Fix for Oracle JInitiator Won't Refresh / Repaint on Windows 7 i3 or i5 Machine

Author:
phil
Created:
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011
Last Updated:
Tuesday, July 05th, 2011

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The JInitiator Refresh Issue...

Working for a school district which, like most school districts, doesn't have the funding to update their Oracle based financial systems that heavily rely on the old school JInitiator app. While the versions of JInitiator like 1.3.1.22 work fine in 32bit versions of Windows 7, there seems to be a problem on systems running the Intel Core i3 and Core i5 processors where the JInitiator will load, but it won't refresh or repaint its windows. In our case, upon the initial load of the app, all we would get is a new IE window with a white page. If we resized the window or double clicked the title bar, it would repaint the screen, refreshing the content in the window. However, we would have to do that step every time we wanted something to happen in the window. Talk about a pain! We researched all sorts of stuff on it and found all sorts of weird fixes like "JIniator doesn't like multiple threads". Weird thing was, we had a Core i7 Quad Core machine running JInitiator on a 32bit Windows 7 without a problem. That had us scratching our heads... "What was different between the i3/i5 and i7 processors?" Well, the difference we found out, was the video. The i3 & i5 both had the new Intel HD Graphics controller whereas the Core i7 had a Nvidia GPU. I tried updating the Intel drivers to the latest and still no luck... Running across the specs of the computer, we noticed that the computers were advertised as having the "Intel HD Graphics with Dynamic Frequency Technology". That made me do some research to figure out what was so special about the Intel HD Graphics and what the heck "Dynamic Frequency" was. This ran me across the following whitepaper for the new Intel HD Graphics.

A Little Background

To save you some time from reading the whitepaper, I'll give you some background on the new iCore processors... Basically, Intel has moved the entire northbridge chip onto the processor. The northbridge in older computers was responsible for talking to the CPU, Memory, Video & Southbridge. Move that onto the processor and you get a blazing fast performance boost. In doing this, Intel has also followed AMD's footsteps by integrating their own GPU directly onto the die of select iCore CPUs (mainly i3 & i5), again providing much faster video performance and reducing overhead. "So what is this Dynamic Frequency?" To compliment their proprietary Turbo Boost technology which raises & lowers CPU frequency depending on CPU load, thus saving power, they have also included Dynamic Frequency which does basically the same thing for the GPU. It raises and lowers the speed of the GPU on the fly, to help conserve energy (longer lasting batteries, put smiles on tree huggers, etc.)

"Enough already! How do I fix it??"

The fix is simple, believe it or not... You basically have to go into the power savings for Windows 7, edit the power plan and set the Intel Graphics to "Maximum Performance" which turns off the Dynamic Frequency.

"How the heck do you do that??"

If you have a computer that has it's own power saving software, I have no idea... You might have to do some playing... BUT, if you are using the stock Windows 7 power settings, you can do the following:

  1. Click Start
  2. In the search box, type Power Options and hit enter
  3. Chances are, the radio dot is on the Balanced (recommended) setting. Click on the Change plan settings link to the right for whatever plan is selected.
  4. Click the Change advanced power settings link
  5. In the advanced options, scroll down until you find Intel Graphics and click on the + next to it.
  6. You should see two options below the Intel Graphics: Plugged In and On Battery. Set both of these to Maximum Performance.
  7. Apply and OK, then you can close everything else down.
  8. Go test it!!

One of our poor techs about pulled his hair out for two days trying to figure out what the issue was... I hope this saves your hair! (Minus the grays... you can pull those out)

If this got you fixed up, I would love to hear about it! Leave me a quick comment below :) (It's nice to know that I'm not posting stuff in vain)

Alternate Fix

Update 2011/06/20: If the above isn't quite working out in your favor, you might try what was posted in the comments below regarding the manual input of some code to disable the drawing of jinitiator. (It basically shuts off the use of Direct Draw which was changed around quite a bit in Windows 7)

Take a look at RomanH's comment and see if it helps. There are several folks who have commented and said that this DOES work for them and one person mentioned restarting the computer after applying the fix before it worked. Unfortunately I have no easy way of creating a step-by-step process on how to apply the fix so hopefully what's posted below is enough to get you started on figuring it out.

