Singe pixel line along top edge of maximized programs

[MattShnoop]

Recently, I've started to see an annoying line across the top of my window when I have my program maximized. It happens in Chrome with a blue line, and in Spotify with a white line.

Look along the top edge here:

Same goes for Spotify, although only along the top of the window:

 

Note that this doesn't happen when I don't have the window in focus:

 

I've got NVIDIA GeForce Driver 397.93. As of July 6th, 2018, 2:05 PM, Windows Update says I'm up to date. Chrome is up to date -- Version 67.0.3396.99 (Official Build) (64-bit).

 

Has anyone seen this issue before? Any tips as to what I should try next? It's been bugging me for about a month now.

Thanks.

[GoodBytes]

Was Spotify acquired from the Store? or Spotify website?

To me it looks like you have a program injecting stuff in your programs.

[MattShnoop]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Was Spotify acquired from the Store? or Spotify website?

To me it looks like you have a program injecting stuff in your programs.

Both Spotify and Chrome were installed through installers. 

[GoodBytes]

On 7/6/2018 at 2:18 PM, MattShnoop said:

Both Spotify and Chrome were installed through installers. 

Try uninstalling Spotify, and installing from the Store. Does the problem happens with iTunes acquired from the Store app?

[MattShnoop]

23 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Try uninstalling Spotify, and installing from the Store. Does the problem happens for that problem?

Seems to be gone on Spotify, but Chrome is still having the issue. I'm also not sure if Spotify being fixed is temporary -- it started much later than Chrome so I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing was generally inconsistent.

[Tabs]

1 minute ago, MattShnoop said:

Seems to be gone on Spotify, but Chrome is still having the issue. I'm also not sure if Spotify being fixed is temporary -- it started much later than Chrome so I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing was generally inconsistent.

As @GoodBytes suggested, it sounds like you have something running injecting an overlay onto your Win32 programs. Apps from the store can't be interacted with in that way, which makes them immune to it (which can be good or bad depending).

 

The symptoms you have are almost identical to ones my partner had on his machine - he has an ultrawide monitor and it came with window management software called Screensplit that exhibited the exact same problem you had whenever anything was maximised.

 

Check to see if you have anything similar. If you can't find anything or don't believe there's anything, try running in Diagnostic Startup mode to see if it persists. If not, it means some part of your standard load order is causing it and you'll need to find which one.

[MattShnoop]

On 2018-07-06 at 3:11 PM, Tabs said:

As @GoodBytes suggested, it sounds like you have something running injecting an overlay onto your Win32 programs. Apps from the store can't be interacted with in that way, which makes them immune to it (which can be good or bad depending).

 

The symptoms you have are almost identical to ones my partner had on his machine - he has an ultrawide monitor and it came with window management software called Screensplit that exhibited the exact same problem you had whenever anything was maximised.

 

Check to see if you have anything similar. If you can't find anything or don't believe there's anything, try running in Diagnostic Startup mode to see if it persists. If not, it means some part of your standard load order is causing it and you'll need to find which one.

Do you think Dell's PermierColor app could be responsible?

[Tabs]

10 hours ago, MattShnoop said:

Do you think Dell's PermierColor app could be responsible?

I'm not sure - I haven't used a dell machine or a dell monitor in a while, so I'm not sure what that does.

 

Have you had a chance to try booting in diagnostic startup mode to see if the problem persists? That'll help you narrow down the culprit a little - or at least rule out some kind of corruption in Windows (which is unlikely anyway).

[MattShnoop]

5 hours ago, Tabs said:

I'm not sure - I haven't used a dell machine or a dell monitor in a while, so I'm not sure what that does.

 

Have you had a chance to try booting in diagnostic startup mode to see if the problem persists? That'll help you narrow down the culprit a little - or at least rule out some kind of corruption in Windows (which is unlikely anyway).

I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure how to do that...

[Tabs]

37 minutes ago, MattShnoop said:

I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure how to do that...

run msconfig.exe from either searching the start menu or typing windows key + r, then change from "normal startup" to "diagnostic startup" and hit apply. Go into task manager and disable everything in the "startup" tab. 

 

Reboot and you'll be in as stripped-down a configuration you can get and still be functional.

 

To reverse the process, run msconfig again, change back to normal startup, and re-enable any startup entries you had on Task Manager.

[MattShnoop]

1 hour ago, Tabs said:

run msconfig.exe from either searching the start menu or typing windows key + r, then change from "normal startup" to "diagnostic startup" and hit apply. Go into task manager and disable everything in the "startup" tab. 

 

Reboot and you'll be in as stripped-down a configuration you can get and still be functional.

 

To reverse the process, run msconfig again, change back to normal startup, and re-enable any startup entries you had on Task Manager.

Ok I'll let you know how this goes...

 

1 hour ago, Tabs said:

run msconfig.exe from either searching the start menu or typing windows key + r, then change from "normal startup" to "diagnostic startup" and hit apply. Go into task manager and disable everything in the "startup" tab. 

 

Reboot and you'll be in as stripped-down a configuration you can get and still be functional.

 

To reverse the process, run msconfig again, change back to normal startup, and re-enable any startup entries you had on Task Manager.

Looks to be that the line is gone once I disable all startup programs and run it in diagnostic startup... Now, to figure out which program is causing it... ?

 

@Tabs:

I re-enabled all of my startup programs, and I still don't see the issue. 

Therefore it must not be being caused by any of these programs.

 

It must be something in that "System Services" box. 

Note, when I selected Diagnostic startup, it automatically jumped down to Selective Startup, just with some stuff disabled.

[Tabs]

4 minutes ago, MattShnoop said:

I re-enabled all of my startup programs, and I still don't see the issue. 

Therefore it must not be being caused by any of these programs.

 

 

It must be something in that "System Services" box. 

Note, when I selected Diagnostic startup, it automatically jumped down to Selective Startup, just with some stuff disabled.

 

 

It's unlikely that a built in Microsoft service is causing this, so the best way to find out which is which is to enable everything on the general tab > selective startup, then switch to the Services tab and tick the box "hide all Microsoft services" at the bottom.

 

 

What's left should be disabled one at a time, with your least known (or least used) services first, until you're able to determine which is causing it.

Edited July 14, 2018 by Tabs
removed pics from quote to cut down on size

[MattShnoop]

6 minutes ago, Tabs said:

 

It's unlikely that a built in Microsoft service is causing this, so the best way to find out which is which is to enable everything on the general tab > selective startup, then switch to the Services tab and tick the box "hide all Microsoft services" at the bottom.

 

 

What's left should be disabled one at a time, with your least known (or least used) services first, until you're able to determine which is causing it.

So uhh.... I switched back into Normal Startup (everything in selective is enabled, as is everything in the Services tab) and... It's fixed itself now? This makes it pretty hard to diagnose what was causing it ?

If it comes back I'll resume from this post and update you farther. ??‍♂️

[GoodBytes]

By the great skull of Neptune, how many startup programs you have.....

I only have 3 items.