Screen goes black in Secure Notes but only on one file

gorham

This seems weird to me but the 1pw people have likely seen weirder. I had this problem before (posted in May, 2015) but didn't quite isolate it. Now I believe I have.

I copy and paste an older text file of passwords and make it one note. I keep it because there's some extraneous stuff there that I don't quite know where to put and it also give me a virtual paper trail of my password history because I also kept previous passwords associated with a give site.

I don't use this file often but it's very (very) annoying to have the screen go black at the slightest movement of the mouse. It does let me go into the edit box which I do to read the file. But as I close the box, the screen goes black again. It seems to stay black for varying times but I'm not sure if that's true and don't want to get into measuring intervals if I can help it.

So I think I know what file is causing the blackouts but I can't post or send it for obvious reasons. There are symbols and lines in the file as well as server addresses with the associated dots (nn.nn.nn). Some double lines of asterisks (as separators). Also frequent use of tab indents. The file is about 30kb in size.

Is there a character, character set or character sequence that would cause this? I wouldn't have thought it because it's successfully saved in a regular .txt file.

As usual help will be appreciated.

-G.

MikeT

Hi @gorham,

Just to be clear, you've attached a 30kb file to a Secure Note item or you copied the content of a 30kb textual file into the body of a Secure Note item?

There is a redrawing issue when trying to scroll a massive Secure Note item that we've seen before, we usually recommend attaching the file to the item rather than storing the content in the item.

RichardPayne

This may or may not be related but I've been getting screen blackouts lately too. I didn't connect it with 1password until I saw this.
I don't use secure notes and the attachments I have are not large.

MikeT

Hi guys,

@gorham, I apologize, I believe I may have misunderstood the original issue, it is the whole screen going black, not the program itself, correct? The redrawing issue I was referring to is when you scroll up or down a long secure note, it goes black until it finishes drawing again as if 1Password can't redraw fast enough. If it is the whole screen, that's a different story completely.

Do you guys have a high-DPI screen? Also, what version of Windows are you using?

gorham

No apologies necessary; I wasn't clear. The whole screen is indeed going black but only on that file. I think. And it happens as soon as the mouse selects that file and then pretty much whenever the mouse moves at all. If I'm quick, I can select another file or category and have no more trouble.

I'll try splitting the thing into multiple files; do you have any idea what size or length would be ideal?

I'm using Win7 Pro 64-bit (which may have something to do with it). Uh... what constitutes a high-DPI screen? My screen resolution is 1920x1080. The monitor is a Dell P2411H (analog).

Hopefully there's a kernel in there that may help. I'll get back to you after I split the file.

Thanks as usual.

-G.

MikeT

Hi @gorham,

If it was about that other issue, I'd split at <5kb.

Uh... what constitutes a high-DPI screen? My screen resolution is 1920x1080. The monitor is a Dell P2411H (analog).

It's usually when the native screen resolution is higher than what you want the OS to look like but this is oversimplifying it. On Windows, it just means the monitor has more pixels per inch (PPI) than the default 96 pixels per inch that Windows has been using for more than a decade.

In this case, a HiDPI monitor for your resolution could have the native 3840x2160 resolution but you're choosing to scale it as 1920x1080 or 200% scaling to read it comfortably.

However, you're using a regular monitor with Windows 7, that pretty much rules this out.

Is 1Password the only app that's causing the screen to black out, nothing else? Any issues scrolling the same file in NotePad?

RichardPayne

No high DPI for me. At work (Win7) I'm using a pair of 1280x1024 monintors and my home system (Linux with WINE) I have a pair of 1920x1200 monitors.

I have not been seeing the black outs on Linux, just the Win7 box.

gorham

Thanks for the info. The monitor settings are within the parameters set by its own software; I have the box ticked not to let me go where it doesn't want to.

As far as I know no other app is causing a problem. Notepad is where I copied the file from. And now, to verify, I've just copied it back. I can navigate at will within Notepad.

Ah! I just went to the file and waited for the black to clear and then used keyboard commands to copy it. No problem. So whatever it is seems to be at least partly related to the rodent.

-G.

MikeT

So whatever it is seems to be at least partly related to the rodent.

If you clear the note and save it, the blackout doesn't occur? If you then paste it back, it occurs?

gorham

Okay. If I clear all the content and save the empty file. It's fine; no black screen.

I broke it up into six (!!) files and they all work fine. That's not wildly convenient but an improvement over frustrating blackness. Sometime I'll see if I can combine the six into three.

Question. Somewhere up there you mentioned you recommend an attachment over a large file. I saw that option but I'm wondering where can I keep the attachment that will be as secure as my 1pw?

We're getting there.

-G.

AGAlumB

Question. Somewhere up there you mentioned you recommend an attachment over a large file. I saw that option but I'm wondering where can I keep the attachment that will be as secure as my 1pw?

@gorham: Sorry for the confusion! When viewing the item details, just click the 'paperclip' icon and select the file to have 1Password add and encrypt the attachment. It will then be accessible in the attachments section of the item, which is all the way at the bottom of the detail view. I hope this helps! :)

MikeT

You can also scroll down to the bottom of your item's details area to drop files into the attachment area, like so:

gorham

Ah. I did know how to do it but not what it actually does. So I've tried that and it seems to work. I can delete the file I dropped into the Secure Note and it's still available. Which is good. But where is it stored? Is it included in the keychain?

Thanks. Again. Always.

-G.

MikeT

Hi @gorham,

Yes, the encrypted file is stored within your data file. You should see your data folder grow by slightly above 30KB now (30KB plus encryption overhead).

Here's what it looks like in the files section of your agilekeychain folder:

gorham

Okay then. That solves the problem and I'll get rid of the file fractions; this is much easier to use and ... dare I say ... elegant?!!? (n.b. If I knew what Markdown was, I'd probably use it here)

Thanks so much for your patience and help. We'll call this one solved and closed.

MikeT

You're welcome!

As for Markdown, you can click on the Markdown link below the reply box or go here to see how it works, it's really great for formatting your text as you type.

RichardPayne

It's terrible for that @MikeT! If you're not familiar with it then it badly corrupts even simple formatting. The one thing it is useful for is producing documents those markup is readable with or without at formatter.

Quite why it is in use on forums remains a mystery to me.

AGAlumB

@RichardPayne: I love it. To each his own I guess! :lol:

gorham

I guess I don't love it; probably because HTML is my major second language. But I'm also still a big fan of plain text which I find very expressive. :)

Phooey! This forum converted my asterisks to the italics they're meant to convey. Guess that tells me I don't need to mark up or down.

MikeT

Unfortunately, there are some glitches with the Markdown plugin Vanilla is using for this forum, we're hearing it is being cleaned up and improved for the next major version.

As for pure text users, it isn't that great because as gorham just saw, when trying to use asterisks to *convey* a different meaning, it turns into something else.

@gorham, you can quickly escape it with forward slash, \*convey*

MrC

Hey, it works, kinda. *Nifty*. Now, how does one make that bold? Markdown is an ungodly beast.

MikeT

Hi @MrC,

*Escape* on both side.

**\*Nifty\***

When you want the formatter to ignore the character, it has to be escaped and if you're nesting it, it has to be escaped more explicitly on both sides.

MikeT

The more you nest it, the more limits you start to feel from the implementation. In this case, _**\*Nifty\***_ won't work but does in other tools.

Hopefully as CommonMark takes off, it will be more consistent over time.

MrC

The problem isn't the implementation, but the ill-defined, ambiguous semantics.

MikeT

Yea, that's a topic for another day. I feel we might be getting off the topic here. :pirate:

@gorham, if there's anything else we can do for you, please let us know.