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Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

OK, I'll try to explain it as good as I can. When I move my mouse cursor directly on the top and the left screen edge something weird is happening - panel elements (for example Whisker Menu) and some other applications (like Plank) are loosing focus, they are "blinking". I previously thought that this was strictly a Whisker Menu's issue and I reported it on the Bugzilla (you can see the details here - https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13509 ), but now I know that this issue is something bigger.

Here are some videos showing that issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKo2uQflIbQ
https://youtu.be/UY4ZuxsPifw?t=15s

This is not only a visual bug, it's an usability bug, because sometimes the Whisker Menu just don't show up when I click on that "weird screen edge spot", so it gets kind of annoying sometimes. I had this issue on Xubuntu 17.04, 17.10 and I still have it on the newest 18.04. I'm using NVIDIA graphics card, I tried on both Nouveau and proprietary drivers, I tried disabling the compositor, I tried on different workspaces... Nothing changed. I tested it on an older laptop with Celeron CPU and Intel graphics, same issue.

Can someone confirm that behaviour on his/hers system? Please help me solve this issue.

EDIT: To be even more specific, this issue can only be visible when moving mouse on these screen edges:

Last edited by Spass (2018-07-08 13:54:53)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,481

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

I guess this is your bug report that got closed/resolved.

I can't replicate this on either of my systems - one of which is Xubuntu 18.04 (intel). Does the issue persist if you change GTK appearance themes?

Can you try creating a secondary account and see if it happens with the default settings? If it does, create a 3rd test account and log in using the Xfce session and try to replicate.

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Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

Yes, I posted the link to that bug report in my first post. The issue persist on every theme I have (Greybird, Arc, Adwaita, Raleight, Numix, Zukitre...). I created second account - issue still occurs. I created third account and logged in to the Xfce session - issue still occurs.

So I can see that issue on my PC with NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics card (on Xubuntu 17.10 and on my second system Xubuntu 18.04), I also can see exactly the same behaviour on my old laptop with Xubuntu 18.04 with Intel graphics. When I reported this issue I was using Xubuntu 17.04.

I think that I should submit a new bug report, but I don't have idea where (it's not only xfce4-panel's issue, see Plank), but now I'm really confused, because suddenly nobody can confirm that issue and I see it for a year on every machine I own :/

But when I originally reported that issue, there was one tester from IRC (Dave Pearson), who had the same issue. Also Graeme Gott wrote that he can recreate this with other plugins, not only Whisker Menu. So at least I know I'm not crazy. But it's really hard for me to get to the core of this bug.

ondondil

Member

Registered: 2018-03-27

Posts: 14

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

I can confirm that the same thing happens on my system but only on the left and top edge of the screen. I also confirm that when Whisker Menu is not highlighted during that blinking phase it does not show up when you click on it. I'm using Xubuntu 18.04 with amdgpu driver (Radeon RX 460; mesa 18.0.0~rc5-1ubuntu1) and linux kernel 4.15.0-20-generic. I have checked if issue is present with different themes with vsync on and off, with compositor on and off and in all cases the issue persists.

The only specific thing about my setup is that I have set TearFree option in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf to get rid of screen tearing. I haven't done any tests with this option turned off.

edit: Removed part that said it doesn't happen with panel in deskbar mode. It does.

Last edited by ondondil (2018-05-07 20:47:10)

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MountainDewManiac

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From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez

Registered: 2013-03-24

Posts: 1,115

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

I saw that it had been marked "moved." But I was unable to see where it was moved TO.

If you're psychic, lol, and therefore can figure that out, your best bet would probably be to continue your reporting on wherever your bug report got moved to.

Regards,
MDM

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Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

Thank you very much ondondil. So I think now I can set aside potential graphics driver issues, because the issue occurs on NVIDIA, Intel and AMD.

So where to look next?

EDIT: MountainDewManiac it got moved to xfce4-panel because I previously wrongly submitted the bug in Whisker Menu section. But xfce4-panel is not a good place to continue this bug report, because I have exactly the same issue with Plank, and again only on top and left screen edges. So the problem is bigger than the panel itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKo2uQflIbQ

Last edited by Spass (2018-07-08 13:57:00)

MountainDewManiac

Member

From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez

Registered: 2013-03-24

Posts: 1,115

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

...and, since you experienced the aberrant behavior with two completely different graphics device manufacturers (Intel and nVidia), it wouldn't be specific to one of them, either. Hmm... Xfwm, perhaps? I'd probably try filing a bug report there next, with a link to both your original report and the one that got moved to, along with what I've just typed (assuming, of course, that you agree with me, lol) by way of justification. It probably is window manager related, it appears. If you'd like to verify that, though, I suppose you could temporarily switch to a different WM than xfwm and see if the behavior goes away (as I expect it will) or is still there. If the latter turns out to be the case... Gee, I don't know, lol.

