# Screen Goes Black



## stealth2920 (Sep 24, 2017)

I searched the forums but most of this same issue was posted years ago.  While in Develop mode, my screen will randomly go black.  The screen will return within a few seconds.  This is a continuous issue.  I have the latest version, I have the latest video drivers, I have the video acceleration unchecked.  I am using Win 10 will all the latest updates etc.


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## LRList001 (Sep 24, 2017)

stealth2920 said:


> I searched the forums but most of this same issue was posted years ago.  While in Develop mode, my screen will randomly go black.  The screen will return within a few seconds.  This is a continuous issue.  I have the latest version, I have the latest video drivers, I have the video acceleration unchecked.  I am using Win 10 will all the latest updates etc.



Three questions:

1/  What sort of performance is your W10 machine, RAM, CPU, free disk space, SSD/HDD, gpu, number and size of monitors?
2/  Is there any pattern to this?  Does it happen after a longish period of editing a given image, after editing a bunch of images, early in a session (after restarting LR/after re-booting the PC)?
3/  Have you cleared out the cache?


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## stealth2920 (Sep 24, 2017)

W10 machine, 16 gb ram, I7 7700 cpu, One Viewsonic 23 in monitor, 500 gb SSD and 1 TB HDD
No pattern at all.  Totally random and every few seconds when editing an image in Develop section.  Starts immediately.  Sometimes just moving around the menus will cause it.  Screen goes completely blank for a couple of seconds then right back on.  No changes after restarting Lightroom or rebooting computer.
Have it also installed on my wifes computer with no issues at all.
Where do I clear the cache?
Thanks for your help.


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 25, 2017)

Have you also tried to turn off the GPU in Lightroom? Preferences>Performance Tab>Uncheck "Use Graphics Processor".


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## stealth2920 (Sep 25, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> Have you also tried to turn off the GPU in Lightroom? Preferences>Performance Tab>Uncheck "Use Graphics Processor".



That was never checked at default.  In fact when I try to put a check in the box, it says "unable due to errors".  So that box has always been unchecked.  Also unknown if I mentioned this before but this issue only happens when I am in the Develop mode.


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## stealth2920 (Sep 25, 2017)

I have checked all those and nothing is corrupt.  I have rolled back the video driver to previous releases but no difference.  What I have now discovered is I am using a laptop connected to an external monitor.  This issue does not happen when using the laptop alone but obviously the screen is too small to actually use the program.  So the issue only occurs when the attached monitor is connected.  I can view the laptop and the monitor at the same time and the screen will go black on the attached monitor but not on the laptop.


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## Gnits (Sep 25, 2017)

I seem to be having a problem with my post. 

Some things to try.  Search the forum for more detailed discussions on each.


Corrupt settings file.
Corrupt screen profile.
Most appropriate driver for your video card (latest is not always best)
Conflict with anti virus .... consider removing the catalog / preview folders from your anti virus scans.
Test your memory. Lr is very demanding on memory and is often found to explain strange behaviour.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Sep 25, 2017)

Try something simple -- when it starts doing it, just shut down lightroom, wait 10 seconds or so for it to fully stop, and start it again.  See if the problem goes away (for a while).


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## stealth2920 (Sep 25, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> Try something simple -- when it starts doing it, just shut down lightroom, wait 10 seconds or so for it to fully stop, and start it again.  See if the problem goes away (for a while).



Ok will try that.  I have noticed that it doesn't do it initially but only after lightroom has been running for a while.  Will check and get back.


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## stealth2920 (Sep 25, 2017)

Has been running for approx. 15 min. and hasn't started yet.  This is normal.  Once it starts though it will continue to black screen even just moving the mouse around the menu.  Once it starts again I will shut down lightroom and wait for awhile then restart to see approx. how long it takes to resume the black screen.


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## stealth2920 (Sep 25, 2017)

This is strange.  So far it has ran for 2hrs without the black screen issue.
Too funny.  As soon as I posted this, the black screen issue started again.  Went for 2 hrs without doing it.  Have shut down lightroom and will started again in a couple min to see what happens.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Sep 25, 2017)

It's a problem many of us have had for a long time, it is not reproducible on demand, but it happens a lot.  I find a restart always clears it up, but if I try to reproduce to show Adobe it never happens.  Until next time I'm in a hurry.


