Hovering over a property in the Inspector for over 1 second causes its tooltip to disappear, then continue to blink on and off [Stardock Fences, Kakaotalk]

[cosmoddd]

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Bugsquad note: This issue has been confirmed several times already. No need to confirm it further.

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Godot version:
3.1.1 Stable

OS/device including version:
Windows 10.0.18362

Issue description:
When hovering over a property in the inspector panel, a description pops up for a second, then blinks away, then comes back. This can't be how it was designed.

Steps to reproduce:
Open a blank project. Hover over any property in the inspector window. Observe the property description appear for a second, then disappear for a fraction of a second, then reappear.

Minimal reproduction project:
Any blank Godot default project.

[KoBeWi]

Does it happen in 3.2 alpha too? I can't reproduce it.

[cosmoddd]

Were you able to reproduce the issue on 3.1.1 Stable? I've been using the release versions from Itch.io and Steam to test and both versions cause the same issue.

[cosmoddd]

I don't move my mouse at all when this is happening. GIF Below:
A gif of the problem

[KoBeWi]

This is 3.1.1

[cosmoddd]

OK - I can confirm it doesn't happen on the Itch.io build on my Dell XPS15 Laptop. This seems to an edge case error, though I'm open to ideas in terms of troubleshooting its cause.

[Xrayez]

Strangely, this is reproducible easily in 4.0-dev master (Windows), but with regular tooltips.

[Bargeral]

Came here to post this bug. I am on version 3.2.1 stable.official - and this still a bug.
When I move my mouse over any item with a tooltip in the Inspector or Node tab and let it sit there (hand off mouse) the tool tip comes up for a second, and then it blinks off and back on repeatedly. Just posting to let you know this is still a thing.

[KoBeWi]

@Bargeral Any more info? OS? GPU? Any video maybe?

[Bargeral]

@KoBeWi Do'h! Should have thought of that.

Godot.Engine.mp4

sysinfo.txt

[KoBeWi]

Thanks. Seems like I have similar setup and it doesn't happen to me 🤔
Can you reproduce in newest 3.2.4 rc too?

[Bargeral]

Downloaded and it has the exact same behavior.

[Bargeral]

@KoBeWi I found the issue. I have a program called Fences that manages icons on the desktop. Disabling Fences and the problem goes away. re-enable Fences and the problem returns. I'll see if I can open a ticket with them, it would be nice to identify what the root of the issue is in case it might come up with other applications.
@cosmoddd do (did) you use Fences?

[Bargeral]

Cross referenced https://forums.stardock.com/504151/fences-causes-issues-in-godot-editor

[cosmoddd]

@KoBeWi I found the issue. I have a program called Fences that manages icons on the desktop. Disabling Fences and the problem goes away. re-enable Fences and the problem returns. I'll see if I can open a ticket with them, it would be nice to identify what the root of the issue is in case it might come up with other applications.
@cosmoddd do (did) you use Fences?

I do use Fences! I'm inclined to believe Fences effects Godot in some way.

Aside from messaging Stardock, what's the way forward here? Is this within the scope of Godot support?

[akien-mga]

That's likely outside Godot's scope then, the way we handle tooltips on Windows is not "wrong" per se, but might be different to what native Windows applications, and confuses Fences.

We can keep this issue open for other Fences users to find it and see the cross-referenced Stardock support ticket, but it's unlikely to be fixed on the Godot side (unless Godot 4's new multiple window support happens to fix it by chance).

[Calinou]

By the way, it appears this isn't the only third-party software to cause issues with tooltips in Godot: #39008

[coderaurus]

This occurred to me while I also had Unity open. Neither Stardock Fences or Kakaotalk are installed.

Godot versions 3.3.3, 3.4.3, 3.4.4
Unity 2019.4f.1f1
OS Windows 10

[Kersoph]

I started to strategically go through all programms I use to check the issue. I had similar problems but with custom tooltips in the exported game (described in #59973)
I can reproduce it for this issue as well as the one for custom tooltips by using the Windows Media Player.
As soon as I stop or close the Windows Media Player the issue vanishes. As soon as I open it the issue starts anew. It does not occur in VLC Media Player, Audacity or if I play music through Firefox.

When I run a game: This has the same effect on the custom tooltips (using _make_custom_tooltip) for me but NOT for regular tooltips (Control: Hint: Tooltip) as described in #59973
Perhaps there is a fix to this problem in the regular tooltip - or a mechanic in custom tooltips that leads to this behavior?

