GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 665512
Gnome 3 is unstable with the ATI Fglrx driver
Last modified: 2012-07-08 21:05:51 UTC
Here's what I got: VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV630 [Radeon HD 2600 Series] ATI driver Version 11.10 AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 4200+ 2 Gigs RAM 32-Bit Mint 12 I installed (activated) the "ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (post-release updates)" when I freshly installed Mint 12. There was an error message when the driver installed. So, I assumed the driver never installed. The "Additional Drivers" dialog does NOT show that this or any other driver is active. However, I have the "Catalyst Control Center" tools installed and it is showing that version 11.10 is installed. So, I guess the install actually happened after all. Symptoms I'm seeing: * Gnome Shell crashes on occasion. Mostly when the screen saver has been activated and I log back into my session, then click on or activate the "Activities" menu. Basically, any thing I click on in the upper or lower tool bars causes the crash. A few seconds later, all windows and shell lock up. ALT-F2 doesn't even bring up a command input box. CTRL-ALT-Backspace takes me to a text prompt but the shell never restarts. I have to do a hard reset/re-boot. Again, this has happened only about 5 or 6 times since I installed Mint 12 about a week and a half ago. Things appear to be more stable in the last couple of days with recent updates (maybe?). * Ocasionally, I'll see some tearing/jittering on the display in large vertical bands. It only happens for a split second and seems to happen when programs are opened or closed. * Playing a game (Steal Storm: Burning Retribution) works perfectly. However, after quitting the game and returning to the desktop, the original screen resolution does not restore and I have to log out/in again. How I configure my desktop: * User Themes Extension OFF (I like the dark, clean look of the vanilla Gnome 3 interface) * Bottom Panel Extension ON (I love the Mint menu and the ability to see what windows are open in the "task" bar. That's what's missing from the standard Gnome 3 interface IMO) This bug was taken from my forum post goo.gl/2d97U And the operating system is Mint 12
Please check in /var/log/Xorg.0.log that you're actually using the proprietary driver, and not the free one. Also, what you describe looks like a X freeze, so you'd need to get a trace of the X server. GNOME Shell doesn't seem to be the program that crashes, only the one that triggers the bug: reporting the bug to X.org and/or ATI is probably the only useful thing to do. This page may help getting the trace, even if it was written for Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/Freeze
You told me that the fact the gnome 3 crashes is a ATI issue. I do not believe this is true because Ubuntu (as far as I know) uses gnome 3 and has no issues, so what makes Mint different. I believe that this might be an issue somewhere in Gnome 3. Another reason is the fact that the drivers work in Mate and Gnome 2X, so I believe that it is something Gnome 3 did to break the drivers.
If it was only a bug in GNOME Shell, then it would crash, but you'd still be able to switch to a console using Ctrl+Alt+F2; in fact, the Shell would restart immediately. If X freezes, then it's a bug in the drivers: no program, even the Shell, should be able to do that. I'm not here to say GNOME is perfect and other projects are buggy, but your crash most likely can't be fixed from inside GNOME Shell. It's just that the relatively "advanced" graphics used via Clutter by the Shell trigger a crash in the drivers. Many crashes like that have been found and fixed since GNOME 3.0 was first released, so you may also want to try the most recent drivers (11.11 I think).
Milan- This bug report is actually mine that tbruff13 was kind enough to post for me. I will try to keep up with this report myself from now on. I looked at the link you posted about troubleshooting X freezes on the ubuntu wiki. My symptoms definitely sound like a freeze situation. However, it says collecting a trace won't help and instead I should dump the Xorg.0.log. I will do this. BUT first, since there is some confusion whether or not my system is even using the proprietary driver, I'm going to install the latest (11.11) version first and see if I still have problems. One question; what should I look (grep) for in the Xorg.0.log file to tell me what proprietary driver I'm using? Thanks!
(In reply to comment #4) > One question; what should I look (grep) for in the Xorg.0.log file to tell me > what proprietary driver I'm using? Maybe "ATI", "driver" or "fglrx". But you can attach it here, and I'll try to find the information.