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## stealth2920 (Sep 25, 2017)

Thanks.  I guess if it lasts 2hrs between issues, I will live with that.  I have googled this and appears this has been an issue for years.  Guess they can't find the cause.


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## Dan Marchant (Sep 26, 2017)

OP, I had a similar problem. I updated my version of Windows (to 8.1 not 10) and my monitor screen kept blacking out for a second or two and then recovering. It would do this frequently. Occasionally I would get a message saying the graphics driver had failed but had recovered.

I assumed it was a graphics driver issue so I updated and downgraded and repeatedly installed/uninstalled and reinstalled. I turned it off and on again and even tried banging it on the left hand side of the screen (always worked with the old CRT TV my Mum and Dad had when I was a kid). Nothing worked. 

So, I went to manufacturer's website and they have a system update util. I used that to check and found that it thought I had a couple of things missing. One was a monitor INF file which basically told the system how to interact with my monitor. Installing that fixed the issue.

All that by way of saying that it may not actually be a Lightroom or a Graphics card issue.... it may be your GFX card having a problem interacting with your monitor.


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## stealth2920 (Sep 26, 2017)

Dan Marchant said:


> OP, I had a similar problem. I updated my version of Windows (to 8.1 not 10) and my monitor screen kept blacking out for a second or two and then recovering. It would do this frequently. Occasionally I would get a message saying the graphics driver had failed but had recovered.
> 
> I assumed it was a graphics driver issue so I updated and downgraded and repeatedly installed/uninstalled and reinstalled. I turned it off and on again and even tried banging it on the left hand side of the screen (always worked with the old CRT TV my Mum and Dad had when I was a kid). Nothing worked.
> 
> ...



The computer is a Dell 7779 laptop.  I have it connected to an external monitor.  I have all the latest updates and have run a diagnostic from Dell, but nothing was found.  I also have used various intel drivers but the result is the same.   I have connected to a different monitor and the results are still the same.  As reported this has been an issue for a very long time with no answers.  Sometimes it runs fine for a couple hours then starts going black.  No clue.  Oh and I can look at the laptop screen and the external monitor and while the external monitor goes black, the laptop screen runs without any issues.


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## stevevp (Sep 29, 2017)

My computer (i7-2600 3.40GHz 16GB RAM 64bit W10) has started doing this the last couple of days, even when I reboot the computer and have no other programs running. Every time I move a slider or hold down shift and double click to set the black or white point the screen momentarily goes black and I get a "Lightroom Not Responding" message at the top of the screen. Lightroom has become an increasing struggle over recent months and I've avoided jumping on the "LR is slow etc" bandwagon but something is clearly amiss and it's becoming unusable. Meanwhile I'll double check that all the auto updates have been done. :(


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## stealth2920 (Sep 29, 2017)

stevevp said:


> My computer (i7-2600 3.40GHz 16GB RAM 64bit W10) has started doing this the last couple of days, even when I reboot the computer and have no other programs running. Every time I move a slider or hold down shift and double click to set the black or white point the screen momentarily goes black and I get a "Lightroom Not Responding" message at the top of the screen. Lightroom has become an increasing struggle over recent months and I've avoided jumping on the "LR is slow etc" bandwagon but something is clearly amiss and it's becoming unusable. Meanwhile I'll double check that all the auto updates have been done. :(



I have tried all the so called fixes people have posted on different forums and I still have the black screen issue.  I can use the program initially for a while but eventually it starts going to the black screen when moving the mouse or adjusting any of the programs settings.  After research it appears this has been a problem for years with Windows and Mac PC's.  Apparently it isn't going to be fixed so I won't be doing any upgrading of this program unless it is a free upgrade.  I should have researched more extensively before I bought this.


