Power Point Presentation mode - not showing the add-in

[robertkiri]

When switching to PowerPoint presentation mode, the add-in content pane is not showing the content. (completly blank)

Your Environment

• Platform [PC desktop, Mac, iOS, Office on the web]: Windows
• Windows Version: Edition: Windows 10 Pro. Version: 22H2
  Installed on: ‎5/‎24/‎2022. OS build: 19045.3086
  Experience: Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19041.1000.0

• Host Power Point (Office Version 2305, Build 16501.20228)
• Web View2 Runtime 114.0.1823.51 (latest)

Expected behavior

As in normal view, the add-in content pane should be seen in presentation mode...

Current behavior

Our add-in is not shown and we did a cross check: we used the add-in Web Viewer,
and the behaviour was the same.

To reproduce

• Open PowerPoint.
• In the "Insert" menu, on the "Add-ins" section select "Get Add-ins".
• Search for "Web Viewer".
• Add "Web Viewer".
• On the "Insert Web Page" view, enter the URL: https://www.wikipedia.org/, then click "Preview". The Wikipedia home page should appear.
• Enter presentation mode in PowerPoint.

[MidnightEdge]

We are also experiencing the same issue, any updates on this? @ononder @wangyun-microsoft

[sebiJo]

Our users also report the same issue, however we cannot reproduce it on our side.

We observed at our users that the issue occurs when they have a specific kind of external screen. During troubleshooting, when we went to "Set up slide show" and selected the built-in laptop screen, the add-in showed up correctly in slideshow mode. It seems as if the external screen (or graphics adapter) caused some kind of incompatibility with the add-in in slide show mode. We tried to reproduce with the same resolution, color bit depth and refresh rate, but were still not able to reproduce.

The issue was observed on Windows 11 Pro with PowerPoint 2311, Build 17029.20068 and can be reproduced constantly on that machine. The add-in works correctly in editing mode but shows blank/white in presentation mode.

Any updates since June 2023? @ononder @JinghuiMS @wangyun-microsoft

@robertkiri, @MidnightEdge: Did you find the root cause for this issue or any suitable workaround for the users? I assume if they switch to particular display settings, it could work.

[hoodm194]

Probably a problem many people have. I usually use https://slidepeak.com/ to avoid problems with PowerPoint presentations, which has helped me many times. Thanks to the experts, the presentations have no errors whatsoever.

[sebiJo]

Yes, unfortunately this PowerPoint bug leads to a lot of user complaints even though we never achieved to reproduce it on any development machine.

[mwestphal]

please note user @hoodm194 is a spammer.

[EsterBergen]

Hi @robertkiri and @sebiJo - I'm unable to reproduce the issue. Can you try on the most recent build? If you're still experiencing this, try reporting a problem under the help menu in the ribbon. Thanks!

[sebiJo]

@EsterBergen: The issue still occurs at our customers with the most recent build. Can you please try again with the following setup: Please run the presentation on a second screen (e.g. a screen in a meeting room) connected through HDMI. This is a very common case in meetings and presentations and it seems that add-ins are not shown during slide show mode on an external screen connected through HDMI. I am not sure if it depends on HDMI or if it is rather a specific graphics setting that causes the problems.
When switching the presentation to the internal laptop screen, it works, but it does not solve the problem for a presentation use case.

[EsterBergen]

@sebiJo - I just tried running in a conference room connected to HDMI. I'll try to work on a bigger screen too. It may be a graphics setting. If you can report a problem, that would be helpful for us to have the logs. Go to Help>report a problem.

Can you also confirm you're running the presentation in presentation mode from PowerPoint and not running it in Power Point Live from a Teams meeting?

[sebiJo]

Yes, I can confirm this occurs in normal presentation mode, not PowerPoint Live.

Our issue is: We cannot reproduce the bug ourselves but many of our customers have the problem. I have seen the problem many times through screensharing.

Here is a way how you can simulate the issue. This might lead to the actual root cause:

1. Insert Web Viewer add-in (or any other Content add-in)
2. Go to the Slide Show ribbon in PowerPoint and click Set Up Slide Show. Check "Disable hardware graphics acceleration".
3. Add-ins will not be displayed anymore in slide show mode.

Important: Customers have this problem even with "hardware graphics acceleration" activated when using certain external displays or projectors during the presentation. Is there a case where graphics acceleration is internally deactivated but appears activated for the users?
If Microsoft could solve the problem that add-ins are not shown when hardware graphics acceleration is deactivated, then there might be a good chance that the problem is solved as a whole.

[sebiJo]

@EsterBergen, please remove the "needs author feedback" tag so that the ticket won't be closed automatically

[sebiJo]

My customer has reported the issue through PowerPoint a few days ago.
Has has included the link to this GitHub issue.

[SPDoctor]

I have been asked to continue the conversation about #4410 here, as it may be a the same bug. Please refer to that closed issue for more information.

We are getting one or two customer complaints per month about this issue, and there's nothing much we can do to help them. That is probably affecting a much larger number of users who probably just give up and do something else.

Thanks.

[sebiJo]

@EsterBergen, any news on this topic? Did the report from the customer help?