I have two displays connected to my Windows PC. I normally only have the primary display turned on. Sometimes when I open a patch in PD, it opens it on the secondary display, even though I never placed it on the secondary display, and the secondary display is turned off. This was very disconcerting the first time it happened. I thought that PD had lost my patch. It took me a while to figure out that PD had placed the patch on the wrong display. How can I get PD to stop putting patches on the wrong display? I just want PD to open patches at the location where I last saved them. I've tried different display settings in Windows, put PD just seems to ignore them.

@jamcultur
You can send a message to the patch (from the patch) to relocate the window.
https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/14287/subpatch-disappeared
It can probably be done as the patch opens using
[loadbang]
|
[delay 5]
|
[;
message(

You might not need the [delay], but you might...!

It's not a new problem so I don't know when it will get fixed...... https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/8472/why-are-subpatches-and-abstractions-sometimes-opening-offscreen
David.

As an experiment, I copied the messages from the help file and added a bang. I tried moving and resizing the window, then clicking the bang, but nothing happened. The window did not move or resize. What am I missing?

@jamcultur Try
[;
pd-mypatch.pd vis 0, relocate 1000x800+1+1 1x1+50+50, vis 1(

Where "mypatch" is the name of the patch you want to move.
And then click the message.
If that doesn't work then the OS does not have the top left of your computer screen as x=0 y=0
There are a few free tools for getting screen coordinates as you move the mouse..... that might help.
David.
P.S. I had made a mistake in the previous thread...... just corrected I hope!

That didn't move or resize the window.
I downloaded Mofiki's Coordinate Finder and verified that Windows has the top left of the display as x=0, y=0.

@jamcultur Are there error messages in the Pd console when you click the message?
It works on windows7 for every version of Pd.
Here is a test patch for you...... test.zip
David.

Your test patch worked, but when I tried mine, I got this in the console:

saved to: C:/Users/nypon/Desktop/Music/PureData/launchpad/test_relocate.pd
test_relocate.pd: no such object

@jamcultur For a patch it should be pd-test_relocate.pd and not test_relocate.pd
(in the message.... the saved patch name is still test_relocate.pd)
David.

That worked. Thank you! I didn't know that I needed to add the pd- to the patch name.

It's disappointing to see that people have been struggling for nine years with the problem of PD randomly putting patches where they can't be seen. Do you know whether there are any plans to fix this? Anyway, thank you again for your help and patience with a newbie.

@jamcultur You are welcome.
It has been reported as a bug many times....... including only 6 hours ago..!
David.

Another way when patches disappear off screen on windows 10, is to hover over the Pd icon on the task bar and right click on the missing patch's large icon title bar then click maximize, then drag down the maximized title bar to restore its size.
The missing patch appears as a blank patch on the task bar icon.