Windows Client Release Notes

Mon, 06/08/2009 - 21:40 — spot

Get it here: http://electricsheep.googlecode.com/files/electricsheep-2.7b34.exe

Download and double click to install. You can run it either by waiting for your screensaver to come on, or double clicking on the desktop icon, then clicking the "Run" button.

If you have trouble, see the help page.

System Requirements: Windows XP or better. The screensaver may require the latest graphics drivers to run properly. If it doesn't run after installation, check your computer manufacturer's website. If it crashes instantly even with the latest drivers, then try setting the monitor number to 1, 2, or 3. And if that doesn't work, then turn on Direct Draw mode in the advanced settings. If you have this kind of problem and want to beta test a fix, please email us (click help for the address) and put "privbeta" in the subject. Thanks!

If it's still not working, get the diagnostic program GPU-Z and send us the output from it and DxDiag and your log file (on XP look in C:\Document and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ElectricSheep, or on Vista C:\ProgramData\ElectricSheep). You can turn on logging in the advanced preferences.

See comments below for how to set a proxy.

Thu, 12/29/2011 - 16:42 — Einstein47

b34 freezes

Hey spot - I wanted to share that b34 is really great. However for the last 2 days, when I get back to work, I have found my PC screens frozen (both screens have a static, fractal-flames image). I have just enabled the "independent" mode so that both screens have ES running (which is very cool). I can unlock my PC with Ctrl-Alt-Del, but nothing else (not mouse, not Function keys, not any key) does anything. I am wondering if ES is having trouble when my power mode tries to turn off the screen. I'll do some testing with that. Otherwise, b34 is AWESOME!

Thu, 12/29/2011 - 23:07 — spot

thanks for the report. please

thanks for the report.

please email me with all details about your system and how you use it.

Wed, 12/21/2011 - 19:58 — arakcheev

b34 Not fitting screen

Forgot what version I was running prior to upgrading, but b34 only plays in the top left hand of my screen. I even went into the config and manually changed it to match my screen resolution and it still only plays in the top left of my screen.

Thu, 12/22/2011 - 10:57 — spot

make sure your drivers are up

make sure your drivers are up to date. if it still has a problem, please email me the details of your system.

Fri, 12/23/2011 - 20:43 — arakcheev

They are up to date as of

They are up to date as of yesterday. Also, it's randomly crashing (both while trying to initialize and sometimes after it's been playing for more than an hour). I'll email you the specs.

Wed, 12/14/2011 - 14:15 — spot

2.7b34 released

it should fix the win7 dual monitor problem. it also better reports the problem is it cannot read or create the content folder. plus the ffmpeg and curl libraries have been updated.

Thu, 12/01/2011 - 02:31 — codetonic

2.7b33 has trouble with dual monitors and W7 login screen

Thu, 12/01/2011 - 11:09 — spot

please try this version and

please try this version and let me know how it goes (send the log if it does not work): https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BztWT34nTfkDYzY1NGQ5OGItNzE5Mi00MmQwLWE1NTctZjMzMzRiNTQ1NDEz

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 09:41 — Zenoid

Windows 7 multimonitor problems

I had persistent problems getting ES b33 to work on my setup (Win 7 Ultimate, Radeon 5770 card driving 3 monitors). The images would only show on one monitor and only if the options were set to monitor=2.

Problem was solved by removing b33 and reinstalling b29. With that, I got 3 gorgeous independent full-screen displays with monitor=0, switch set to Independent, no other changes.

Sun, 11/20/2011 - 15:37 — spot

if you could try this

if you could try this version, it might fix the problem, and it has extra logging info to help us solve it. please try it, let me know what happens, and if it still doesn't work then send me the complete log.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BztWT34nTfkDMWI3MTNhZmQtMjU1Yy00MTA2LTg...

Thu, 12/01/2011 - 11:08 — spot

OK we have another attempt to

OK we have another attempt to fix tihs. Please install and try it and let me know how it goes: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BztWT34nTfkDYzY1NGQ5OGItNzE5Mi00MmQwLWE1NTctZjMzMzRiNTQ1NDEz

Sun, 10/16/2011 - 03:56 — jans

login

Beta 33 failed to log in.

I installed Beta 27 and everything works fine now.

Sat, 10/15/2011 - 07:06 — liamdoofer

It's working fine but it

It's working fine but it won't let me login.

I've tried changing my password a few times and it just says failed. I have the right account name

Sat, 10/15/2011 - 20:56 — spot

logging in is to support the

logging in is to support the future premium version which is not released yet. you can just ignore it.

