Strange problem with IDE: serial monitor opened offscreen

Projects Programming
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I was trying to teach myself how to work with the Timer Arduino Playground - HomePage library and an Uno R3 (on Windows 7 x64).

But when I clicked the serial monitor button, I saw no serial monitor window pop up. I knew it worked in the past when I was going through the tutorials (e.g., temperature) but that was some months past. I did try to update to latest version of the IDE.

Then I found out that the window had popped up offscreen by hovering over the icons in the taskbar. I could then right-click and "move" the window, eventually I got it back onscreen. Kind of strange. :cold_sweat:

Has anyone else seen this?

2

Has anyone else seen this?

WinZip does it to me every time I open a zip file at work, where I have dual monitors, and then open one at home, where I don't.

Do you sometimes use more than one monitor?

3

PaulS:

Has anyone else seen this?

WinZip does it to me every time I open a zip file at work, where I have dual monitors, and then open one at home, where I don't.

Do you sometimes use more than one monitor?

Aha, thats it! I replaced my video card and the monitor placement was different in Windows.

Seems it's a defect in Windows itself. :astonished:

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Seems it's a defect in Windows itself.

Hardly a defect. The window positions are stored in the registry. If you change hardware, you can hardly expect everything to work perfectly after that. Sometimes shit simply happens.

5

SOLVED!! Uber n0ob friendly!!!

Appears to be a multi-monitor problem / 'remembered position' issue as the other person suggested. But alas I have come to you aid. Lol jkjk probably fixed it for now but there are a few of these same posts and not all of them are answered.

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#2A -SIMPLE FIX- #2A
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*** We will start by making sure Serial Monitor (not Arduino IDE) is the selected windows process ***

  1. Click the serial monitor icon in the windows taskbar or navigate to it from Task Manager.

2A. For Simplicity, after making the Serial Monitor the active window / process, try hitting 'WINKEY + LEFT' or 'WINKEY + RIGHT' ----------- (WIN 7 AND ABOVE) This is a neat little trick to fit the window to corners of your screen / navigate through monitors [check out WINKEY + UP/DOWN when you finish up]

IF #2A DOESN'T WORK
2B. 'ALT + TAB' release. Single press of 'm' on the keyboard then 'Enter'. Proceed to move the monitor back on screen with the arrow keys. ---- here we are selecting the alternative menu and selecting 'm'ove from the list; hence your single 'm' key press..

ULTRA-SUPER-TASTIC-NOOB NOTES:

The taskbar in windows 7 and above may have similar items grouped, if this is the case you can simply find the serial monitor's icon hiding behind the Arduino IDE.
I also mentioned 'Switch To' from the 'Applications' tab of 'Windows Task Manager'
(CTRL + ALT + DEL) or with one less step (CTRL + LSHIFT + ESC)
Click once on the serial monitor then click switch to.

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