in Task Manager under the "processes" tab. If not it might be a Rootkit.

 

[Homerboy]

npmon.exe
killed it seems to be OK now... no idea though how it's getting started on start up

 

[Homerboy]

GD it... killed npmon.exe and all was well for a bit.

Now this:

================================================================================
DATE: 17-04-2011
TIME: 07:15:04
MONITORING WINDOW: Titan Quest
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Titan Quest" LOST FOCUS DUE TO THE FOLLOWING PROCESS:
WINDOW TITLE =
PROCESS PID = 9303072
WINDOW HANDLE = 0x00000000



no program title this time?!?!? UGh.

 

[Homerboy]

GD thing is back!


================================================================================
DATE: 17-04-2011
TIME: 07:21:09
MONITORING WINDOW: Titan Quest
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Titan Quest" LOST FOCUS DUE TO THE FOLLOWING PROCESS:
WINDOW TITLE = TheWorld Browser
PROCESS PID = -1
WINDOW HANDLE =
================== LIST OF ALL RUNNING PROCESSES AT THE TIME ===================


seems to restart itself.
wonderful.

 

[Homerboy]

ohhhhhhhhhh

npkusvc is another service running.
both .exes buried in my roaming profile.
killed the process. deleted the .exes and .inis
maybe this time.

 

[buddyheadx]

I have the same problem that you have with npmon.exe and npkusvc. It took awhile to figure out that these were the culprits. I delete the files via the Task Manager and then there are no problems but they reload themselves on a fresh startup. Have you figured out how to permanently solve the problem? If you did, please share.