Sun, 10/16/2011 - 09:42 — dejb

The 30 or so minutes spent

The 30 or so minutes spent trying to get the login working kinda ruins the first impression of the software though. Nice product none the less.

Sat, 09/24/2011 - 10:44 — Einstein47

ES Becomes Unresponsive - Needs Uninstall/Reinstall

Hey, this is the weirdest, when I wake from screen saver on my home PC, ElectricSheep becomes unresponsive to Windows. I have to kill the task before my screen saver will run again. This only happens on my Home PC, not my Work PC or Work Laptop. I am going to try to uninstall and reinstall and see if that helps.

UPDATE: I did the uninstall/reinstall thing, and it seems to have worked. Thanks for making such awesome software. I get compliments on my screen saver all the time.

Sat, 09/24/2011 - 15:31 — spot

thanks for the report, glad

thanks for the report, glad you figured it out!

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 08:13 — Einstein47

I spoke too soon.

The clean install didn't solve it. There are times that the screen saver will stop but es is still running down in the task bar. I have to right-click it, choose close, then force stop. I have turned off rendering, but that didn't solve it. I think (therefore I get in trouble) it might be some other background process like AV or defrag that might run while the screen saver is active that causes es to freeze, but I'm not sure.

What can you recommend to help diagnose what is happening?

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 09:33 — Einstein47

It just happened again this morning.

I turned on the logging option. Here is a link to the log that was created, as well as to a dump file (I don't know if that will be helpful or not).

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23020971/2011_10_01.log

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23020971/es.dmp

Any other suggestions? (PC is Win XP Pro SP3, same as work desktop and laptops but they don't have this problem).

Sun, 10/09/2011 - 00:02 — Einstein47

Rolled back to b29

I gave up trying to find out what other application is causing ES to stop responding. I rolled back to b29 and it is working beautifully. So far today, no glitches. If anyone else has issues with b33, please post them here and we can compare notes.

Wed, 09/14/2011 - 13:11 — lasermouse

v2.7b30 Through v2.7b32?

Hi Spot.

I was wondering where were the versions between b29 and b33? I am asking because I have a program that lets me know when new versions of software are available and I thought it was giving me false positives on these missing versions of ES. Did I miss these versions or is this just a jump / leap in versions?

Wed, 09/14/2011 - 14:53 — spot

they weren't released

they weren't released publicly.

Mon, 08/29/2011 - 21:13 — ednolan

It Works

I went into the Display tab and selected the 'Direct Draw Mode' and now my screen saver and run function work. I see animation in all the 'F' screens now, yay !

Now I can't wait, but i have too. 5:30am comes early and it's 9:30pm now. The sad part is I wont be able to get back to this 'till 6:pm tmrw. I can't wait to learn more about changing the gnomes, mwahahaha, thanks a ton!

Mon, 08/29/2011 - 19:32 — ednolan

New Version

Spot I downloaded the new version. I didn't get rid of the old version when I set up the new one. I see this one has a 'Flock' tab, nice!

When i started the program the ES Settings window opened and it had a very long sting in the password field and I saw that it said, 'not yet tested' and then it was attempting to talk to the server however it failed. I then replaced the long sting with the password I signed up with, and again it started talking but then failed again. I changed my password twice on the website and retried starting, but failed on both of those attempts. I am using my username ednolan since it defaulted to that. I also tried my email in lower case but that failed too.

On a better note, I did click on run and then went to the f2 screen and seen that I now have 51 sheep. It then started to get the list, and then it started to download more sheep even though it shows me not logged in. It also triggered my screen saver when the download started up. It stayed as a black screen and then after about a minute it closed itself.

I hope this info helps. I am thinking of uninstalling and reinstalling but i don't think I really need too. Maybe I should deleate my account on the website and redo it? If I do that do I have to change my email address or can I still use the same one?

Thanks for your time,

Ed Nolan aka VirtualOpoly.com

Wed, 09/14/2011 - 11:46 — Alinda

I have the exact same problem

I have the exact same problem as described above, except that I didn't have an old version installed. I just installed 2.7b33 fresh, I made an account here, but couldn't log in using the settingsGUI of ES, I changed my password once to test if something was wrong with the password, but each time I just see my username, and a password field filled with lots of black dots. It will say it failed, then I will enter the password I use on this website, and I get back FAILED, what am I doing wrong?

Wed, 09/14/2011 - 14:54 — spot

logging in doesn't work yet,

logging in doesn't work yet, but it should still download sheep etc.

Sun, 08/28/2011 - 23:06 — ednolan

Blank White Screen

I am running windows xp media center edition version 5.1.