Windows 10 x64, NVidia GTX 970, i7-2600K CPU, GLES3
3.4.4-stable and 3.4.3-stable

[Eliwi]

Having the same issue here, Fences makes tooltips flicker

Windows 10, RTX 2080 Super, Ryzen 9 3900XT
3.4.4-stable, GLES3

[ajhmain]

This issue is a real pain, please fix! The continual hiding and showing of these tool tips makes reading that often very useful information incredibly frustrating. System spec: Windows 10 64 bit, Godot 3.5 stable 64bit (mono).

It is the current Godot implementation of these specific tool-tips that is the root cause of the issue, NOT Fences or any other application on the system. I use Fences but no other application on my system (eg Visual Studio, VS Code, Blender, Unity, Libre Office, Inksacpe, Steam, numerous games etc) exhibits the same issue with tool-tips.

Stardock (or other vendors) are simply going to laugh at anyone suggesting they need to fix something in Fences when the issue is plainly with the Godot implementation.

Why do you have seemingly multiple implementation of tool tips anyway? I notice the light background tool tips used for icons throughout the Godot UI never exhibit this issue.

So annoyingly we have inspector tool tips, that cannot be read at a glance, continually hiding/showing. While the short simple tool tips that can easily be read in a glance are rock solid. Please just use the same (reliable) tool tip system for all tool tips.

It's quite strange any external application could impact Godot UI features rendered using the same OpenGL rendering system used by the rest of the Godot interface uses. Are those inspector tool tips are implemented using OS native UI functionality? That's the only way I could see that happening?

[Calinou]

I use Fences but no other application on my system (eg Visual Studio, VS Code, Blender, Unity, Libre Office, Inksacpe, Steam, numerous games etc) exhibits the same issue with tool-tips.

Out of all the programs you mentioned, VS Code and Blender both use custom tooltips. Blender is drawing them in the same OpenGL window as the main viewport, like Godot 3.x.

Why do you have seemingly multiple implementation of tool tips anyway? I notice the light background tool tips used for icons throughout the Godot UI never exhibit this issue.

EditorHelpBit (used for inspector tooltips) is more powerful (and therefore more complex/demanding) compared to the general-purpose tooltip spawned when hovering Control nodes. To each problem, its own solution 🙂

Are those inspector tool tips are implemented using OS native UI functionality?

No, these are rendered as Controls within the main window in 3.x (and in separate windows in 4.0). OS-native tooltips are too limited for this purpose, as they can't contain any formatting and their theming can't be changed. Most complex programs end up implementing a custom tooltip system for the same reason.

[burrich]

I don't have Stardock Fences or Kakaotalk apps but this problem occurs too when the Performance Monitor of Windows is opened (Windows 11, Godot v3.5.stable.official [991bb6a]).

[Calinou]

Performance Monitor of Windows is opened

Just to make sure, are you referring to the task manager or perfmon.exe? I remember perfmon having an unusual way to draw tooltips, so this could be related.

[burrich]

Yes i was referring to perfmon.exe (Resource Monitor).

[ajhmain]

@Calinou
Thanks for the responses. Makes a lot of sense that EditorHelpBit are implemented in engine (not OS). But that doesn't answer the main question: how could any other external application have any effect on these tooltips if they are just part of Godot editor rendering system?

Surely it's therefore just a a bug in Godot rendering system for these tooltips? Other applications that happen to be running such as Fences, Perf Mon etc, just seems like a "correlation is not causation".

[ajhmain]

@Calinou

Just a thought, perhaps these EditorHelpBit tooltips are overly sensitive to any "perceived", but not user initiated movement of the mouse cursor?

I say "perceived" because it could be possible that some applications (eg Fences, Perf Mon) might be doing something to the mouse cursor (at the OS level) which triggers a false movement which in turn causes the EditorHelpBit tooltips to hide themselves continually?

No idea if this is actually true but that could explain how external applications may impact this issue. However I am not sure why the simple tooltips would not also be affected by this.

[Bargeral]

I was surprised to see this issue being looked at again.
v3.5.1.stable.official [6fed1ff] still has the issue when tested with perfmon.exe open - issue clears when perfmon is closed.
However, v4.0.beta3.official [01ae26d] does not appear to have the issue.
I'm happy to move on to 4x and call it a day, but maybe something can be back ported to fix this issue for 3x users.

[mathias17]

Experiencing this issue with 3.5.1.stable. Very annoying.

[yume-chan]

Looks like this issue will be fixed in 4.0. 4.0 by default uses separate windows for tooltips, but even in single window mode the blinking does not happen.

2023-01-23.18-37-31.mp4

This is the first time I use Godot, and I just have Resource Monitor opened in background by accident. So, I encountered this issue immediately. A pretty bad first impression for me.