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## Gnits (Sep 29, 2017)

What happens if you switch the screens  .... reverse their roles .... so a different screen might be regarded as the main screen (ie within Lr)


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## stealth2920 (Sep 29, 2017)

It's a laptop and I'm using an HDMI cable to attach to the external monitor.  The laptop screen is too small to do much photo editing.  I have tried a different monitor and different cables and the results are the same.  My wife has a desktop with Lightroom and her computer doesn't have this issue. I just have no clue.  I wonder if others that are having black screens have laptops or desktop computers.


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## stevevp (Sep 29, 2017)

Fortunately, apart from a gradual slow down, I've been using Lightroom for a couple of years now without a problem. After another re-boot I've managed about another hour of work before the black screen's returned. I hope you find a solution.


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## stealth2920 (Oct 29, 2017)

stealth2920 said:


> I searched the forums but most of this same issue was posted years ago.  While in Develop mode, my screen will randomly go black.  The screen will return within a few seconds.  This is a continuous issue.  I have the latest version, I have the latest video drivers, I have the video acceleration unchecked.  I am using Win 10 will all the latest updates etc.



I have found the resolution to my black screen issue.  On my laptop there are two video adapters.  One is the internal intel video adapter and the other is the nvidia video adapter which is normally activated for gaming etc.  During research I found that most laptops will defer to the intel adapter as it uses less power etc. to save the battery.  I disabled this adapter and now the laptop has to use the better/faster nvidia video adapter.  Lightroom now works without any issues.  Apparently the intel integrated adapter wasn't powerful enough to run lightroom.


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## Megalev (May 16, 2018)

Surely though this is a memory issue, it certainly got better after I upgraded my lesser machine from 8-12gb.  It's getting slowly worse on my better machine, I just ordered another 8gb for it (taking it to 24gb), I'll report back.


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## Andrius (May 31, 2018)

stealth2920 said:


> I searched the forums but most of this same issue was posted years ago.  While in Develop mode, my screen will randomly go black.  The screen will return within a few seconds.  This is a continuous issue.  I have the latest version, I have the latest video drivers, I have the video acceleration unchecked.  I am using Win 10 will all the latest updates etc.



In my case this was happening when I was in Library, keywording. Every time I entered a lowercase "a" in the Keyword field the screen completely blacked out until I hit the key again, or any other, to toggle it back. I discovered a duplicate keyword within a keyword group (architecture>architecture). When I fixed that it's golden. So my speculation is that you ought to look for conflicts within the functional mode your working.  

If that doesn't work, open a window, unplug your computer, and move it towards the window.


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## Andrius (May 31, 2018)

I would call that a bug not a feature. So if anyone who works for Adobe wants to test my theory, please do.


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## GrahamP (Jun 4, 2018)

Andrius said:


> In my case this was happening when I was in Library, keywording. Every time I entered a lowercase "a" in the Keyword field the screen completely blacked out until I hit the key again, or any other, to toggle it back.



This is exactly what is happening to me, except in my case it is the letter "s".  

Graham


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## stealth2920 (Sep 24, 2017)

I searched the forums but most of this same issue was posted years ago.  While in Develop mode, my screen will randomly go black.  The screen will return within a few seconds.  This is a continuous issue.  I have the latest version, I have the latest video drivers, I have the video acceleration unchecked.  I am using Win 10 will all the latest updates etc.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 4, 2018)

Sounds like a bug to me too! Here’s instructions on how to report it to Adobe: How do I send a bug report or feature request to Adobe? | The Lightroom Queen


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## GrahamP (Jun 5, 2018)

I have now had time to look into this further.  Optimising the catalogue did not help - the "s" screen blanking on entering keywords persisted.  I back up my catalogue frequently and fortunately had an update which was only about 24 hours old.  I opened this, and the problem had gone away.  I do not know what had happened, but it seems that somehow the catalogue had become corrupted.  I replicated the keyword changes I had made (which I could remember) since the last good backup, but that thankfully did not re-introduce the problem.  So all I have lost is a day's Develop edits, which I can live with if it stops this annoying problem.

