Troubleshooting

The overlay doesn't appear

Check these in order:

  1. Make sure protection is enabled in the dashboard (the toggle should be on)
  2. Check that the overlay is enabled for the correct monitor (Monitors page)
  3. Verify the Max Dim Amount isn't set to 0
  4. Try restarting the app — right-click the tray icon, choose Quit, then launch again

The overlay flickers in games

This usually happens with exclusive fullscreen games:

  1. Switch the game to borderless fullscreen mode (recommended)
  2. If the game only supports exclusive fullscreen, OLED Guard will automatically pause and resume — some flickering during transitions is normal

High GPU usage

  1. Switch to a lower quality preset (Low or Medium)
  2. Reduce the Render FPS in Advanced Settings
  3. Disable protection on monitors you don't need it for

Normal GPU usage should be under 2% on a modern GPU at Medium quality.

The app doesn't start with Windows

  1. Open the dashboard
  2. Go to the Settings page in the sidebar
  3. Enable Start with Windows (uses the Windows Run key — no service or scheduled task)

If it still doesn't trigger on login, also confirm OLED Guard Pro is allowed under Windows Settings › Apps › Startup.

SmartScreen blocks the app

Windows SmartScreen may block newer apps. Click More info then Run anyway. This only happens once.

Multi-monitor issues

If a monitor isn't detected:

  1. Check that the monitor is connected and recognized by Windows (Settings > Display)
  2. Restart OLED Guard Pro
  3. If using a dock or adapter, try connecting directly

Collecting an engine log

For anything you can't diagnose from the UI, the engine writes a rotating text log to:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\OLEDGuard\engine.log

It captures startup, capture-loss / scene-reset events, DDC probes, HDR mode transitions, and any handled exception with its stack. The previous file rotates to engine.log.1 at 1 MB; only two generations are kept, so it won't grow without bound. Nothing in the log contains your screen contents — just engine state.

Attach engine.log (and engine.log.1 if it exists) to any bug report.

Settings file is corrupt or got reset

If a previous run was force-killed mid-save, the next launch may fall back to defaults. When that happens the engine moves the unreadable settings file to settings.json.bak in the same folder and logs the reason. You can open the .bak to recover anything important and copy values into the running app, or paste it back over settings.json after quitting if you trust it.

Report a Bug

If you're experiencing an issue not listed here, please report it:

  • Steam: Use the Steam Community discussions or reviews
  • Feedback form: Available from the app's Help menu, or at oledguard.com/feedback
  • Include your engine.log (location above) so we can correlate the issue with engine events
Settings & HotkeysUninstalling