I downloaded the program Saturday. After reading as much as I could and understanding the ES website, I figured out I had to set my monitor and computer to stay awake. Okay it will never sleep unless I make it now, lol.

I Created a folder in the 'My Documents' and called it 'My Sheep' I started the ES program frommy desktop link. I clicked the Advanced tab and set the content directory to : C:\Documents and Settings\Ed\My Documents\My Sheep\

My speed is set to 15 FPS in the playback tab. Repeat loops is set at 2 times and I selected Seamless playback.

In the 'Display tab' My Monitor mode is set to Single, display monitor =0 Display speed = 60 FPS. Interpolation is set to off, and nothing else is checked off.

The 'Proxy tab' - I dont have anything in the Hostname. Is there suppose to be something here? I use my username and password.

Now back to the 'Basic screen' When I enter my name and password and select Test account, I see I am logged in, when I select RUN, I get a new window POP-UP and it opens to plain white. I can use the F1-F4 Keys. Currently my F2 screen displays Local flock 32 sheep, so i know I have 32 sheep. It also says Survivors: median cut=16, dead and eliminator=16, but I don't know what this means. And it also says Downloading disabled, read-only mode F3 says Rendering disabled, currently rendering 0 frams, 0 frames rendered, (new rendering allowed) f4 says currently playing sheep#244.48157 (edge) played 34 times, decoding video at 15 fps, directx 9 display at 24 fps, client uptime 6m59s

I have tested Control-F and it works fine. But I have not been able to use the left or right arrow keys, and I am not sure how to play any sheep. Are they suppose to play in this ES Version: WIN_2.7b29 and if so how? When I am in f$ I can use the arrow keys to go forward and back but I dont see the sheep, all I see is the text info like how many times it was played, the last time it was played, etc.

In the 'My Sheep' folder I created I see 3 new folders ES created. The jpeg folder is empty, the mpeg folder has all the AVI files like, 00244=37609=37609=37609, and it shows the file size 3.14 MB (3,301,220 bytes), so I know something is there, but when I play it or any of the AVI files all I see is a black blank screen as I watch the meter move across the bottom of the player as it plays but shows nothing. The XML folder has two files cp_0.xml and it's content says ... <get gen="244" retry="600" /> and list.xml shows the sheep ... - <list gen="244" size="800 592" retry="600"> <sheep id="37609" type="0" state="done" time="1296438415" size="3301220" rating="94" first="37609" last="37609" url="http://ia600408.us.archive.org/8/items/electricsheep-flock-244-37500-9/00244=37609=37609=37609.avi" /> <sheep id="37610" type="0" state="done" time="1296438424" size="4874898" rating="44" first="37610" last="37610" url="http://ia700408.us.archive.org/23/items/electricsheep-flock-244-37500-0/00244=37610=37610=37610.avi" /> <sheep id="37618" type="0" state="done" time="1296438619" size="1120864" rating="80" first="37618" last="37618" url="http://ia600402.us.archive.org/18/items/electricsheep-flock-244-37500-8/00244=37618=37618=37618.avi" /> ... When I go to my display properties and click on my screen saver tab I see the sheep, but then it fades away and shows a white clear screen within the screen saver tab of my display properties window. When I click on the 'Settings' tab the ES Windows 2.7 (beta29) window opens as if I double clicked it from my desktop. The sign in has my name in it but the password field is filled with dots and it shows I am not logged in, yet I have the original ES window open and am logged in on it. After closing this second ES window my Power Options Properties window finally opens. Here I double check my Hibernate, and it is off. Closing that window I go back to my 'Screen Saver' window, and it's no longer recognizing ES as the screen saver. When I reset it to recognize ES I get a pop up that says Screen saver is not responding. I force the error closed TWICE. Reselect ES as the screen saver and I still have the white screen, but it's flashing between white and black. When I select 'Preview' I get a not responding box, again. I close it and my screen saver pops on, but it's blank and then it goes back to the desktop. My wait time for my screen saver is set to one minute. I close my screen saver display window and now will wait one minute. As I waited I received a pop up telling me ...

You chose to end the nonresponsive program, Nature Screen Saver.

This is what it decided to switch to on it's own. I closed the error window and will wait one more minute now. Okay my screen saver started but it quickly went back to the desktop. I am still logged in on the ES Settings window and the ES 'F' window is still white. f4 says it's playing sheep#244.44728 9loop0 played 137 times, but I still can't see any sheep.

Any ideas, Im tired going to bed now, but will leave everything running. I'm still wondering if the Hostname field has to have something in it?