[Calinou]

Relevant code that controls the display of custom tooltips in 3.x:

godot/scene/main/viewport.cpp

Lines 1581 to 1637 in f747967

	// Remove previous popup if we change something.
	if (gui.tooltip_popup) {
	memdelete(gui.tooltip_popup);
	gui.tooltip_popup = nullptr;
	gui.tooltip_label = nullptr;
	}
	if (!tooltip_owner) {
	return;
	}
	// Controls can implement `make_custom_tooltip` to provide their own tooltip.
	// This should be a Control node which will be added as child to the tooltip owner.
	gui.tooltip_popup = tooltip_owner->make_custom_tooltip(tooltip_text);
	// If no custom tooltip is given, use a default implementation.
	if (!gui.tooltip_popup) {
	gui.tooltip_popup = memnew(TooltipPanel);
	gui.tooltip_label = memnew(TooltipLabel);
	gui.tooltip_popup->add_child(gui.tooltip_label);
	Ref<StyleBox> ttp = gui.tooltip_label->get_stylebox("panel", "TooltipPanel");
	gui.tooltip_label->set_anchor_and_margin(MARGIN_LEFT, Control::ANCHOR_BEGIN, ttp->get_margin(MARGIN_LEFT));
	gui.tooltip_label->set_anchor_and_margin(MARGIN_TOP, Control::ANCHOR_BEGIN, ttp->get_margin(MARGIN_TOP));
	gui.tooltip_label->set_anchor_and_margin(MARGIN_RIGHT, Control::ANCHOR_END, -ttp->get_margin(MARGIN_RIGHT));
	gui.tooltip_label->set_anchor_and_margin(MARGIN_BOTTOM, Control::ANCHOR_END, -ttp->get_margin(MARGIN_BOTTOM));
	gui.tooltip_label->set_text(tooltip_text);
	}
	tooltip_owner->add_child(gui.tooltip_popup);
	gui.tooltip_popup->force_parent_owned();
	gui.tooltip_popup->set_as_toplevel(true);
	if (gui.tooltip_control) { // Avoids crash when rapidly switching controls.
	gui.tooltip_popup->set_scale(gui.tooltip_control->get_global_transform().get_scale());
	}
	Point2 tooltip_offset = ProjectSettings::get_singleton()->get("display/mouse_cursor/tooltip_position_offset");
	Rect2 r(gui.tooltip_pos + tooltip_offset, gui.tooltip_popup->get_minimum_size());
	Rect2 vr = gui.tooltip_popup->get_viewport_rect();
	if (r.size.x * gui.tooltip_popup->get_scale().x + r.position.x > vr.size.x) {
	r.position.x = vr.size.x - r.size.x * gui.tooltip_popup->get_scale().x;
	} else if (r.position.x < 0) {
	r.position.x = 0;
	}
	if (r.size.y * gui.tooltip_popup->get_scale().y + r.position.y > vr.size.y) {
	r.position.y = vr.size.y - r.size.y * gui.tooltip_popup->get_scale().y;
	} else if (r.position.y < 0) {
	r.position.y = 0;
	}
	gui.tooltip_popup->set_global_position(r.position);
	gui.tooltip_popup->set_size(r.size);
	gui.tooltip_popup->raise();
	gui.tooltip_popup->show();

(Also search for all instances of gui.tooltip_popup in scene/main/viewport.cpp, and make_custom_tooltip, in the codebase.)

[jcommander]

Using Godot 4.1.1.stable tooltips dissapeared completely, caused by Rainmeter (like in #39008)
I remember having the blinking issue with Godot 3 occasionally, but now it seemed like they were outright disabled at first.
Always takes a moment to grasp that a different program is causing this.

[Bargeral]

Using Godot 4.1.1.stable tooltips dissapeared completely, caused by Rainmeter (like in #39008) I remember having the blinking issue with Godot 3 occasionally, but now it seemed like they were outright disabled at first. Always takes a moment to grasp that a different program is causing this.

Not sure if it's the same issue. I'm using v4.1.stable.official [9704596] and have Fences up now without issue. Also using PerfMon.exe as a test and no issues.

[PurrfectDreamm]

To see tooltips in Godot try to hold Alt button while hovering on UI objects that have tooltips, it works for me. I use Godot 4.2 and last version of Fences app.

Update: I found better solution to "fix" this bug, when you want to switch to Godot, use (Win + Tab) and select Godot, and all tooltips are working just fine! (without Alt button pressed). Still idk about other people, but it works for me all the times.
P.S. My OS - Windows 10 Pro