Also...! Thanks to everyone who has posted comments on their fixes! I hate forums with a passion because everyone has the same problem but no one ever has a solid fix. I do my best to create a full proof fix for the problems I've run into on my blog and while the fix may have worked for me at the time, I'm not perfect either so I find it awesome when other's post the things that work for them and contribute to helping someone else. It makes searching for the problem in the future so much easier for everyone!

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Comments

IF IT'S ANY HELP TO SOMEONE OUT THERE: I tried everything asides from trying a newer video driver. But what fixed it for me was to disable the video card in Device Manager (this makes the resolution massive) but then push the resolution back to your desired setting.

thank u sir :D , this is works!

The refresh fix worked great on my HP Probook but now I cannot get Jinitiator 1.3.1.30 to work at all using Win 7 OS 64-bit on a HP 6000 machine. I changed the jvm.dll to ver 6 and still does not work. I think it is because the install cannot create the .jinit folder under users directory for the two files to write to when running JINITIATOR. This question may be better as a new post but I thought I would toss it out there to see if anyone has seen this issue and resolved it.

If all else fails, you can disable the Intel HD graphics driver from your device manager. In my tests, this results in perfectly functional Jinitiator forms, and still allows the system to use full screen resolution (1920x1024 in my case) and color depth. Any additional graphics features this method disables are unneeded in our environment =)

Thank you i spent a lot of time to find solution.
With your suggest it work fine.

thanks a lot.
Silvia -Italy

Tried RomanH's solution and it works now! Thanks a bunch.
Solution works on Lenovo T420 running Win7 64-bit on Core i5.

super it woked :) .!!!
thanks a ton...!!!

Unfortunately, this fix did not work in my case.

The Alternate fix works well for me !!!!

Great thx

What a life and time saver this page... Thank you so much. If I had not found this page, I would only have noticed that the bug was showing up on certain generations of computer models, not on the older or the newer ones.

Hey frnd, Thank u so very much. Your provided fix did work for me.
I am very greatful to found this solution. Thanks again. May god bless u. Please keep up such good work.
Thanks again n again.

We were approaching being bald... and then found your site YAY!

Thanks I had been trying to figure this out for a while, thanks so much !!! All fine now

How do you implement this to all users on a machine.
Users that has still not yet logged on for the first time.
Is there a way to make them get this setting upon first time logon? "-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true"

Thanks guys

/David

I'm not exactly sure how you might accomplish that, but you "might" be able to set it up within the "default user" profile which carries over for the first logon of a user.

Back in the XP days, there was a hidden user folder called "Default User". You would login as you, setup the profile how you wanted it, logout, login as an administrator, then copy your profile over the "Default User" profile. (or use the default profile tool in system properties -> users or something like that). Windows 7 is a new beast and I personally haven't had any experience in having to configure a profile to be blown down across multiple users...

This MS Support Article might give you some ideas...

Thanks so much, it worked perfectly!!! You saved me from returning my i7 laptop!

i would like to thank you for giving me an idea for the solution of programs that i encounter regarding to oracle problem. its works to me. im only reading your advice. and follow the instruction. more power to you. godbless.

Thanks buddy....u got it fixed ! :)
have a good one my friend

Wooooooooooorks! thanks!
ciao!

Toretto
Italy

Thanks A lot it worked like zoooooooomm

Many thanks for this fix. I have spent about an hour on the phone to Dell and exchanged emails with Intel all to no avail. Everyone talks about compatability and drivers but your solution gets to the nub of the problem.

i have this same problem, i cnt work on win7, we have i5 hp elite7200pc, the iniator wont load from control panel and our oracle database need to be refreshed every second manualyy, kindly tell me the solution as we have 400 computers n all have this same prob. kindly if u can do me a favor mail me on aftaba@scs-sharjah.sch.ae
awaitin ur expert reply n solution
thanks

Just wanted to say thanks! Worked on this for weeks & finally found your solution. Worked like a charm!

Hi every one, i am trying all this stuff on my computer Dell Optiplex990 SF for Win7 Professional 32-bit . But still facing problem. it won't refresh or repaint its window.
Any one who can suggest a solution
Thanks in Advance

Thanks for such a great yet simple solution. We had the problem for long time and the fix solved it.

