Factorio Forums

Alt-tabbing from the game and back prevents entities from being selected (the yellow bounds outline doesn't appear) and clicked - mining doesn't work, opening entity inventories/GUIs doesn't work, entities do not respond to clicks. Changing the window to fullscreen or windowed fixes this (until I alt-tab again).

On a side note, Factorio randomly stopped responding while it was in the background when I was writing this report. Uncertain why right now, I might look at it.

Edit: Just to clarify, menu buttons do register the mouse, so it is possible to save the game at this state and change the game to windowed mode.

log please.

Sorry, I forgot about it, coming right up!

I tested the alt-tab issue a few times, it consistently happens when I switch to another window and back, but returns to normal after the Fullscreen option is checked/unchecked in the Graphics settings.
As for the other issue related to the game freeze, I re-opened the game after it froze (I don't know how many times, but hopefully only once), so I'm also sending the factorio-previous.log.

Had the same problem with alt-tab. Seems like Overwolf is the culprit. After exiting Overwolf I am able to select entities again.

Seconding the overwolf close solution. I was also having this issue after alt-tabbing. Closing overwolf fixed the problem. This didn't happen prior to 0.16.

I had this problem as well. Exiting Overwolf fixed it for me too.
Tried to revert to 0.15.40, and i did not have the same problem there.

Same Issue as well. Closing Overwolf fixed it. It isn't just tabbing out. I have 2 monitors and clicking on any window and clicking back breaks it while overwolf is on.

Overwolf isn't the only culprit. I had the exact same problem, but for me it was Bandicam that was causing issues. I suspect any program that influences Factorio in any way causes this to happen.

Those issues aren't 3rd party related, they're caused by the HWND of the mouse cursor, when it leaves the screen the selection box of all entities just vanish, you can't select any entity, altho if you play on windowed mode, if you resize the window keeping the mouse cursor inside the game window, after the resizing adjustment, the entities becomes selectable again. Tested it on my PC where I also use 3rd party overlay software, disabled them but the bug still persist.

Hey there,

Or from Overwolf support here, from what I understand from this post the main issue\bug is on the game side.
If any program "hooks" in the game process the user will have this selection bug.

We will keep an eye on this issue and as soon this version will be in the public version we will make sure to fix it if and when we can.

Thank you for your attention,
Or Head of Tech support at Overwolf

LEO konami wrote:Hey there,

Or from Overwolf support here, from what I understand from this post the main issue\bug is on the game side.
If any program "hooks" in the game process the user will have this selection bug.

We will keep an eye on this issue and as soon this version will be in the public version we will make sure to fix it if and when we can.

Thank you for your attention,
Or Head of Tech support at Overwolf

Steam hooks the game process and has no such problems. It sounds like the overlay software is intercepting window events and not passing them along to the game to process.

Specifically the game is using https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms646265 to track if the mouse is inside the window or not and something in that is being interrupted by the overlay software.

Rseding91 wrote:Steam hooks the game process and has no such problems. It sounds like the overlay software is intercepting window events and not passing them along to the game to process.

Specifically the game is using https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms646265 to track if the mouse is inside the window or not and something in that is being interrupted by the overlay software.

Back on 0.15 I still used my both overlay apps Twitch and Overwolf and this issue weren't there, maybe it has something to do with Qt Library update?

[16.4] i have had this issue twice so far.
1. clicked Research in the tech window (i'm sorry i don't remember which tech it was). afterwards i was unable to select entities.
2. placed a Storage chest. same result.

my "fix" was to save, exit and reload factorio. i do have Overwolf installed and running in the back ground.

Actimos351 wrote:[16.4] i have had this issue twice so far.
1. clicked Research in the tech window (i'm sorry i don't remember which tech it was). afterwards i was unable to select entities.
2. placed a Storage chest. same result.

my "fix" was to save, exit and reload factorio. i do have Overwolf installed and running in the back ground.

A much quicker workaround is to press Alt+Enter to put the game in windowed mode, Then pressing Alt+Enter to bring to full screen mode again.

Hey, My name is Heaser, I'm from the Overwolf QA team.

We created a temporary workaround you can use if you're using Factorio version 16.x, Hopefully the Factorio dev team will fix it on their side,
If they won't we'll release the workaround for everybody.

1. Download the GamesList.8963065.xml file provided in this reply.
2. Go to %localappdata%\Overwolf and replace the GamesList.8963065.xml file.
3. Restart Overwolf.
4. Launch Factorio.

If you guys have any issues feel free ask.

v0.16.6 seems to have fixed the issue on my side. At least my testing can't be reproduced anymore.
The testing that I've did is on this post: 55053.
Both windowed and fullscreen mode I can't reproduce it anymore, thanks for the fixing.

Mobius1 wrote:v0.16.6 seems to have fixed the issue on my side. At least my testing can't be reproduced anymore.
The testing that I've did is on this post: 55053.
Both windowed and fullscreen mode I can't reproduce it anymore, thanks for the fixing.

I disabled the logic that used the "is the mouse in the window" until we can figure out why it's being triggered with overlay-type programs.