So many fatal errors when connect between Windows 10 and 11...

from Stardock Forums
  • When the secondaries lost connections, actively or passively, like you reboot the secondary or just got a net lag, the control can not fall into primary automatially. The mouse just disappear and the keyboard can only response to several keys and combinations like `Ctrl + Alt + Del`, `NumLock`. ONLY SWITCH USER can help you take back control for the equipment from the void.
  • When click `Ctrl + Alt + Del` at one, every one else in group will be called. The connection will broken for a while, and do reconnect depends on its mood. If you are not lucky enough, just SWITCH USER OF PRIMARY. I swear the count I switch user last week is more than I have last ten years.
  • When click `Ctrl + Alt + Del` at secondary while you primary is just at that page already. The connection will broken and not reconnect. Want to SWITCH USER? NO you can not do that because you are at the task manager page now without any mouse and keyboard response.
  • The hotkey only worked at named term but not abstract one like `Master`, `The left one`, `The right one`. So you can only use it as a toy to flash it from primary to secondary, but surely can not return.
multiplicity
7,223 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Thank you.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

When the secondaries lost connections, actively or passively, like you reboot the secondary or just got a net lag, the control can not fall into primary automatially. The mouse just disappear and the keyboard can only response to several keys and combinations like `Ctrl + Alt + Del`, `NumLock`. ONLY SWITCH USER can help you take back control for the equipment from the void.
End of quote

The best practice there is to create a hotkey to have cursor control returned to the Primary:


When click `Ctrl + Alt + Del` at one, every one else in group will be called. The connection will broken for a while, and do reconnect depends on its mood. If you are not lucky enough, just SWITCH USER OF PRIMARY. I swear the count I switch user last week is more than I have last ten years.
End of quote

CTRL + Del should not be used when you want that menu for a Secondary and it has focus, it should be Ctrl + Alt + Backspace.  Admittedly, that is not documented in the app but should be.


The hotkey only worked at named term but not abstract one like `Master`, `The left one`, `The right one`. So you can only use it as a toy to flash it from primary to secondary, but surely can not return.
End of quote

I am afraid this makes no sense to me.  Can you provide more details? 

You are able to set where you want the cursor in real space - remembering that this grid is the entire representation of ALL monitors on the destination Secondary:

Lastly, I use MP between Win10 and 11 daily (I could not imagine doing my job without it) without issue.  If you are experiencing a plethora of errors throughout the day, I would recommend 2 things.

  • Burn \ Reinstall
  • Try setting up connections via IP (of they are constant) instead of hostname

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Alright I got all your suggests, but there is a terrible loop that kill my experience:

1. When any of my multiplicity pots lost connection, the best solution is to use hotkey to fell back to my main PC.

2. However, my hotkey just does not work.

 

For the hotkey issue, I do as you said:

1. I uninstall multiplicity on all pots, clean remain files and registries, and re-install.

2. Add secondary configurations to primary, this time use IP address instead of hostname, of course with all the other settings in default state.

3. Add the hotkey `Ctrl + Alt + Shift + P` to move cursor to the primary computer, this is a really unusual combination that is hard to conflict, and without using the numpad. At same time I set a position to move, that makes it easier to be observed.

4. Move cursor to the secondary and press keys, nothing happened.

5. Move cursor back to the primary and press keys, nothing happened, it won't event jump to the position I set.

6. Could the hotkey be occupied? Let's modify the behavior of hotkey, to move to the certain pot `192.168.43.443`, that's the IP of my secondary in group.

7. Keep the cursor in primary and press keys, WOW, it just work.

8. Move cursor to the secondary and press keys, worked again, at least the cursor will jump to the specific position.

 

So could we use this feature to avoid the losing control when disconnect? NO, when the connection of your secondary broke, the hotkey will go offline too:

1. Keep the hotkey to secondary, the only way that hotkey worked like we test before.

2. Move cursor to the secondary and leave it there. This is a key step, because cursor won't disappear at most time when you are at the primary computer during disconnection.

3. Turn off the net, make sure all pots disconnected, and then turn on it soon.

4. You can see the cursor was left in secondary, and primary got nothing to control the PC: cursor - disappeared, keyboard - won't response except `NumLock` or `Ctrl + Alt + Del`.

