IT help! Is Edge causing graphics issues for anyone else?

My work IT dept. seem like a helpful bunch of guys, but also seem to be stumped as to what seems to be causing multiple crashes a day. They’re now just shrugging their shoulders and saying it must be the software I’m running but I’m not using anything unusual!

The main symptom is both screens flickering and blacking out (in quick succession, never precisely at the same time) before coming back. Usually one or two applications will hang up or simply shut down in this time.

There’s no consistent error message but ‘msedge application error’ pops up quite often.

I am fairly IT illiterate but I get the impression something is overwhelming the graphics card hence the screens blacking out? They’ve added some extra RAM but this hasn’t solved it.

Am hoping I can figure out what to look for so I can go back to IT a bit more informed, any suggestions much appreciated!

At the risk of stating the blooming obvious, is the solution just to use Chrome like everyone else?

Hah, good point, I’ve just got so many bookmarks and passwords saved on Edge now and was trying to get over the knee-jerk instinct to use Chrome instead.

Will try that…

sounds like your cables/refresh rate.. we get it on cheaper usb-c to hdmi cables here on our surface laptops (via docks) and drop the refresh to 50hz which sorts it

How are the screens powered?

Also,

If I were your IT department and couldn’t fix a problem like this, I’d be replacing it.

Desktop rather than laptop I assume?

replacing the IT department might be a little harsh

I run the laptop screen and a separate mains powered monitor at home, in the office it’s typically two monitors hooked up to the laptop via one of those wee black box multi-port hub things. The issue occurs on both setups.

I used a loner laptop for two weeks which also suffered the issue. In the meantime my existing laptop was ‘re-packed’ I think was the term, and given back to me. This makes me think there could be an issue between a standard software package and whatever iteration of software update our laptops are all on? Or a brand (Dell) specific bit of hardware vs. common software package?

try my reply above

13thfloormonk
Full Member
Hah, good point, I’ve just got so many bookmarks and passwords saved on Edge now

I would think Chrome should be able to import them very easily mate.

Is there anything of interest reported in the event viewer when the crashes occur?

I have similar but I’m blaming the ‘junction box ‘ for loss of a better phrase.  I’d blame the USB-C on my PC but it doesn’t occur at home or on a neightbouring desk

Is there anything of interest reported in the event viewer when the crashes occur?

Where do I find that? I see some suspicious spikes in CPU usage but they always seem to coincide with me opening the viewer!

try my reply above

Will do, sorry just being methodical and trying one thing at a time (plus my home setup is HDMI – HDMI)

This may not be helpful but….

Years ago I had a problem with almost identical symptoms, eventually, it was tracked down to a Windows 10 update that wasn’t compatible with the graphics card driver.  result was a driver crash and restart causing the black screen.  The solution was to reinstall the drivers with a later version.

Rats, despite using Chrome have come back from lunch to find computer pre-crashed with an msedgewebviewer2.exe 0x00007FF89EB2FE4C unknown software application error.

This despite Edge not being open at the time so clearly something else is trying to use said application. Did some googling and there was a suggestion it might be the endlessly distracting and intrusive ‘widgets’ app in the bottom left hand corner of Windows 11 desktop so have disabled every feature I can, will see how it goes…

Just search for “Event Viewer” in the task bar search box.

Once there, expand Windows Logs.  Have a look in Application & System – there might be something useful to help you isolate the issue.

At the risk of stating the blooming obvious, is the solution just to use Chrome like everyone else?

These days, no. Edge is powered by chromium so often suffers the same issues as Chrome and vice versa.

The real solution is to use Firefox.

That error helps a little.  It might be worth asking your IT dept to investigate any issues with the app “Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime”.

Is Edge up-to-date?

seriousrikkFull Member
At the risk of stating the blooming obvious, is the solution just to use Chrome like everyone else?
These days, no. Edge is powered by chromium so often suffers the same issues as Chrome and vice versa.

The real solution is to use Firefox.

Usually the screen going off and back on like this is DWM or the driver crashing, using Firefox may work around the issue but often the real solution is usually to find an updated driver or replace the hardware if its broken.

Yeah, time to go back to IT.

The event viewer suggested various applications crashing or hanging, unfortunately I didn’t note the exact time of the three crashes that blacked out screens etc. (event viewer reports more crashes than I actually experienced).

The IT team have definitely updated graphics drivers at least once, but as I understand it MSedgeviewer updates monthly, so perhaps they’re out of synch.

Have also changed refresh rate just in case.

Thanks for suggestions!

lots of stuff uses edge webview, (new)outlook, teams etc

there was an update to it not long ago that didn’t deploy successfully to all of our pcs here

Anyway. Actually looking at the issue it doesn’t actually look like it is Edge itself which is causing the issue, but webview2. Simplified, this is a thing that allows loads of applications to integrate edge into them.

Think Teams, Outlook Office 365 etc… they all use it.

Light reading here…. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/deploy/webview2-install

Particularly interesting are the options available to office 365 administrators to disable the rolling out of webview2 with office updates. Your IT department probably need this link to work out if they should be doing something with this

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/?form=MA13LH#download-section