Problem: The Ugee pen can no longer ‘double tap’, behaves strangely.
Possible solution: The pen’s battery is very weak, but still functioning. Charge the pen’s battery, or switch to the supplied second pen (if it has a charged-up battery). Update: see the foot of this blog post for more suggestions, one of which partly worked.
I went to my Ugee pen monitor today and found that the pen was behaving unusually. It had worked fine for six months or so.
* When the pen tip hovers over a tab, it will instantly “magnetise it”, automatically pick it up and rip it out of the UI as you move the nib. It does the same for Windows Taskbar icons, Photoshop Tool presets and similar.
* “Double-tap to open” no longer works at all. Tapping ‘X’ or ‘_’ to close or minimize a Window no longer works.
* A ‘bottom-click’ press with the pen button is needed in order to select, which was not needed before. It makes no difference if you select ‘None’ in the Driver settings for this button, it still acts as an activating click.
* Typing on the On-screen Keyboard and Notepad is near-impossible, because the Window focus is not synced and a single pen-button key-press causes multiple repeating letters to appear in Notepad.
None of these things had happened before, and I had made no changes. I assumed the problem was due to a Microsoft update, which had messed up the pen tablet settings in Windows. But nothing in the Control Panel’s ‘Ease of Access’ center could help, and nor could ‘Pen and Touch’ or ‘Mouse’ or the Monitor drivers or settings or similar. There was no Windows Tablet service running that would conflict with my Pen driver. Cables were all seated well, and a switch of the USB cable socket had no effect. Screen calibration was fine, and the pen drew well in its Driver’s small test window. Nothing on the Pen’s own driver settings window helped return the pen to the proper normal double-tap behaviour.
I tried changing the pen nib, with no result. I rebooted the PC, again with no result. I hard-booted everything, again with no result.
Then I dug out the second pen that comes with the Ugee, and suddenly everything was working as normal. The problem seems to have been that the battery charge had finally run out on the first pen. Which shows how long a charge lasts — about six months, it seems.
Update: this was only a temporary fix, regrettably. It worked but the same problems have returned, with both pens and even when they are well-charged.
Update: Breakthrough No. 1 — I found that the old double-tap functions are still there, just positioned somewhat above the screen rather than at the screen surface! If I behave with my pen as if the screen is ‘up in the air’, about half an inch or more above where it actually is, then I get a great deal of the old functionality back again. A hardware Factory Reset of the Ugee Pen Tablet monitor does not fix this proximity problem. Menus and Windows can at least be used by hovering and gesturing with the pen, with care, but the use of brushes and pens is problematic unless one can paint onto the surface of a screen.
Update: Breakthrough No. 2 — The best suggestion found so far is from the Ugee Help FAQ:
* The pen draws even while hovering.
It could be the nib in the pen is stuck in depressed (clicked) mode. The nibs are replaceable. Pull it out with a pair of tweezers or needle nose pliers (gently so you can re-use the nib) and let the pen sit on its side for a few hours, e.g. overnight, and see if it the pressure sensor will reset itself.
It seems strange that this should be the case with both pens, but that does seem to be the most logical explanation (all other possibilities having seemingly been tried) and would also neatly explain why the double-tap is not working when other functions are. I also read that the pens should not be stored horizontally, and my second pen was stored that way for six months — that may perhaps explain why the ‘second pen trick’ (see above) was only a temporary fix?
If the “remove nib / lie pen on its side” suggestion doesn’t cure the problem with either pen, the next step seems to try for a replacement pen (the P50S) — which in the UK ships for about £15-£20.
Update: Breakthrough No. 3 — Ugee’s suggestion partly worked. After leaving both pens nib-less and on their sides for 18 hours or so, the older and more-used pen is much improved. Not enough to give me back my lovely double-tap, but enough to ink and paint perfectly. It’s now in its vertical pen-holder and it’ll be interesting to see how it is after a night like that. Further improved, hopefully.
The newer less-used pen is the same as before. But at least the clear difference between the behaviour of the two pens shows that the problem is in the pens rather than the software or the monitor. I can live with awkward menu-opening for a while, via the pen buttons, so long as I can draw a clean pressure-sensitive line — but it now looks like I’ll be getting two new P50S pens when I can next afford it.
I’ll also now be giving the newer pen another 18 hours of nib-less lay-down, in the slim hope that it’ll reset somewhat. If it doesn’t improve I might disassemble it, as it’ll be useless otherwise. Perhaps my leaving it horizontal in storage for six months didn’t help matters, and contributed to it working perfectly for 30 minutes and then abruptly ceasing to work properly.
Update: Breakthrough No. 4
I ordered a new pen, a branded Ugee P50S, and it arrived new and boxed today. On charging and testing it worked fine. Problems all solved, albeit at the cost of taking a £15 chunk out of my PayPal. Once I have the funds I’ll be ordering another two of the pens as backups.
I’m not sure what to do with the two older pens. One is obviously kaput, and the other is meh. I might try disassembling the kaput one, as a trial run on trying to repair the meh one.
