Black or White bars at top or bottom of screen

Anonymous
2018-06-18T23:22:01+00:00

Hi all, 

I am technician at an IT company and we are pulling out our hair over an issue with one of our clients using Google Calendar.

They are 2 users, both using different computers, both running the latest version of Windows 10 and Chrome.

The symptoms happen at different times on both machines. The symptoms can vary but are generally a form of bar on the top or bottom of the browser. They have to restart the computer for the issue to disappear. They can work around it by reducing the screen size from full screen, to something slightly smaller.

We have tried Firefox, Edge and Chrome Canary with same symptoms, updating all drivers, BIOS, re installation of the OS and still issues are occurring. We originally thought the issues were graphics related, but they seem to only be happening when in Google Calendar. Seems like an OS bug? 

We have also turns hardware acceleration off in the browsers.

I have included some screenshots as well. The black bars at the top began in Firefox on Google Calendar and have penetrated other windows that have been placed on top (Acrobat in this example). 

We are using an Intel NUC and a Laptop.

Any advise would be most appreciated.

Regards, Sam

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2019-03-26T15:04:26+00:00

Hello everyone,

You can use the shortcut CONTROL + SHIFT + WIN + B to reset the graphics adapter on affected machines. This will get rid of the white/black bars without navigating through menus. 

All the fixes I've seen (Intel graphics panel, reboot computer, change resolution, etc) just reset the graphics driver anyway. For example, when you change the resolution on a computer, the monitor(s) shuts off for a moment and then comes back up. This is because the graphics adapter reset.

I don't have a permanent fix unfortunately, but this is a quick band-aid fix that takes less than a second when you see this problem occurring. I've observed this problem over the last ~6 months and am disappointed that some of my organization's fully updated computers (Windows 10 1809 with all updates as of March 26th, 2019) still display this problem. 

Thanks.

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Anonymous
2021-11-30T00:53:12+00:00

Solved! After a few years of just accepting this problem, a tech guy at Best Buy found the answer. He worked on it for an hour or so and voila! In google chrome (chrome://extensions), he eliminated the extension on stock tracker program and the bar is now GONE! I had the same problem on my other computer so I made that change and it's gone! Hopefully, that or something similar will work for everyone else who has suffered with this problem. Good luck!

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-01-03T23:12:19+00:00

    In an effort to diagnose the issue I uninstalled Chrome and reinstalled (after saving the bookmarks of course) and the issue returned almost immediately.  Then noticed the issue in IE too (yes just doing diagnostics).

    Once I rebooted we tested the same sites again and discovered that the horizontal black (or sometimes white) bars were the same size as bars that were popping up.  So our description of the problem became "popup bars are invisible".

    Hope this helps (disabling hardware acceleration didn't, and neither did maximizing or restoring with the squre in the underline, square, x, on the top right of the window.  We'll try F11 next time).

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-01-08T20:21:40+00:00

    For what it is worth I have two users experiencing this EXACT issue (some maximized applications create a white or black bar either at the top or the bottom of the screen). Each user is using a completely different make and model of computer (one is a Dell desktop the other one is a Lenovo notebook) yet they experience the same issue from time to time. Seem like the apps that are affected is Chrome, File Explorer and Adobe Acrobat DC. I have yet to find a solution online. It must be an OS issue. Both computers are fully patched and running the latest versions of all software.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-01-23T13:46:50+00:00

    I have the exact same issue with a Lenovo laptop with a nvidia graphics card and a external monitor hooked up. The laptop screen never gets the bar but the external monitor does.

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