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Bug 763688 - Flickering and unusable shell under Wayland only
Flickering and unusable shell under Wayland only
Status: RESOLVED NOTGNOME
Product: gnome-shell
Classification: Core
Component: general
3.19.x
Other Linux
: Normal critical
: ---
Assigned To: gnome-shell-maint
gnome-shell-maint
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2016-03-15 13:42 UTC by Alexandre Franke
Modified: 2016-11-24 20:35 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
sys journal of login attempt to classic mode with video=vga in kvm-qemu (12.21 KB, text/x-log)
2016-09-19 21:29 UTC, Christian Kirbach
Details

Description Alexandre Franke 2016-03-15 13:42:25 UTC
With the latest continuous image (used in Boxes) I see flickering every other second or so and every time I try to go to the Shell overview I'm brought back to the "desktop".

Also my mouse cursor doesn't show.
Comment 1 Allan Day 2016-03-16 09:15:07 UTC
This bug only occurs with the Wayland session.
Comment 2 Alexandre Franke 2016-03-16 10:49:14 UTC
Can I switch to a non Wayland session without a mouse cursor?
Comment 3 Allan Day 2016-03-16 10:55:04 UTC
(In reply to Alexandre Franke from comment #2)
> Can I switch to a non Wayland session without a mouse cursor?

You can use keyboard navigation - tab to get to the gear icon, return to open it, and up/down arrows to select the Xorg session.
Comment 4 Alexandre Franke 2016-03-16 11:37:38 UTC
Indeed. Thanks. I can confirm this only happens with Wayland.
Comment 5 Michael Hill 2016-06-16 21:57:36 UTC
On Continuous 3.21.x, the Xorg session will not launch from GDM. In a Wayland session with Video=QXL, I get the flicker, but the cursor is present. With Video=VGA, there is no flicker and no cursor.
Comment 6 Christian Kirbach 2016-09-13 16:37:45 UTC
I can confirm that in a qemu-kvm VM with current continuous builds (3.21.x) and the default wayland session the screen and mouse pointer flicker. You get dropped back from the activities overview to the desktop immediately.

with video=vga there is no flicker and the mouse pointer missing, but I cant login to the normal session. Classic mode works fine, tough.
Comment 7 Florian Müllner 2016-09-13 16:44:40 UTC
(In reply to Christian Kirbach from comment #6)
> with video=vga there is no flicker and the mouse pointer missing, but I cant
> login to the normal session. Classic mode works fine, tough.

That is odd - classic-mode is just the normal session plus a couple of extensions. Any chance you can get logs from the failed login attempt?
Comment 8 Christian Kirbach 2016-09-19 21:29:46 UTC
Created attachment 335877 [details]
sys journal of login attempt to classic mode with video=vga in kvm-qemu
Comment 9 Christian Kirbach 2016-09-19 21:30:47 UTC
(In reply to Florian Müllner from comment #7)
> (In reply to Christian Kirbach from comment #6)
> > with video=vga there is no flicker and the mouse pointer missing, but I cant
> > login to the normal session. Classic mode works fine, tough.
> 
> That is odd - classic-mode is just the normal session plus a couple of
> extensions. Any chance you can get logs from the failed login attempt?

Sure, attached the journal.
Looks like gnome-session-binary aborts due to missing video acceleration.
Comment 10 Christian Kirbach 2016-09-21 18:18:12 UTC
With video=qxl the classic mode runs just fine, but the normal session is affected by the flickering and overview menu closing regularly in quick intervals.
Comment 11 Michael Catanzaro 2016-09-26 12:54:50 UTC
This is Red Hat #1266484. It appears to be a kernel bug, so there's probably not much value in keeping a GNOME bug open for it.
Comment 12 Christian Kirbach 2016-10-05 19:24:14 UTC
(In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #11)
> This is Red Hat #1266484. It appears to be a kernel bug, so there's probably
> not much value in keeping a GNOME bug open for it.

Agreed.
Comment 13 Alexandre Franke 2016-11-24 20:35:22 UTC
Let's close it, then. :)