Screen Flashes, Flickers and Form Refreshes (1 Viewer)

Guys,
We are working on a complex database, based on continuous forms that seems to have issues with screen flickers and form refreshs when ever something needs processing, is changed or relates to code.
The functionality is fine but it looks less professional than you would expect because everytime you tab out of feilds or change filter criteria etc everything flashes and flickers.
Anyway to fix this compleatlly?
Some forms are worse than others but its pretty constant across the database.
Thanks
KG

Johnrg said:

Guys,
We are working on a complex database, based on continuous forms that seems to have issues with screen flickers and form refreshs when ever something needs processing, is changed or relates to code.
The functionality is fine but it looks less professional than you would expect because everytime you tab out of feilds or change filter criteria etc everything flashes and flickers.
Anyway to fix this compleatlly?
Some forms are worse than others but its pretty constant across the database.
Thanks
KG

Click to expand...

Before your code...
put this...
Application.Echo False

after your code..
put this...
Application.Echo True
hth,
..bob

I've noticed the same thing.
Switching Echo off and on will only work for those times it happens because of code being processed.
As John says it happens when fields are updated and on current events of subforms (and I've noticed it even on mouse move events, got focus events and click events when there's no code for those events).
You'll also notice it doesn't just refresh Access forms. It refreshes the desktop too!?
I would love to find a way to stop Access doing that but I suspect there isn't.

one thing that causes a "flicker" is a unattached label on a tab control.

as you roll over the label you get a "flicker".

If it's that, the accepted solution is to change the label into a disabled text box

Thanks for the answers - I can't beleive that there is not a simple fix for this in Access2010.

There must be thousands of databases getting designed in Access that have this same flicker, refresh issue that end up looking budget because of this.

One bad example is if you use the mouse to scroll up and down the dataset in the form either by clicking the up/down buttons or dragging the slider to look at/for records, everything flickers like crazy, its hard to even tell where you are on the form untill you stop and it refreshes.

Another is when you use a combo box to apply a filter in the subform, the whole screen flashes while the subform updates.

Shame there is no simple fix for this if theres not?

Johnrg said:

Thanks for the answers - I can't beleive that there is not a simple fix for this in Access2010.

There must be thousands of databases getting designed in Access that have this same flicker, refresh issue that end up looking budget because of this.

One bad example is if you use the mouse to scroll up and down the dataset in the form either by clicking the up/down buttons or dragging the slider to look at/for records, everything flickers like crazy, its hard to even tell where you are on the form untill you stop and it refreshes.

Another is when you use a combo box to apply a filter in the subform, the whole screen flashes while the subform updates.

Shame there is no simple fix for this if theres not?

Click to expand...

John,
Are you using code to make the screen changes. If so, echo will cure this. I have been working with Access since 2.0. I do not have one app that has the problem you are describing. Most of our workstations are running Access 2007. Some still have 2003. We have maybe 7-10 using 2010. I can feel your frustration. Since Vila sees the same thing... have either of you explored Gemme's suggestion about using disabled text boxes for unattached labels?

No but I'm thinking about it. The thing is it's not just mouse-move events over unattached labels (would that it were) but I wonder if the existence of a single unattached label (even on a different form to the one that's got the focus) could cause this effect in events unrelated to it.

The problem is there's going to be quite a few labels and every bit of code label.caption will need to be changed to textbox.value.

Other bizarre visual effects are moving a mouse over a button with a picture. The picture will flicker. And random bold text in controls: Design view it's normal text, form view it's sometimes bold sometimes not (no code affecting it). I can't be the only person for that to happen to

Eventually, I will experiment with changing all unattached labels to textboxes but it's going to be a lot of work and I'm not confident it will fix it.

I think one cause of problems can be overlapping controls, especially in continuous forms. It's so hard to avoid that and sometimes you want them to but Access doesn't seem to like it. It's a pity because that includes any control in front of a box without a transparent background. (Access will let you do it of course but there will probably be strange visual effects sometimes.)

Just an update on this.

I'm seeing this in Access 2007 unfortunately.

Vila will pm you and see if you found a solution I suspect there is no solution other than keep on 03!

No, I gave up trying to beat this long ago.
I just try to avoid labels unassigned to controls and overlapping controls when I remember to and can.

But still, even without those, Access seems to refresh forms (in the true sense rather than the refreshing the data) in response to certain events such as clicks and mouse moves on certain controls irrespective of any user code or any settings that I can find (and not just refreshing the form that the control's generating the events are on but other forms too).

Part of the problem is I don't want to be uploading real-life databases to show these things to the world. I think I might try to create a demo database that shows all the various annoying unwanted visual effects Access does. Off the top of my head these are they:

Form Flicker. Like a refresh of a form. In response to a variety of events not necessarily on the form in question. Often it will happen on all visible forms. Labels not linked to controls and overlapping controls seem to be the worst culprit but it does happen when all sorts of other controls get the focus.
Button Image Flicker on Mouse Move over button. If a button has an image it will do this when the mouse moves from not over the button to over it and vice versa. Perhaps something to do with the 'hot' effect (orange border) access applies to a button with the mouse over it.
Greyed-Out Comboboxes even though enabled and not locked and other comboboxes on the same form with the same properties are not. When the combobox gets the focus often it will become white but will also often go back to grey as they focus moves away.
Semi-Bold Labels at Runtime. Access seems to make some labels semi-bold at runtime for no reason. I think this is mostly for unassigned to controls and perhaps if they're font colour is changed at runtime but I'm sure not only in those cases. Semi-bold surely isn't the default so this seems a very weird thing for it do to without being explicitly told to.