Kesava

Hi guy i thank you a lot , your post is wonderfull

doesn-t work on a dell inspiron n5110 with a i3 processor.... and get this, i have an Intel HD and a nVidia 525M dedicated GPU

using jinitiator in control panel (on a working computer or VGA video mode) generate the file "properties13128" (for jinitiator 1.3.1.23. Modified the line to show:

javaplugin.jre.params=-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true

Then copy that file to folder .\user\.jinit. of a computer is having problem with Intel(R) HD graphics

This solution worked for HP6200 and HP ProBook 6560b.

Thanks alot !!!

We have the following laptops in our network.

HP 6530b, Elitebook 2540p and a number of desktop PCs of which work with the Power Settings just fine.

But just wanted to say thank you RomanH for your Alternate Fix with Jinitiator as it fixed it for our 6460b Laptops!!

The energy solution is awesome!!! It works immediately and just perfect!!! Thank you very much!!!

It worked fine to my computer.
I was looking for a solution for a long time.
Thank you very much!!!!

Man, Thanks a lot !!! I've been searching for a solution since last year. I tried a lot of things but who would think about the power options ??? You're a genius !

I spend 3 days and thanks to alot of comment in this page. It do help for HP 8440p notebook but not able to solved for new unit HP 8460p. Try all possible way but still failed until i read thru one forum and below is what KBloke replied

"The problem is caused by new 2D and 3D functionality in Java 1.3 (which is used by JInitiator). It was not bugfree at that time in combination with certain graphical cards and drivers. You can solve this problem by tuning this functionality off by the next parameter in de JInitiator console:

-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true

Immediately solved the problem for HP Elite 8460p using Intel HD Graphics Family. Now we can view Oracle Invoice without a problem thru jinitiator.

Dynamic frequency will effected under 70 Hz.
So, you just simply change the Monitor frequency to 75Hz.

I'll agree that the main problem has to do with refresh of the screen and changing the monitor to a higher refresh rate "might" fix the problem in some cases, however most of the folks who are going to run into this issue are using jinitiator in a business environment. They've upgraded their computer which is why their in this predicament and chances are, they most are going to be running a laptop or flat panel monitor. I'll agree that some / most desktops will let you change the frequency of the flat panel display, you sometimes get undesired effects if you raise it above 60Hz. Most folks using this though are going to be on a laptop and there are very few laptop's that will let you change the monitor refresh rate for the LCD, to... well, anything. Of the one's I've run across, they're locked at 60Hz.

Thx for the post though because it might help someone out who tried to raise the performance value, but still have problems :)

Thank you so much for the info! It worked instantly and saved me from going bald.

Thank you so much!!!!!!! I and my hair appreciate your words of wisdom.

unbelievable, .. great.

Unfortunately, this solution didn't work on my Dell E6420 (i5 with Intel HD 3000).

I found it on some website and tried it out of desperation. Even though this was intended to solve another jInitiator related problem, it works :-). The solution is simply disable DirectDraw for jInitiator.

How to do it?

Control Panel, jInitiator and then in Basic label add

-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true

to Java Runtime Parameters field

alternatively, you may edit jInitiator properties file located in C:\Users\USERNAME\.jinit folder so it has this line in it (notice "=" character is escaped):

javaplugin.jre.params=-Dsun.java2d.noddraw\=true

Hope this helps.
cheers,
Roman

Editing the jinitiator properties with the script worked great!!! Too simple a fix to have spent all day trying to find. Life saver....

Thanks Roman

In your comment: alternatively, you may edit jInitiator properties file located in C:\Users\USERNAME\.jinit folder so it has this line in it (notice "=" character is escaped):
javaplugin.jre.params=-Dsun.java2d.noddraw\=true

What I have to edit? The folder. Jinit is empty

It works for me!! Really thanks for your information! This problem has given me a big headache for a long time.

Thank you guys! it save my day really. Worked like a charm on JInitiator 1.3.22 & 1.3.1.30 after rebooting.

Worked !!! THANKS !!!

This worked like a charm on HP Compaq 8200 Elite CMT desktop PC.

Thank you very much it works with me on Lenovo 420

This is THE SOLUTION!!!

Finally have a brand new Oracle

Hi, solution given by you works, its totally work. I was tortured by this problem from last 2 days, but while googling i found this exact problem and solution provided by you guys.

Thanks a ton from India!!!

Thanks dude, just aced this on a e5420... right on the nail!

Thanx dude, just tried it on a new 5420 lat. Works like a charm!