f.lux interferring with my ASUS Monitor's ASCR setting

[thelostskeleton]

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer
Graphics card: MSi GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
Monitor: ASUS VE208T

I first noticed this issue during Doom 2016 -- any time I load up that game's pause menu, my screen fades completely black, as if the monitor has turned off. I recorded a video of it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Rbc0CivDM

I'm also noticing it now while loading certain programs. For example, if I click on a JPEG and it loads in the photo browser, my monitor will begin fading to black in the split second it takes for the browser program to load. And now I've noticed it there, I'm starting to see it in even more programs.

If I exit f.lux, the issue goes away.

As far as I've been able to diagnose the issue, f.lux is interacting with my monitor's "ASCR" (Auto Smart Contrast Ratio) setting. In lieu of something like a fancy OLED screen, ASCR will adjust the brightness/contrast of the screen depending on how dark it thinks the output is so that you don't notice the "glow" from black pixels.

Since f.lux naturally modifies a screen's color output, it's tripping this system and apparently ASUS didn't put a cap on it because it will scale seemingly in to infinity, until I'm looking at a completely black screen.

Unfortunately, writing this I now realize there's probably nothing to be done. F.lux is a Windows program, and the ASCR adjustment is probably happening on chip inside my monitor itself. Neither can talk to each other. The solution is to either permanently disable f.lux or permanently disable ASCR.

The good news is, I only just turned ASCR on like... not even a week ago, so it's no skin off my back. The only reason I'm hitting the Submit button now is to provide others searching this forum with information on what's going on, I guess.