[Matt Linder]

That would make sense. I cut and paste some of the info from what I thought to be text only displays. It’s definitely possible tabs or an ascii 0 might have been in the results.

[Matt Linder]

Issue resolved through further testing.

I set my mode to Add, left clicked (and hold) in the staging window. Then I moved the mouse with the button still down half the way up and across the staging window. When I released the mouse button, the emitter icon and preview showed perfectly.

Convinced it had something to do with my mouse, I opened Control Panel (Start > Settings > Control Panel). I found I had “mouse trails” on with a trail length at the absolute minimum. I don’t like mouse trails, don’t need them, and when I turned them off, PI worked perfectly.

To summarize…for me: Mouse trails = black block artifact when interacting with emitters and paths in the staging window.

Hmmm…my post included information specific to my config (operating system, hardware, drivers, etc) but it didn’t appear in my post. I don’t know if that was trimmed by the forum software or if it was by a moderator…? If a moderator, why remove info that might help in troubleshooting?