Good luck and please keep us informed of your progress. As you learn more about this issue, it might be one that would be of general interest on the Xfce developers' email list or the bug email list, both of which can be found here:
https://mail.xfce.org/mailman/listinfo/

Regards,
MDM

Last edited by MountainDewManiac (2018-05-07 23:39:22)

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Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

I created a new user, I installed compiz and ran "compiz --replace" command, xfwm4 was no longer running and the "blinking" problem still occurs. So probably I can also strike xfwm4 off the list of suspects. But what next? Any ideas what else can I do to test it and where I should report that?

Is it something with xrandr maybe? X11?

EDIT: I'm thinking about xfdesktop also, what can I do to kill it and test without it running? It starts itself automatically when I try to kill the process.

Last edited by Spass (2018-05-08 10:45:17)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,481

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

EDIT: I'm thinking about xfdesktop also, what can I do to kill it and test without it running? It starts itself automatically when I try to kill the process.

xfdesktop -Q

...should kill the process.

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Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

Thanks ToZ, it worked. But unfortunately the issue persist. So it's not xfwm4 nor xfdesktop. Any ideas what else I could do to test and investigate it further?

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,481

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

Are you able to test other DEs like plasma or gnome? Do you get the same effect with button widgets?

Looking at the videos, my first thought was a theme issue. It looks like the widget is alternating hover states quickly - like they are not properly defined/calibrated in the theme. But you've tried different themes with no change so it's probably not that.

Maybe you could download some of the other distro ISOs and run them in live mode to see if the problem persists there as well? Maybe its some other component that is causing the effect.

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ondondil

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Registered: 2018-03-27

Posts: 14

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

I tested this with Kubuntu 18.04 live USB and Ubuntu MATE 18.04 live USB. Although I wasn't able to reproduce the issue with KDE Plasma desktop, I successfully reproduced the issue on Ubuntu MATE. Here's link to video where I test it with Mutiny and Familiar layouts:

https://streamable.com/ee9sk

As you can see, blinking occurs with both layouts. And just like on Xubuntu, during that blinking phase, when the button is not highlighted and you click on it nothing happens - the program doesn't launch.

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Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

Thanks again ondondil for testing. Well, so it's not only a Xfce issue. And I tested some Xfce distros today:

I see this issue on - Xubuntu 18.04, Manjaro 17.1.10
I don't see it on - Debian 9.4, Fedora 28, Linux Mint 18.3, Linux Lite 3.8

Since the issue occurs on Manjaro also, it's not only Ubuntu-specific. But now, when I know it's occurring not only on Xfce, where I should report a bug or what else can I test to find the culprit?

EDIT: OK, Ubuntu (GNOME) is also affected. Tested it with plank just now. It blinks when it's placed on the left edge.
https://youtu.be/YXmFXFV_ONQ

And since Ubuntu is also affected, I've created a new Ask Ubuntu question here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1034051 … -mouse-cur

Last edited by Spass (2018-05-09 13:37:18)

ondondil

Member

Registered: 2018-03-27

Posts: 14

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

Actually I was wrong when I said that this doesn't happen on KDE Plasma. I didn't notice any applets blinking on KDE panel but blinking does happen on Plank dock. See video:
https://streamable.com/dyqur

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Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

ondondil, may I post your links to the videos on that Ask Ubuntu thread that I've created?

EDIT: Thanks.

Last edited by Spass (2018-05-09 18:14:08)

ondondil

Member

Registered: 2018-03-27

Posts: 14

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

Yes, of course. I'm not sure for how long does streamable keep anonymously uploaded videos on their servers, though.

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Spass

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2016-12-07

Posts: 133

Re: Blinking panel elements and Plank on top and left screen edge

OK, there's a workaround for this issue. This bug report tells a lot more about it - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … ug/1795135

I put export GDK_CORE_DEVICE_EVENTS=1 to /etc/X11/Xsession.d/56xubuntu-session and my Xfce panel items aren't blinking any more, and that works with Plank too. Tested on Xubuntu 18.04.