Graham


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## GrahamP (Jun 8, 2018)

The problem has come back.  In the keyword box, type "s" and everything turns black, then it starts flickering.  Type another character and all is well.  It only does it when it is looking for this single character "s".  I have a very large collection of hierarchical keywords.  Thinking back, coincidence or not, it started on the same day that I added a new keyword beginning with "s".  

I wonder whether there is a limit on the number of keywords that can be searched/parsed, and that I happen to have hit the limit for keywords beginning with "s".  Typing another character immediately cuts down the number of keywords being searched.  I am not sure whether or not I can check the number of keywords I have beginning with "s", but I will try exporting my keyword list and finding an editor or doing something in Excel to see whether this happens to be my most frequent letter for commencement of keywords.

It would not surprise me if this were to be the source of the problem.  The particular issue of a black screen and flashing occurs when I type something in the Keyword Tags box.  A possibly related issue occurs with typing in the Filter Keywords box.  If I do not type quickly, so that it starts to search when there is only once character entered, the entire programme will lock up for some considerable time, sometimes for several minutes (even on my new state of the art desktop computer).  It's not a problem if I think ahead and type in 3 or 4 characters quickly, so that the number of possible matches is vastly reduced.  I think that Lightroom cannot cope with searching the keyword list when there are potentially hundreds maybe thousands of matches. One major shortcoming of the Filter Keywords functionality is that it is not possible to limit the search to whole words or to words beginning with a particular letter: start searching for one letter, and it starts looking for that letter within every word within your keyword vocabulary - although not synonyms of course: possibly one (the only) reason to be grateful for the extraordinary lamentable inability of Lightroom to search synonyms.

I have long thought that Lightroom's handing of keywords lacks a number of obvious features.  I guess it is never going to be a high enough priority for Adobe to give keywording a makeover.  If I cannot sort this out soon, it will be a major push towards me moving keywording to Photo Mechanic, particularly if their promised catalogue function is any good when it is released later this year.

Graham


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 8, 2018)

Can you grab a video of it Graham? It would be worth sharing with Adobe at the Official Feature Request/Bug Report Forum


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## GrahamP (Jun 8, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Can you grab a video of it Graham? It would be worth sharing with Adobe at the Official Feature Request/Bug Report Forum


Thank you for the reply.

I don't think the video would be very interesting - just the screen going black and flashing after entering "s" in the Keyword Tags box and then clearing when another letter is entered.

I am pretty sure my explanation is correct though.  I exported my keywords into a text file which I loaded into Excel and used a function to count how many keywords commence with each letter of the alphabet.  I have just under 9,300 non-numeric keywords (and if a keyword entry contains more than one word, it is still counted as one for this purpose - I am only interested in the very first letter), including approaching 6,000 synonyms.  Since Lightroom does not search synonyms, for practical purposes, I have about 3,300 keywords which Lightroom must search when I begin typing text into the Keyword Tags box.

For some strange reason (or no reason at all), it happens that keywords beginning with "s" are by far the most numerous, at 1,088.  This is far more than the next most frequent occurrence, which happens to be "c" (986). 

Maybe the problem occurs simply because there are so many entries in total, or possibly because a programming limit has been exceeded (maybe there is some significance in approaching 1024 entries beginning with the same letter, I don't know).

So, this is what I did.  I created a whole load more dummy keywords beginning with "c".  Once I had prepared a good number, which would have taken me over 1,000, I noticed that typing "c" resulted in some corruption of the text in the drop down list of suggested keywords: the first two or three lines had the text slightly stretched downwards and were blurred.  This was something I had noticed shortly before I had begun to have serious problems with "s".  I added a few more, and the text corruption got worse, affecting maybe the top 6 - 8 entries.

You guessed it.  I added a few more keywords beginning with "c", and then the screen started blanking for "c" as it does for "s".  I exported the keywords, and found that by now I had 1, 021 keywords beginning with "c".  Therefore the limit for keywords beginning with the same letter is below 1024, but (coincidentally or not) it is close to it.  I deleted a few of the "c" keywords and it went back to just blurring the drop down list of suggestions, I then put a couple back in and it went back to blanking my screen. Probably the cut off number is 1020.