5. The Multiplicity will not reconnect automatically, and the hotkey lose affect as expected either.

6. Then I use `Ctrl + Alt + Del` to switch user to take back control of my primary, again.

 

By the way all the other operations in the `Ctrl + Alt + Del` won't affect expected switching user or signing out, I think these two operation will trigger some service handling that will awake Multiplicity process, which is the only way to take the cursor back.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Anonymous2022, reply 4

4. You can see the cursor was left in secondary, and primary got nothing to control the PC: cursor - disappeared, keyboard - won't response except `NumLock` or `Ctrl + Alt + Del`.
End of Anonymous2022's quote

When any connection to a Secondary PC is lost (turning off its network connection would do that), and if the cursor is controlling said Secondary, it should return the cursor \ control to the Primary.  The only time I have seen it not do it reliably is if the connection is there but somehow failing - an extremely heavy workload on said Secondary or Primary could be one cause as well. 

That said, if cursor control is lost while a Secondary had focus, and it is not returned with a hotkey, if the Primary has a touchscreen, one could 'Restart Multiplicity Process' from its systray icon:

Disconnecting its network connection would also do it.

That said, the need to do this should be extremely rare. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

I have test your solution, but, sadly, it just dose not work for me.

After I turn off and turn on the connection when controlling the secondary, the connection just get stuck. I can control secondary with its own input device, but I can not control primary anymore until I press `Ctrl + Alt + Del` and switch user.

It just feel like my mouse and keyboard fall into a black hole.

 

By the way I have run the MPPortFix.bat, and be confirmed that all firewall settings are correct, because all the function except hotkey worked well before disconnection.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Anonymous2022, reply 6

I have test your solution, but, sadly, it just dose not work for me.
End of Anonymous2022's quote

Are you certain that all the installed copies of Multiplicity, both on the Primary and Secondary, are version 3.6 build 105?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Yes, I have checked the update to them all and be sure that all installations are in latest release.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Anonymous2022, reply 8

Yes, I have checked the update to them all and be sure that all installations are in latest release.
End of Anonymous2022's quote

Then I am running out of things for you to try I am afraid.

Perhaps performing a clean boot, on both PCs, would expose that something else is causing it to fail as it is for you.

https://forums.stardock.com/486104/multiplicity-support-faq#cleanboot

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Anonymous2022, reply 8

Yes, I have checked the update to them all and be sure that all installations are in latest release.
End of Anonymous2022's quote

You want to go to the About tab for each and do a visual check, please.

How often does this happen?

Short of that, I am running out of things for you to try.  Perhaps a clean boot is in order to see if you can reproduce it with only the MP and Windows services running:

https://forums.stardock.com/486104/multiplicity-support-faq#cleanboot

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

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In fact, all OS on my computers have been reset or re-installed, because this is a batch of new computers. I use MP just to do a quick initialization. Though the reset is not due to MP (in fact it's about OneNote caches), but I did reset them.

 

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But you know what, I have downgrade Multiplicity to 3.57 Build 00103 at all my computers and found the hotkey to primary computer just worked now.

That did make me comfirmed one thing I have suspected for long:

The localized translation broke the function of hotkey.

 

Why the hotkey does not work only at Multiplicity 3.6 Build 105 to go to computers at relative role or direction? Maybe because the unstable translation prevent MP to save a correct configuration.

 

-- 3.6 Build 105    - With translation    - To abstract computer - The text of options shows unstable localized text  - Hotkey doesn't work.
-- 3.6 Build 105    - With translation    - To certain computer  - The text of options shows only numbers and letters - Hotkey works.
-- 3.57 Build 00103 - Without translation - To abstract computer - The text of options shows english words            - Hotkey works.
-- 3.57 Build 00103 - Without translation - To certain computer  - The text of options shows only numbers and letters - Hotkey works.

 

I first doubt this because the localized option text like `PRIMARY COMPUTER` is always displayed as a piece of gabled code, looks like shoul be a character set problem.

And it will always not be reset when you open a existed hotkey configs neither, which makes me begining to doubt if the saved configuration does not match what were displayed.

But I have not told you these details before, because I think the isolation of view and controller is a common sense in software development. There is no way that the localization will affect the function, but now I think you should do some test to it.

 

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Nevertheless, are all my problems resolved? I wanna say just half.

Why my cursor never fell back at primary computer after disconnect? I think I am closer to the truth after I got a valid hotkey.

 

  • After connection to secondary broker, the status notification tip will continue to show for about 10 seconds, in that time, the hotkey will work and be able to take cursor back to the primary computer, but all the other operation will be blocked as I have said before you use hotkey.
  • After the status notification tip disappeared, you will still have about 2 seconds to use the hotkey.
  • After that, you will not be able to control your primary computer untill you signing out or switching system user.

 

That was a exactly "WAITING - CRASHED" behavior for a software especially compared with the normal behavior at your device.

 

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So now for this issue, I'd like to say that what's really important is not to try to reproduce it, but to add a detail log to your softwares.

So that you can ask ther users to submit it when they meet some really weird problem, not to torture both of us here using a lot of speculations.