Enormous bug when switching between characters

Hello all - I am experiencing a bug that pretty much stops me from boxing EVE altogether (unless I'd like to alt+tab manually through every window for every command), I'm creating this thread as a huge "Please Help" and also to document any progress I make on fixing it, in case someone else encounters this in the future.

I'm running 10 EVE clients, in a configuration based on the "Stacked Full Screen on \\.\DISPLAY1 (No Swapping,Avoid Taskbar) window layout preset. In my configuration I have added a dxnothing window to the top of my main monitor, and a second dxnothing window that fills my secondary monitor. Basically, at times I am unable to control or replicate, when I attempt to switch between characters (ctrl+alt+1-9), it doesn't work. Not only does it fail to work, but the window holding the character I attempted to switch to will begin infinitely blinking orange on the taskbar, like an application in need of attention. Once this happens, I cannot alt+tab to any applications on my computer, or to any of the other characters. Broadcasting still works, and I can close the clients by broadcasting a "quit game" command to all clients from my primary client (is1). I cannot close the clients via the taskbar, they simply do not react to the command. If I open the task manager, it will instantly become hidden behind my "is1" window, which seems to always climb to the top above any other application (chrome is an exception for some reason).

There were some suggestions made in the irc chat (thanks to all those who have tried to help), although nothing has changed any part of the behavior. What I have tried so-far:

-Reducing the layout to a single dxnothing window.
-Re-exporting my configuration from the ISBoxer Toolkit to Inner Space.
-Quitting Inner Space while the clients are still running.
-Closing only the effected windows via the task manager (if I have no second dxnothing window and can get the task manager to my secondary monitor, manually quitting each exefile does close them, although it does not stop the behavior)
-Some other things, sadly I haven't documented everything I've tried and can't remember any more.

My assumption is that this has something to do with my character set configuration in ISBoxer, specifically my window layout, as I have not yet experienced the problem when using a character set in which I chose only presets and changed nothing. However, I haven't been running that character set as often, so it may just be that I've dodged a bullet so-far; the behavior starts extremely unpredictably.

I don't know what to do at this point. Are there any logs or anything I could take a look at/upload to try to diagnose it? Certainly one of the most frustrating parts about all of this is that my computer does not seem to auto-detect that there is a problem; no "stopped responding" popups or anything.

Thank you for reading and thank you for any and all help you can provide!

[lax]

From the Windows documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms633539%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Code:

The system restricts which processes can set the foreground window. A process can set the foreground window only if one of the following conditions is true:

    The process is the foreground process.
    The process was started by the foreground process.
    The process received the last input event.
    There is no foreground process.
    The process is being debugged.
    The foreground process is not a Modern Application or the Start Screen.
    The foreground is not locked (see LockSetForegroundWindow).
    The foreground lock time-out has expired (see SPI_GETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT in SystemParametersInfo).
    No menus are active.

An application cannot force a window to the foreground while the user is working with another window. Instead, Windows flashes the taskbar button of the window to notify the user.

So basically what's likely happening is you're "working with another window" and until you are done "working with another window" (you'll need to figure out which one that is, or perhaps find a program that is causing this you can close down) all that will happen is the taskbar button will notify you. We might be able to narrow it down via "Diagnostics for game crashes" -- http://isboxer.com/wiki/Diagnostics

Excellent - thank you! I will try to see what's going on next time it happens - until then I will attempt to replicate the problem with that in mind.

Alright, the problem is most definitely coming from one or the other of my dxnothing windows. Whenever this takes place, one of them or the other will be non-closeable via the taskbar, and I will be able to close it via the task manager if I can get the task manager to stay visible long enough to end the process. Once this happens, the problem disappears. So, for now this is a workaround I can handle, but it doesn't fix the problem.

One odd thing is that when this happens, I am active in an actual character window, and I can interact with that window. When I try to enter a dxnothing window, including the effected one, I'm not able to, and even the dxnothing window that I'm "working with" blinks yellow in the taskbar. This makes me think that perhaps the problem has something to do with one of my videofx regions, somehow sending an input to a dxnothing window or something, although with my current settings I'm not sure how that's possible.

Anyway, I hope that helps. The crash diagnostic tool sadly many not be useful in this particular case (or so I assume, with my limited experience/knowledge), because the game never actually crashes.

[lax]

Thanks for the info, I will have to do some testing and see if I can reproduce the issue somehow.

Anyway, I hope that helps. The crash diagnostic tool sadly many not be useful in this particular case (or so I assume, with my limited experience/knowledge), because the game never actually crashes.

What the diagnostics tell me is what is actually running on your PC, what is loaded in the selected process, and what Windows Compatibility settings you might have configured. It's not exclusively for crashes; actually these days it's used more for things other than crashes

had this happen tonight to me. couldnt interact with the dxnothing window at all. everything on it was still active and updating, i just couldnt touch it. ended up closing the dxnothing window and opening it back up to fix the issue.

Hi again - sorry about the delay in getting this diagnostic uploaded, RL has been keeping me busy.

http://privatepaste.com/4784cdd8b0

For now, closing the culprit dxnothing window and launching it again has been working. Also, I've noticed that when I start the task manager using ctrl+alt+del, it will be hidden behind the active game window (if it starts on my second monitor above the dxnothing window, it won't be hidden) but when I use ctrl+shift+esc to launch the task manager directly, it is always able to stay on top of other windows.