Thanks for your time

Mon, 08/29/2011 - 15:36 — spot

Hi, you shouldn't have to

Hi, you shouldn't have to do anything to make it work, it's all automatic.

You should leave the proxy fields blank (unless you use/need a proxy to connect to the internet). You don't need to create a folder, etc.

It sounds like it might be having some trouble though, as if you got some sheep it should play them.

I'll send you the most recent beta version by email.

Fri, 05/27/2011 - 11:50 — monicadc

Repeat Sheep & Poor Resolution

Please help me out - I just downloaded the latest virsion of electric sheep for Windows 7. I have an HP laptop with switchable graphics - if the details about my hardware is needed to fix my problems then I can figure them out...haha...not much of a computer person My first issue is that whenever I run electric sheep it plays the same sheep over and over again....maybe only varying 10 different sets. I've downloaded an additional 20 sheep or so and I've never seen them play - how can I fix this?! also it almost always starts with the same one My second issue is that when I do press run, it looks great playing in a window. But putting it full screen (and when the screen saver runs by itself -- on monitor number 2) really destroys the clarity of the resolution. Please if you have any suggestions for me - i love the designs would just like to see more in better quality!

Tue, 08/23/2011 - 20:04 — bpatek

Sheep only changing between a few

Well, I just installed ES a few days ago, I had it years ago, glad to be back. I have a Win 7 64 Bit system also and also had very few sheep occurring. I took the suggestion about setting permissions, but I also found something else that I needed to change: 1 First the permissions. In my case I went to Windows and looked at the properties of ES.SCR. Go to security tab, then advanced, then select edit permissions. I had three users - System, Administrator, and Users, the first two had full control when I clicked on them, the Users did not, so I clicked on "Full Control" and hit "OK" for Users. 2 When I pressed F2 and it said I had 65 sheep and it was happy and would try again in seven minutes, I decided to look in the C drive/Program Data/ElectricSheep/Content/Mpeg. I saw the hundred or so sheep I had downloaded as a pack. But inside the Mpeg folder there was a second MPEG folder where the 65 sheep were sitting. I think that is the folder that ES was downloading and using by mistake. I think what happened is when I started ES originally and went to advanced and set up the content directory by browsing for it, I assumed that I was supposed to browse all the way into programdata/electricsheep/content/mpeg, but I think I was just supposed to browse to programdata/electricsheep/content and ES automatically uses the MPEG folder. So, I deleted the second MPEG folder with the 65 sheep, and went to advanced and browsed only to the programdata/electricsheep/content Now all is well as far as I can tell. 3. Also, don't forget to start voting with the up/down arrow at this point. The ones you don't like you should vote down arrow and it's supposed to delete them out of your computer. I've been running it for about 15 minutes now and it's great!

Fri, 05/27/2011 - 13:16 — spot

if you just keep running it

if you just keep running it it will download more sheep every day. how many do you have now? it will tell you in the F2 overlay.

but basically we are coming out with a premium version that has more and better (higher resolution) sheep. if you have an account here you'll be notified by email when it's ready.

thanks!

Thu, 06/02/2011 - 15:37 — Einstein47

Premium Version ???

Now you have me curious - are you going to have a pay version of Electric Sheep? I really love Electric Sheep, but my finances are such that I am not able to buy much software these days. I'm concerned that I will need to drop my favorite screen saver because I am not a rich guy.

Say it isn't so...

Thu, 06/02/2011 - 17:19 — spot

The free version will stay

The free version will stay the same, and there will be an option to pay and get more and better. So it is true and it's a good thing :)

Thu, 08/04/2011 - 15:40 — Einstein47

How's it going?

The work on the Pro version? It has been 2 months, and I haven't heard anything and I am getting kind of excited for new functionality.

It has been great that we haven't needed a bug fix in a long time, but that just means more time to work on the next version - right?

Thu, 08/04/2011 - 16:32 — spot

the clients are done i think

the clients are done i think :)

but the drupal needs to support payments and communicate who is a member to the sheepserver. that needs work and our drupal guy is on vacation or traveling or something. things go slowing in summer.... but it is happening.

Fri, 05/27/2011 - 16:18 — monicadc

Now I got it - it says all

Now I got it - it says all available sheep have been downloaded, will retry in 10 minutes

Fri, 05/27/2011 - 16:20 — spot

what version is it? how many

what version is it? how many sheep are in your flock? it shouldn't start with the same one every time if you have the initial flock downloaded.

if you want more though you can get a pack, see the forum topic for how.