Whatever the exact number, I have proved to my satisfaction that if I have (at least on my Windows 10 system, which has 32 GB of RAM, and is not short of firepower in any department) more than about 1,200 keywords beginning with the same letter, the screen will blank and flash if you enter that letter in the Keyword Tags box.  Seems like a bug to me.

Graham


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 9, 2018)

A video can help engineers identify exactly what point it's happening, so those reports get taken a bit more seriously, generally speaking.  There's long been a bug that the keyword list simply gets cut off after X number of keywords, but you can usually get round that one by having a keyword hierarchy. This one sounds more GPU related.


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## GrahamP (Jun 9, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> A video can help engineers identify exactly what point it's happening, so those reports get taken a bit more seriously, generally speaking.  There's long been a bug that the keyword list simply gets cut off after X number of keywords, but you can usually get round that one by having a keyword hierarchy. This one sounds more GPU related.



I'll see what I can do.  The behaviour is exactly the same whether or not the graphics processor is enabled in Preferences.  My graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce 1060 6GB.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 9, 2018)

If you want to export your keyword list and send it to me, I'll try to reproduce it here.


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## RikkFlohr (Jun 9, 2018)

Sometimes this type of behavior can be caused by a bad Windows Theme. Are you using Windows 7 or Windows 10? Are you using the default Windows appearance theme or have you customized it? Try changing the theme and see if the behavior persists.


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## GrahamP (Jun 9, 2018)

Thank you for the various replies.

I now know the cause of the screen blanking and flashing problem, thanks mainly to Victoria's request for a video.  It seems to be related to the graphics driver.

I don't normally (in fact, ever) do video.  In my fumbling attempts to record what was going on, I noticed that while my main screen was blank, it was the second screen that was flickering, with the second screen image momentarily flashing through.  As I adjusted the camera to get all this in, it stopped flashing and the second screen went blank, while the first screen was restored.  There was a message "Display driver failed to start. Using Microsoft basic driver display instead", and suggesting updating the driver.  Somehow the entire driver had been knocked out, because on closing Lightroom my system no longer recognised that it had a second monitor.  But at least while only one monitor functioned, the flickering typing "s" did not happen. Previously I had pressed Esc or another character after a second or two, to get out of the screen blanking/flashing.  This was the first time I had let it run long enough until it did something else (I had not expected it to do anything other than to remain in the blank/flashing state for as long as it was left like this).

I was surprised by the update driver message.  This is a new computer (about 6 weeks old) and I had checked that all the drivers were up to date only a few days ago.  Nevertheless, I duly updated the display driver (a new version was installed), restarted the computer and tried again.  Unfortunately this changed nothing.  The problem persists with the updated driver, whether or not I turn off the secondary display in Lightroom and whether or not I select the use of the graphics processor in Preferences.  It only stops if I let the flickering run for a few seconds, long enough to knock out the display driver, but this is not really much of a solution!

Strangely, if I reboot with the secondary display turned off and them start Lightroom in (obviously) single screen mode, the problem still persists, the now single screen going blank and occasionally flashing until eventually the "Display driver failed to start" message pops up.

I am running Windows 10 with the latest 1803 update with 32GB RAM.  My graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.  My main display is an NEC Multisync PA302W.  My secondary display is an NEC Multisync PA301W.  My processor is an Intel Core i9-7900X CPU running at 3.30GHz.

I am not sure where to go from here.  I will try on Monday to contact the support team from my computer supplier to see if they have come across this before.  If I/they come up with a solution, I will post it here, and if anyone has any further ideas I will be pleased to hear them.

Graham


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## GrahamP (Jun 9, 2018)

RikkFlohr said:


> Sometimes this type of behavior can be caused by a bad Windows Theme. Are you using Windows 7 or Windows 10? Are you using the default Windows appearance theme or have you customized it? Try changing the theme and see if the behavior persists.



Thanks for the suggestion.  I was/am using just the basic Windows theme with the blue wallpaper image.  It made no difference whether or not I changed this.  Windows and system details are in my previous post, above.

Graham


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 10, 2018)

Thanks for the update Graham. Let us know how you get on.


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