Dell Canvas sometimes not registering soft pen strokes

Hi Geomancer, 

There was a firmware released in Feb to address this issue. I know you have said that the Canvas is up to date via the autoupdater, however I have seen instances of not all drivers etc being updated by them.

Can you try installing the latest firmware from here and letting me know if that improves the responsive of strokes.

Alan

Hi Alan,

First of all thank you for taking the time to respond to this topic!

The Canvas installer app indicates that I have already installed the February Firmware update.

Do you advise to perform the installation through that executable anyway, even if the current touch firmware installed on my Canvas appears to be already up-to-date?

Looking forward to hearing back from you at the earliest.

Hi, 

I would recommend trying to update the firmware again to see if makes a difference. If that fails to resolve the soft contact issue I would then be looking to troubleshoot the pen itself.

Alan

Hello Alan,

I apologize for the really late response to this conversation. I have not been using my Dell Canvas often in the last few months because of work-related reasons, but now I am starting to use it again on a daily basis and I am still encountering the same problems I had described earlier.

To recap: the screen itself is perfect and the touch function works wonderfully, but the pen fails to register some strokes at random times, especially when doing very soft strokes, when shading or when drawing lineart. This makes it very difficult to have a reliable experience when drawing complex illustrations and the actuation force required to draw lines and make them appear on-screen seems to be unpredictable right now.

I can sometimes go for 20 minutes without having any issues, while other times I would do line shading and have some lines not appear at all while the pen is clearly touching the glass screen.

Also, I can confirm that this is happening on all the software I'm using (Clip Studio Paint, Photoshop, also OneNote) and regardless of whether I have the touch function enabled or not. Also, my Windows 10 has all the latest updates and the Canvas also has the latest firmware and drivers installed.

I will provide you with the exact serial number of my Canvas through a Private Message as soon as I get home and can check on my device. In the meantime, you mentioned the possibility of troubleshooting the pen: is it something you can assist me with?

Thank you in advance. Looking forward to your response.

@_Geomancer_ have you tried tried recalibrating the pen and canvas again to see if it makes any difference? Page 47 of the user guide guides you through the steps of recalibrating the pen - https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_dell_precision_workstation/dell-canvas-kv2718d_user%27s_guide_en-us.pdf

Alan

@Dell-Alan D, yes, I have tried that several times already. In fact one of the first actions I performed when first setting up the device was going through all the calibration processes in a very in-depth way - and that was in order to reduce the level of "offset" distance between the pen nib and the on-screen cursor as much as possible.

After noticing this problem with the strokes sometimes not appearing at all, I did repeat the calibration a few times through the same options indicated in the manual, but unfortunately all of that has not yielded any benefit so far.

@_Geomancer_ if the calibration has failed the next step I would recommend would be to update to the latest version of the driver for the pen. The only problem with that is that the driver that we have and the one provided by Wacom, the manufacturer of the stylus, is the same one and hasn't been updated since Aug 2017.

I had another user who was having problems with the Canvas and stylus and Wacom support themselves suggested downloading the latest driver from here - https://www.wacom.com/en-us/support/product-support/drivers

It's the one at the top for Win 10 version 6.3.30. As that was the recommendation by Wacom themselves, I can't see it not working. If you could try that and test it to see if it makes any difference. If not, I would be looking to replace the stylus for you. For that I would need your service tag details. You have my contact details from previous direct messages.

Alan

@Dell-Alan DOnce again, thank you Alan for the really valuable support you are providing, as well as the technical suggestion concerning the Wacom Driver.

I have experimented with it today to see whether it changed anything, but unfortunately the results do not indicate any difference: at first it seemed that it had reduced the likelihood of soft strokes not appearing, but after a few minutes the problem re-appeared in completely random spots and at random times.

I am now sending you my Service Tag code through Private Message. Looking forward to any further help you may give me on the matter.