If anyone can think of any other similar issues with Access please let me know. Perhaps then with a demo database there's a chance (albeit minute) that someone might be able to say why each bug is happening and how to fix it.

There is a workaround you can use in some situations...

I have a `main menu form`, which includes a semi-transparent .png which covers 1/4 of the screen, a coloured rectangle behind that (allows dynamic colouring of said logo after accounting for transparency in the image ), and a series of access controls that overlap on top of all this, which then change a subform etc.etc. blah blah blah.

Suffice to say, if I do anything, the whole screen looks like a strobe light.

However, moving my relevant controls into a subform, sticking this subform on my main form (and making sure the subforms background is the same as the space its placed on+has no borders etc. so everything blends in with the main form and you can't tell its a subform), and bobs your uncle, any updates I make within the subform are restricted to the subform - main form is not refreshed/flashing.

It is rather scenario specific, but does give an example of the kind of workaround you can look at.

NOTE: Using application.echo or docmd.echo with the above will force the screen to start flashing again! I.e. it appears access is intelligent enough to know that subform changes shouldn't affect a parent so limits updates to within the subform. Turning echo off/on seems to force a total refresh.

Works for me anyway though I haven't tested it on other pc's yet.

M.

Hi

Don't know whether this is a help to anyone

I use form captions as a pseudo status bar to keep users informed of what is happening in lengthy multi stage functions

I Recently migrated from Access 2002 to 2010 and got the form flicker effect every time the caption changed on a continuous form, as all records were refreshed as part of the process

Discovered purely by accident, that if a form was made popup and modal, the refreshing stopped when the caption changed which is far easier on the eye for users

George

Alright......
Update on this (well....kinda...)

I have been having this same problem for the past 6 months.
(i wrote VBA code to change a pic on a form once clicked on)

At one stage i figured it out, and i solved it!!!
Unfortunately it has came back!!!

I cant remember the exact DETAIL of what i did, but it has something to do with "Tab Index" & "Tab Stop"

All Command buttons have the "Tab Index" property, but pictures dont, and the problem i have is with pictures refreshing the WHOLE page.
If i can remember correctly, i reordered all the "Tab Index" so EVERY item is BEFORE the pic, that fixed it!!

If you guys want to play around with that, to find the solution, as it worked for me before.

I'm wondering if it's something to do with presentation of the selected field/row - maybe a highlight or a bold that might mean the form actually does change slightly each time, causing the flicker.

it might not even be that. it might be the menus or ribbons changing appearance, again causing the from to actually move slightly.

(eg, see George Moore's comment above)

just thinking out loud, really.

There is also the handling of jpeg images that causes screen flicker. I haven't ever resolved this and with 20,000 images I'm not inclined to remove the images.

Simon

Discovered that simply making the form pop up will stop all flickering (doesn't need to be modal)

The only downside of this workaround is that any user defined ribbons will not be displayed while the pop up form is displayed

George

UPDATE: 4-6-2015

I tried all the above tricks and hours of time spent pulling my hair out.

The only thing that 100% eliminated the flickering was:

Setting all the tab stop properties to "NO".

This leads me to believe that the problems in my case were related directly to either the tab order or the tab stop functionality built into access.

My use cases for this error reproduction involved webbrowser controls, listbox controls, buttons, text boxes, etc.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to contribute to this thread.

Then is must be build specific, because I have tried all the solutions mentioned without any success.

I am however leaning towards it being an option group issue as a number of my forms were imported from Access 2003 and I was in the habit of deleting the label on an option group to make a rectangle. When I replaced all the option groups for rectangles it seems to have removed the flicker.

It may be that there are multiple causes?

Regardless, extremely annoying.

I had the same issue. Turns out it was a tab control issue apparently conflicting with Windows themes. To test, I cut all of the objects from the tab control, deleted the tab control and then pasted the objects into the detail of the form. The flicker went away.

I tried Allen Browne's suggestion of replacing unbound labels with text boxes but that didn't help. (I can't post the link because I just registered but google "Microsoft Access screen flash tab control" and it's the first hit on Google)

What solved the problem was moving all of my controls onto a new subform and adding that entire subform to the sheet of the tab control. The flicker is gone and I can now get back to work.

HTH,
Patrick

There is a solution to this for tab controls.

1. Add a blank tab
2. setfocus to the blank tab
3. setfocus to the tab that is flickering

hey presto, no flickering...

I began to experience flicker on my sub-forms when I upgraded to Access 2016 from 2013. I was able to solve the flicker by changing the following settings:

- Select the File tab and choose Options.
- Under Current Database locate the settings for "Caching Web Service and Sharepoint Tables" at the end of the page.
- Check the "Use cache format that is compatible with Microsoft Access 2010 and later" and the "Clear Cache on Close"

Once selected the flickering stopped.