Around the same time last year I had to upgrade my existing Windows 10 installation to Windows 11 because of a weird AMD graphics driver issue from the February 2023 version and onwards where strokes in Snipping Tool are not visible until after I stop holding down the left-click button. Think of it as having a paper and a pen, drawing something (e.g. some lines) but not being able to see the line you are drawing in real time - you can only see what you have drawn only after you lift the pen from the paper. Not only that, but continuous line strokes (holding down the left-click mouse button for more than 5-6 seconds) results in DWM crashing. The weird thing though is that when I am capturing my screen using OBS or sharing it on a Discord call for example, others can perfectly see the strokes being drawn normally, just like they should have been doing from the start, but the crashes still occur. So I rolled back to the November 2022 version of the driver (the last known working one).
Errors from Event Viewer are as follows:
System Event Log (these two events repeat for several times):
Application popup: ScreenClippingHost.exe - Application Error : The exception Breakpoint
A breakpoint has been reached.
(0x80000003) occurred in the application at location 0x00007FFA018CB8ED.
Click on OK to terminate the program
DCOM got error "1084" attempting to start the service CaptureService_2d7c8 with arguments "Unavailable" in order to run the server:
Windows.Graphics.Capture.Server.CapturableItem
Application Event Log:
Faulting application name: dwm.exe, version: 10.0.19041.3636, time stamp: 0x6e55ef4a
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.19041.3758, time stamp: 0xd80f8f12
Exception code: 0xe0464645
Fault offset: 0x000000000012db22
Faulting process id: 0x4ec
Faulting application start time: 0x01dac30f4590db4c
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\dwm.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 356a6623-c871-4e4f-9cc0-9b3db7e29509
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
Faulting application name: ScreenClippingHost.exe, version: 123.29302.0.0, time stamp: 0x6533081c
Faulting module name: ScreenClipping.dll, version: 123.29302.0.0, time stamp: 0x653307f6
Exception code: 0x80000003
Fault offset: 0x000000000001b8ed
Faulting process id: 0x127c
Faulting application start time: 0x01dac311c862ab94
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\ScreenClippingHost.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\ScreenClipping.dll
Report Id: 1ee19628-a565-4875-8e60-72c97adc29fb
Faulting package full name: MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_1000.19053.1000.0_x64__cw5n1h2txyewy
Faulting package-relative application ID: ScreenClipping
Fault bucket 1469359029254296896, type 4
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0
Problem signature:
P1: dwm.exe
P2: 10.0.19041.3636
P3: 6e55ef4a
P4: KERNELBASE.dll
P5: 10.0.19041.3758
P6: d80f8f12
P7: e0464645
P8: 000000000012db22
P9:
P10:
Attached files:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERF1FC.tmp.dmp
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERF28A.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERF2B9.tmp.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERF2B7.tmp.csv
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERF2C8.tmp.txt
These files may be available here:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_dwm.exe_cda3c82214ba1185decfee9bb19e9d5aca9279dc_a5e01898_f17e56f9-834f-47f8-bcd5-2ec8bf092a7f
Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 356a6623-c871-4e4f-9cc0-9b3db7e29509
Report Status: 268435456
Hashed bucket: f8092ba94f49c67a646436408a371540
Cab Guid: 0
The Desktop Window Manager process has exited. (Process exit code: 0xe0464645, Restart count: 1, Primary display device ID: AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics)
(Note: Some of the timestamps might include June 20th, 2024 as the date because this is from a fresh Windows 10 installation. It has been one year since I have had this issue, reported it to AMD and it still occurs on new Windows 10 installations.)
Initially I thought it was an issue on AMD's side since their drivers are known to have some issues from time to time, so I filed a support ticket with them (including sending them a video of the issue) and soon enough a representative came into contact with me. After almost a month of back-and-forth, the process basically boiled down to this:
- Representative told me to update everything to the latest version, including the BIOS (April 2023)
- I updated everything and the issue still persisted
- Rep asked me to completely delete any AMD related software using AMD's Cleanup Tool, reinstall the graphics driver again and check again
- Performed step 3 with both AMD's Cleanup Tool and DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller), issue still persisted
- Rep asked me to perform a clean install of Windows and try there
- Performed a clean installation of Windows 11 (not 10) to see if a different version of Windows would yield different results and I could not replicate the issue in any way for some reason, informed representative of the results and of my unwillingness to set up everything from scratch while being in the middle of 2 university assignments at the time, but that I would be happy to help their driver development team in unraveling the issue
- Rep told me to continue using the fresh Windows 11 install, seemingly ignoring everything else I've told them
- Not wanting to go to Windows 11 just for that, I created another partition and performed a clean installation of Windows 10 this time to see if something got corrupted on my particular installation. I installed the then newest AMD graphics drivers (May 2023) and the issue still persisted (mind you installing the graphics driver was the only thing I did in that installation, apart from installing Chrome and Discord)
- Rep kind of insisted on me using Windows 11 as the issue cannot be replicated there, and that I should use AMD's Bug Reporting Tool to submit a report from there
A week after that I accepted it, formatted my main drive, installed Windows 11 on it and called it a day. I felt puzzled and dumbfounded, mainly because I wanted to get to the bottom of this and not just reinstall Windows and/or use a different screenshot tool, something I kind of consider a "band-aid fix" because no one actually ever gets to know what went wrong and if the same issue will appear again in the future. I had completely forgotten about it until recently, when I just got sick of Windows 11.
I went ahead and installed Windows 10 in a separate partition today, just to test if the issue still persists. Lo and behold, one year and three months later (and several driver versions later), the issue is still there, just like I remember it. Absolutely nothing has changed. Pen strokes still do not appear until after I stop holding the left-click button and prolonged ones still cause the Desktop Window Manager to crash.
I am absolutely flabbergasted by this, since AMD did not seem to fix this. So now I am wondering if it was an issue with Snipping Tool itself or its underlying stroke renderer all along.
System Information:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
- GPU: AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics (the CPU's integrated ones)
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-A320M-S2H
- RAM: G.Skill Aegis 16GB (2x8GB, 3200MHz)
- Disks: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe, Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD, Seagate Expansion Drive 2TB (external)
- Windows 10 version: 22H2 (build 19045, the latest one)
- Windows 11 versions: 22H2 & 23H2
AMD graphics driver information:
Issue started on version 23.2.x, continues onwards and on the latest version (24.7.1). Version 22.11.2 was the last known working one.