Created attachment 202861 [details] LinuxMint12: Xorg.0.log Should show that ATI driver 11.10 is installed ... but not sure!
Yes, that's the proprietary one. So the next steps are: 1) Try the most up-to-date driver if possible. 2) SSH into the machine when frozen, and get us the interesting information: dmesg > dmesg.txt /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Well I am not the most technical person yet, but I believe this is a Gnome 3 issue because there are no issues in Ubuntu 11.10 so either this is an issue with Linux Mint or an issue with Gnome 3
Please see my Comment #3.
OK. I got the latest 11.11 version installed. I still see the same glitches but no freeze/crash yet. I'll send a dmesg and Xorg dump if/when it happens next. (In reply to comment #7) > Yes, that's the proprietary one. > > So the next steps are: > 1) Try the most up-to-date driver if possible. > 2) SSH into the machine when frozen, and get us the interesting information: > dmesg > dmesg.txt > /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Two days now and no freeze or crash since installing the 11.11 drivers. Still have a problem when exiting a game and the original resolution of the desktop does not get restored. Any idea on that? Otherwise, I'll report back later if a crash happens.
Wow! Spoke to soon. I got a crash/freeze shortly after resetting the resolution of my desktop. That went fine but when I just moved my mouse up to click on the update icon in the upper bar, the shell disappeared again. I did not click, only moved the mouse pointer on to the update icon. Again; * the desktop was still there but not really functional. The windows I had open I could click on but they would not come to the top. * a terminal window I had open did not have its menu bar anymore (File, Edit, etc.) * I could still click on some desktop icons and they would open up. However, I could not move them around the screen (no title bars). * ALT-F2 - didn't work at all. * Did a CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE but the whole computer just locked up at that point and I had to reboot. It seems like the shell is just crashing an not able to restart. I was SSH'd into the machine at the time of the crash and I will attach the two log files (dmesg and Xorg.0.log). I hope it sheds some light on the issue?
Created attachment 203031 [details] Xorg.0.log file right after crash
Created attachment 203032 [details] dmesg dump right after crash there are probably a lot of USB mouse connects/disconnects showing up here. That's because I use an IOGEAR KVM switch.
Sorry, there's nothing relevant in these logs. You'll need to get a trace manually. Fortunately, Ubuntu has a very detailed page about that: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Backtracing
By the way, I have seen this same freeze/crash happen on a Virtual Box machine running on a Windows 7 client. Obviously, that is not running the ATI driver. So, this is looking more like a Gnome issue with Mint 12. I'll get the trace setup and report back any crashes. Thanks.
*** Bug 666747 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
First of all, let me state that the issues are actually due to bugs in AMD's fglrx driver. Please try the latest driver (currently 12.1) and give brief feedback. I am glad to say that in recent 2-3 months some major issues have been addressed by AMD, others still remain. I say that judging by the comments people give and by my own experience. Graphical corruptions and slanted graphics like http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=99 http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=339 should have been fixed in many cases, according to comments. Please try the latest driver and try filing bugs in that inofficial AMD bug reporting site. Look for already existing reports first. Known issues remain, like a segmentation fault http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=408 that was also reported in GNOME bugzilla, and general poor performance of the Shell. For bad performance with gnome shell, as a workaround try adding export CLUTTER_VBLANK=none to /etc/environment and restart X. It might help.
cwolcott, did you try work around mentioned in comment#18 ?
(In reply to comment #19) > cwolcott, did you try work around mentioned in comment#18 ? I've been using Gnome-Classic (no-effects) for a while now due to all the corruption while using GnomeShell (Cinnamon in Mint12). I just installed the 12.1 AMD driver and will report back any problems. So far so good. I don't see any of the problems I saw before. Thanks for the reminder!
So am I right in assuming that this issue is OBSOLETE then? Please reopen if it's not.
I have tested the 12.6 driver myself for full three days now. I feel confident to believe that the "random" crashes (segmentation faults) have been fixed.