https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/RSS/?TopicID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18 DisplayFusion RSS: Invisible Desktop Areas & Screen Border Issues Sun, 19 Apr 2026 15:05:35 GMT en hourly 1 https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/RSS/?TopicID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18 https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#10 Mon, 30 Mar 2020 20:38:56 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#10 DisplayFusion Thanks for the update! Does it still happen when DisplayFusion isn't running as well? ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#9 Sun, 29 Mar 2020 21:47:20 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#9 DisplayFusion Sorry to dredge this up a month later, but for the sake of records-keeping, it's back.

For the last month, I haven't had any issues with this, throughout regular switching back & forth between monitor profiles. It's been about a 50/50 split between the L/L/P setup in the above images and only having a single landscape monitor active (Typically X/L/X, but occasionally L/X/X).

For the last 24 hours or so, I've had only the center monitor active, while playing a few games. To make a long story short, one of my harddrives seems to have temporarily imploded (deeply concerning, but hopefully unrelated) and Windows wasn't able to see it. I ended up restarting my computer and after it booted up and once again recognized said hard drive, I switched back to L/L/P to do some work on a few projects.

Aaand.. the weird desktop issues have returned with it. I'm not at all sure what the common thread is in all of this, yet, but the only profile where I've had any problem of this sort is the L/L/P profile.

Looking back over my previous posts, I see I didn't include any hardware specs:
Graphics: GeForce GTX 960 (two of them, in SLI config; all monitors run through the primary card)
Monitor 1 [Center]: ASUS VS248, connected via DVI
Monitor 2 [Left]: ViewSonic VG2239, connected via DisplayPort
Monitor 3 [Right]: NEC AS221WM, connected via DVI

Of the two DVI ports, I don't remember for sure whether they're -I or -D, but I think there might be one of each. Couldn't tell you for sure without unplugging and looking, though.

-asp ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#8 Thu, 05 Mar 2020 20:36:07 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#8 DisplayFusion Haha, what a great show that was! Glad to hear it's all working now at least

Thanks for the update! ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#7 Thu, 05 Mar 2020 01:16:34 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#7 DisplayFusion Okay, promised updates:

After the above post, I sent my computer into a hybrid sleep and then woke it back up. No new issues arose.

Then I re-enabled DisplayFusion's auto-start, gave the computer a full shut-down, and booted back up. No new issues arose.

I'm starting to think this must've just been one of those weird memory issues you get with too-frequent use of hybrid sleep and the like. It's almost like I should know better by now, or something.

*sighs in IT crowd* And I do so enjoy riffing on "turn it off & back on..." Sometimes I forget how often that works.

-asp ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#6 Thu, 05 Mar 2020 01:16:28 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#6 DisplayFusion Wait! The plot thickens...
On a whim, I checked this again a different way and got different results.
When you first asked, I set my monitors to the profile with the L/L/P layout and then closed DF from the tray. It occurred to me tonight that that may not properly be testing the separation between DF and Windows, so tonight I tried a different approach.

First, I set my monitors on my profile from the above pictures, then went into DF's settings and disabled "Start with Windows." Then, I did a full Shut Down & turned it back on (i.e. not a restart). Lo and behold, I'm getting normal behavior out of my desktop icons, rather than the weird issues from the picture. I went to upload a screenshot of this to show you, and noticed that Windows defaults to all monitors sharing the top edge. With DisplayFusion turned off, the alignment between monitors is wrong, but the desktop area functions as expected. (See Monitor Example 2.jpg)

Then, I thought to check Windows' native monitor positioning on the same menu where you control resolution. If I move the monitor back to it's vertical centering (ish), I get the proper screen alignment AND icon behavior, but the wallpaper on the shifted monitor also gets shifted. (Monitor Example 3.jpg)

Starting DisplayFusion back up after running both of these tests, the background on Monitor 3 shifted back to its proper place and I retained proper icon behavior across all monitors.

I'll experiment with hibernating and rebooting to see if anything changes and report back, soon.

-asp ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#5 Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:37:37 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#5 DisplayFusion Yeah, I was afraid of that... :/

Does DisplayFusion have anything hiding in its more advanced features that could handle a work-around? Or should I just go back to ignoring my desktop when all three are active?

-asp ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#4 Wed, 04 Mar 2020 18:02:21 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#4 DisplayFusion Thanks for trying that out! If it's still happening when DisplayFusion is closed, it sounds like a Windows bug ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#3 Wed, 04 Mar 2020 05:30:30 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#3 DisplayFusion Yep, I just tested this. If I close DisplayFusion, I'm still getting the same behavior.

Also worth noting: This only seems to happen when I have that right-most portrait monitor active. On any profile with just the two landscape monitors, I get the normal, expected behavior from desktop icons. Moving icons between monitors, there are no dead spots, and the desktop area appears properly centered on both monitors.

Given the height differential between the portrait's top edge and the two landscape top edges and comparing that to the gap below the red line, it looks to me like DisplayFusion and/or Windows is basing the desktop screen area on the top-most edge of the highest monitor, rather than on the top-most edge of the current monitor.

-asp ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#2 Tue, 03 Mar 2020 18:00:24 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18#2 DisplayFusion That's super strange, I haven't run into that before! If you exit DisplayFusion, do both of those issues go away? ]]> https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18 Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:10:14 GMT Binary Fortress Software https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/invisible-desktop-areas-screen-border-issues/?ID=5380a647-cc86-4dac-bb8e-29a98d5f7c18 DisplayFusion I'm not sure how long ago this started, because DisplayFusion has long been throwing my icons all over the place and I generally ignored it because I keep next to nothing on the desktop, anyway.

Today, I decided to finally clean things up and move them where they're supposed to and see if I can get them to stay, when I ran into an extremely strange issue:

First Issue: I can only get icons to visually render on the left-most monitor, and only in the top portion (see red box in attached image).

If the icon is inside the red box, I can see and interact with it normally. If I move it to one of the other two monitors, it disappears, but I can still interact with it as if it's still there. On this monitor, I can't move it below the bottom edge of that red box, at all.

My google-fu has failed to turn up anything about this, so I'm turning to you all.

Second Issue: The grid doesn't appear to align properly with the screen border. I know from my above searches that DisplayFusion brings out some weird behavior in Windows' grid code, but didn't see anything about the grid being off the screen like this. Note the folder shortcut in the top-left that's partially cut off. I also have some icons missing that are above the edge of my monitor, likely by roughly the amount of the red box's gap at the bottom. I can get at them with some tedious, but clever, arranging of the visible icons and use of Ctrl+A. But that tells me that that whole monitor area is somehow offset from the monitor, itself. The behaviour also persists when the grid's turned off.

I did notice as I was notating the attached screenshot that the gap below the red box appears to be the same as the gap betweeen the top edge of Monitor 3 and the top edge of Monitors 1 & 2.

Monitor Settings:
Monitor 1: 1920x1080 Landscape
Monitor 2: 1920x1080 Landscape
Monitor 3: 1050x1680 Portrait (largest this one goes; it's old)

Any ideas what to try to troubleshoot this?

-asp ]]>