Windows: incorrect colors on secondary monitor

[Dannny1]

Describe the bug
When darktable opens on secondary monitor(1) and the main display is (2), it displays wrong colors. It probaly uses the display profile of the main (2) display.
It shows correct colors on (1), if the (1) is set as main display.
darktable 2.6 wasn't affected by this issue

When dt is opened it seems also to show for very short moment small window on the main display, before it opens darktable window on the other monitor, it may be related.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Have 2 monitors calibrated
2. Set darktable to open on secondary display
3. Open image in darktable

Expected behavior
it should use profile of the monitor where it's open and display corect colors as 2.6 did

Platform (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows 8.1
• dt version: 3.0rc1 and rc2

Edit 2.9.2023:

• dt version:
  Retested and issue present with with all releases including 4.4
  Present with current nightly darktable-4.5.0+445
• OS: Windows 11
• HW: tested with nvidia rtx2070, and also different hw with 4080m

Edit 25.4.2025:

• Issue present with current nightly build darktable-5.1.0+690

[aurelienpierre]

Did you try to setup manually the second monitor profile in darktable ? It should use colord to detect system-wise Display ICC, but colord doesn't work on Windows with more than 1 display.

[Dannny1]

Thank you for the reply. I'lll try that.
But previously it was working fine by setting it in windows color management settings (with dt2.6).
Also it works fine in other cms aware apps like rt,c1,lr,art,ap...

[sboukortt]

Does darktable even use colord at all on Windows? The colord website lists Windows as a supported platform for Oyranos but not colord, and contains the following footnote:

In my opinion, it is better to leverage the native color management stack for each operating system, for instance, using Windows Color System on win32, and ColorSync on OSX rather than try to install alongside the existing frameworks.

[github-actions]

This issue did not get any activity in the past 30 days and will be closed in 7 days if no update occurs. Please check if the master branch has fixed it since then.

[jenshannoschwalm]

Reopening this for now and marked with a pending bug flag to keep devs aware of this issue.

@Dannny1 could you update the "introduction text" with current dt and windows versions please so we get fresh info?