Soucetree opens in a transparent window

[mstanding]

Hi,

On Windows 10 pro when we open Sourcetree from a secure RDP client (BeyondTrust), the application opens with transparent window and only the windows border edge is visible.

Anyone seen this before?

[LynnG]

Yes, this has been reported before with Sourcetree on Windows: the app or installer opens as a transparent window with only the border visible. In an Atlassian Community thread, the accepted workaround was to disable hardware acceleration for WPF apps via a Windows registry key, with the issue suspected to be related to video drivers. [community....assian.com]

Most likely cause

Sourcetree is a Windows desktop app that uses WPF rendering. Over RDP or secured remote clients like BeyondTrust, GPU/WPF rendering can behave badly, especially with certain video drivers or color/depth modes. BeyondTrust’s documentation also notes that RDP sessions have quality and color optimization settings, including video optimized/full color modes, which can affect how the remote display is rendered. [docs.beyondtrust.com]

Fix to try first: disable WPF hardware acceleration

On the affected Windows user profile, set this registry value:

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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics

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DWORD: DisableHWAcceleration

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Value: 1

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If the Avalon.Graphics key does not exist, create it.

You can also run this from Command Prompt as the affected user:

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reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics" /v DisableHWAcceleration /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

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Then fully close and reopen Sourcetree. If needed, sign out of the RDP session and reconnect.

Other things to try

If that does not resolve it:

1. Update or reinstall the display driver on the Windows 10 machine.
2. Try Sourcetree compatibility mode.
3. Override high DPI scaling for Sourcetree.
4. Change BeyondTrust/RDP display quality or color mode, for example try Full Color vs another color optimization setting. BeyondTrust documents that RDP sessions can be launched with different quality and color optimization modes. [docs.beyondtrust.com]
5. Test Sourcetree directly on the machine console, not through BeyondTrust, to confirm whether it is remote-rendering specific.

My best guess

Given that it only happens through BeyondTrust RDP, I would start with the WPF hardware acceleration registry fix. It is the closest known match to the “transparent Sourcetree window” symptom.