Sat, 05/28/2011 - 12:24 — monicadc

it says Windows 2.7 Beta

it says Windows 2.7 Beta 29. Local Flock: 71 Sheep I have downloaded quite a bit of sheep but barely see them, if at all, when it is running.. if I do see them, they don't run seamlessly and kind of randomly start and end. and yes it still starts and repeats the same 4-5 sheep that I've seen a lot. and sometime the screensaver won't even come on. ugh

Mon, 05/30/2011 - 14:01 — spot

if you click on "seamless

if you click on "seamless playback in the settings, it should smooth it out a lot, but at the risk of less variety.

sounds like you would benefit from some sheep packs. with our upcoming premium version, you'll get more sheep automatically.

Fri, 05/27/2011 - 15:31 — monicadc

F2 does not do anything when

F2 does not do anything when I press it. I uninstalled and reinstalled it --- now sometimes it won't even come up as screen saver. I guess i'll have to wait........

Thu, 05/12/2011 - 18:31 — aperture01

Won't start under Windows 7 64-Bit / Fade-in Fade out

Hi All, Just installed ES. I've gotten the screen saver to start on its own once, afterwards it will not start again. It doesn't blink or anything. My display eventually goes to sleep but the screen saver never displays. It will work if I click preview (launch it manually) but not on it's own. What gives? Also would it be possible to have the screen saver fade/in/fade out on wake up like the new Windows 7 screen savers do. It seems to start up like such. Much more sleek.

Fri, 01/13/2012 - 20:24 — Skizzarz

Seconded...

This is one thing I'd love to see... the instant/abrupt change to ES's black screen can be startling and is sore to look at, having a 1 second fade would look flawlessly stunning. I would love to see this feature implemented!

Sun, 05/15/2011 - 15:45 — lord2fight

Same problem

Exact thing happens with me and my 64-bit win 7. Been waiting for 3+ months for this to be fixed =/

Fri, 05/20/2011 - 05:52 — lankaras

Possible solution

I had the same problem, also on win7 x64. Seeing windows 7 already gave me some issues with permissions before, I went to permission settings for C:\Windows\es.scr, added the group "Everyone" and gave it full control. It seems to work now, so I guess this is a good workaround, might even call it a solution :)

Mon, 07/25/2011 - 09:38 — mike1981

Please expalin further regarding "C:\Windows\es.scr"

I don't know how to get to this file. I imagine "es.scr" represents "electric sheep.screen"...But I dont even have a ES file in c:\windows..... Its in programs. Also, when I open the ES program and go to log in, any password seems to work.. what gives? Strange.... I have not been able to get ES to work for quite some time now..... and I was about to become a paying customer..... now I'm quite hesitant. Please anyone help. Ever since I installed windows 7 the problem has existed. Thanks! the_greekcanadian@hotmail.com

Sun, 05/22/2011 - 00:02 — spot

Thank you lankaras, we don't

Thank you lankaras, we don't understand how that since it should be running as system... and then why would it work just once? are there other people who can confirm this or explain it??

Sun, 05/22/2011 - 19:37 — lankaras

It could be a bug in Windows

It could be a bug in Windows itself? Like I said I've seen permission issues with Win7 before. For example, sometimes it doesn't let me remove the read-only attribute on folders, even though I'm logged on as Administrator.

Maybe there's a way to check which user is actually trying to run es.scr, make the filesystem put out a log or something? I don't know how, but I guess it should be possible...

I don't know why it would run once, I haven't seen this myself.

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 06:37 — thel33ter

I just updated, was running

I just updated, was running beta 24 on Windows 7 64bit with no problems. I disabled the screensaver during then install, ran the setup with admin privelages, and it worked fine.

Maybe you guys with problems could try uninstalling, setting a new screensaver, then installing with admin privelages.

As a side note, I love this screensaver, currently got nearly 7gb of sheep on my harddrive lol.

Tue, 03/08/2011 - 00:29 — Mantis

Error Connecting

Running Windows Vista on this computer Downloaded the program, when I click run the black window pops up, but happens, and when I hit F2 this shows up: server request failed, using free one. Then around 10 seconds later it says error connecting to server, and nothing happens. If I leave it longer it auto exits after a bit. I tried downloaded some flocks and putting them in, I can see them fine, but the same thing pops up, server request failed, using free one etc. Would something on my router be effecting the connection? Perhaps I need to open some ports for it to work fine. Or is it just that the servers are overloaded now? :(

Thu, 03/10/2011 - 19:10 — Einstein47

XP works fine here

I have been running it on XP for quite a while and this version is really solid. I haven't had that server issue for quite a few builds now. Are you running the latest version? (Hit F1 when it runs). Should be WIN_2.7b29

Does anyone using Vista have any other suggestions?

Windows Client Release Notes

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