Loading up yEd often gives me a very broken, useless UI

Question

Here's an example of what it looks like

This doesn't happen on every load up of yEd, but honestly its a crap shot.  What's worse is I can't find a solution to my issue. I've tried deleting the user made config files found in %appdata%, reinstalling, updating java, and changing settings (which there seems to be none related to the GUI in any meaningful way); the issue persists.

List of issues:

Alt tabbing will erase the UI almost entirely, but moving my mouse around will usually bring back a couple of the elements and changing the size of the window will redraw the entire window.

The graphing area is completely useless.  A majority of the time it's unresponive, the rest of the time it's either extremely slow to respond or showing all kinds of odd errors, be it in placement, the drawing of user created elements, or just out right corruption of everything in it. The example image I shared above is an example of the last two.

The items in the menu bar tend to disappear when I move my cursor over them.  Clicking them brings them back.

The inline windows, eg Shape Nodes or Properties View, will disappear entirely and won't come back until I reload.

Comments

I am not sure, but it looks like Java does resort to software rendering instead of hardware rendering on your system. Either your Java installation is horribly broken or Java does not like your graphics card drivers very much. What exact version of Java are you using? Which exact version of yEd? And which version of Windows?

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Have you tried using the Windows "Aero" UI (Microsoft calls it "desktop experience")?
From the image you have posted, it seems you are using an alternative UI. It's only a guess, but there have been reports that really odd behavior turns normal again after only switching back to Aero and a reboot...

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Win 7, Latest version of yEd (3.12.2), Java is version 1.7.0_60 (latest as of this writing.

I did find out that launching directly from the jar file fixes these issues.  Doesn't seem to be an issue with Java but the exe launcher for yEd.

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This is the default UI used when Aero isn't used.  It's actually less buggy and far more lean.  Anywho, Turning on Aero does nothing, reboot or no.

I did find out that launching directly from the jar file fixes these issues.  Doesn't seem to be an issue with Java but the exe launcher for yEd.

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Sounds like double-clicking the jar and running the yEd.exe file launch different Java virtual machines. This would be the case if you installed yEd with the installer that includes a "suitable" JRE.

You can check the JVM in yEd's About dialog (see "Help" -> "About"). My guess is that double-clicking will result in
  Java Version: 1.7.0_60
  Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM, Oracle Corporation
while running yEd.exe will result in
  Java Version: 1.7.0_17
  Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM, Oracle Corporation

If that is indeed the case, uninstalling yEd and re-installing with the JRE-free 64-Bit installer from http://www.yworks.com/en/downloads.html#yEd should fix the problem (because the yEd.exe file created by that installer will launch your system JRE).

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Yup, the version called by the exe file is 1.7.0_17, so it seems the issue lies with that version of the JVM.  Looks like you guys need to update your installer so it includes a later version.

Answer 1

I am having the same problem and can't get it to work. Tried both ther version with and without the included JRE. As it is now I can't work with it. The UI is really slow and a lot of artifacts, only updates when you move the curser over menys, object etc.

Comments

Maybe this helps:
quote: "For those whose problem has not been solved; try this solution:

Set the global environment variable "J2D_D3D" to "false" inside the OS. According to Sun, this setting is used to turn off the Java 2D system's use of Direct3D in Java 1.4.1_02 and later.

ie: simply create a environmental variable with name "J2D_D3D" and value "false" without the quotes.

this has solved my rendering problems, hope it does yours also."
from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22737535/swing-rendering-appears-broken-in-jdk-1-8-correct-in-jdk-1-7

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A slightly simpler solution offered in the above thread is using the command line option -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false when starting yEd.