Windows Black Screen When Resizing

On some Windows machines, resizing, maximizing, or going fullscreen makes the ZestSSH window turn completely black and stop responding to the mouse and keyboard, until you force-close it. Your saved connections are unaffected.

This is a graphics-driver issue on that specific machine, not a ZestSSH bug. It affects every version of ZestSSH the same way, which is the tell: if reinstalling or downgrading does not change anything, the app is not the cause.

Why It Happens

ZestSSH draws its window through the graphics driver (Direct3D). Resizing the window is the one action that forces the driver to rebuild the surface it draws into. On a healthy machine that takes a few milliseconds. On a machine with a faulty or unstable graphics driver, that rebuild can make the driver stop responding. When it does, the window stops painting (black) and the thread that handles your mouse and keyboard is stuck waiting for the driver, so all input dies too.

Once the driver enters that state it stays stuck for the whole session, so every later resize hits the same dead surface. That is why the problem seems permanent and why reinstalling ZestSSH cannot fix it.

Fix It Right Now

1. Reset the graphics driver

With the black window on screen, press Win + Ctrl + Shift + B. Windows resets the graphics driver (the screen blinks and you may hear a beep). The window usually comes back to life within a second.

If that works, it confirms the graphics driver is the cause. Continue with the prevention steps below so it does not keep happening.

2. Reboot

If the shortcut does not recover it, force-close ZestSSH and restart the computer. A stuck graphics driver only fully clears on a fresh boot. Do not reinstall ZestSSH, and do not reset the database. Neither touches the graphics driver.

Stop It Happening Again

Work through these in order. Each one is quick, and you can stop as soon as the problem is gone.

1. Quit overlay software

Tools that draw an overlay on top of other windows hook into the graphics pipeline and are the most common trigger. Fully quit them from the system tray, not just close the window, then try resizing again:

• MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner Statistics Server
• Discord (turn off its in-game overlay)
• NVIDIA GeForce Experience / NVIDIA App (turn off the in-game overlay)
• Steam (turn off the overlay)
• OBS and other screen recorders
• Razer Synapse, Logitech G HUB

Also turn off Xbox Game Bar: Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar > Off.

If the problem stops, re-enable them one at a time to find the one responsible, then leave its overlay off.

2. Turn off Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling

1. Open Settings > System > Display > Graphics.
2. Choose Change default graphics settings.
3. Turn Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling off.
4. Restart the computer.

This setting is a common cause of graphics-driver timeouts on some GPU and driver combinations.

3. Pin ZestSSH to one GPU (laptops with two graphics chips)

Many laptops have both an integrated GPU (Intel or AMD) and a dedicated one (NVIDIA or AMD). Windows can switch between them mid-resize, which can trigger the fault.

1. Open Settings > System > Display > Graphics.
2. Choose Add desktop app and select ZestSSH.exe (usually C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Programs\ZestSSH\).
3. Open its Options and pick Power saving or High performance.
4. Try resizing. If it freezes on one, switch to the other.

4. Reinstall the graphics driver cleanly

This is the real cure when the steps above only help partway.

1. Download the latest driver directly from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel (not from Windows Update).
2. Uninstall the current driver with Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) in Safe Mode, then restart.
3. Install the fresh driver. For NVIDIA, choose Custom and tick Perform a clean installation.

If the problem started right after a driver update, you can instead roll it back: Device Manager > Display adapters > your GPU > Properties > Driver > Roll Back Driver.

Confirm What Is Going On

You can see the driver failure in Windows’ own logs:

1. Reproduce the black screen once, then open Event Viewer > Windows Logs > System.
2. At the time of the freeze, look for “Display driver … stopped responding and has recovered” (source nvlddmkm, amdkmdag, or igfx) or Event ID 4101.

That entry is the graphics driver timing out. The date of the first one usually tells you what changed (a driver update, a new overlay tool) and when.

What Does NOT Help

• Reinstalling or downgrading ZestSSH. The app is not the cause. Every version behaves the same on an affected machine.
• Resetting the ZestSSH database. This deletes your saved connections and does nothing for the graphics driver. If you already did this, your connections restore from Cloud Sync or a .zest backup.
• Avoiding one specific window size. The trigger is the resize itself, not any particular size.

If none of the steps above resolve it, contact support and include the Event Viewer entries from the freeze. That tells us exactly which driver failed.