Bug 85864

Summary: Periodic font rendering bug on Radeon HD 8570
Product: xorg Reporter: Jonathan Schuster <jonathan.p.schuster>
Component: Server/Acceleration/glamorAssignee: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Severity: normal    
Priority: medium CC: adam, eric, hramrach, jonathan.p.schuster, keithp, muhomor.d, nicolamori
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64)   
OS: Linux (All)   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:
Attachments:
Description Flags
Xorg log
none
dmesg output
none
Font corruption example
none
3.18-git dmesg
none
7.4 dmesg
none
7.4 Xorg log
none
Thunderbird screenshot none

Description Jonathan Schuster 2014-11-04 16:13:12 UTC
I'm running into an issue where every now and then, all instances of a particular character in a window are rendered incorrectly. For instance, see http://imgur.com/crvPOM6 (note that "a" does not render properly).

This only happened as of the upgrade to 7.5 (specifically, using the most recent version of this package on Arch: 
https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/xf86-video-ati/).

I'm using a Radeon HD 8570 / R7 240.

I've found what seem to be other instances of users reporting the bug in Arch Linux. Some are reporting that it seems specific to GTK apps:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=186783
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=187100
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1472456

I've downgraded to 7.4 for now, and so far it seems to have fixed the issue.
Comment 1 Alex Deucher 2014-11-04 16:23:46 UTC
Please attach your xorg log and dmesg output.
Comment 2 Michel Dänzer 2014-11-07 08:58:16 UTC
(In reply to Jonathan Schuster from comment #0)
> This only happened as of the upgrade to 7.5 (specifically, using the most
> recent version of this package on Arch: 
> https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/xf86-video-ati/).

What was the latest version where it didn't happen? Can you bisect the Git change between the two versions causing the problem?
Comment 3 Jonathan Schuster 2014-11-07 13:51:20 UTC
For some reason it's not happening at all now, after upgrading back to 7.5. If it does happen again, though, I'll be sure to attach dmesg output and the xorg log.

Bisecting could be difficult even if it starts happening again, since I have no way to reliably reproduce it.
Comment 4 Jonathan Schuster 2014-11-07 19:27:14 UTC
Created attachment 109109 [details]
Xorg log

The symptoms just reappeared again. Here's the Xorg log; dmesg output in next attachment.
Comment 5 Jonathan Schuster 2014-11-07 19:27:51 UTC
Created attachment 109110 [details]
dmesg output

dmesg output after seeing the issue again.
Comment 6 Ralf-Peter Rohbeck 2014-11-07 21:39:19 UTC
I see a similar thing but rarely and *only* in Firefox and Thunderbird.
There seem to be two different effects: One where every instance of one character is corrupted and one where only one is corrupted; that's the one I see. See attached screenshot. Scrolling will sometimes correct the character; having Firefox redraw the page always fixes it.
This is with KDE on a 7850 with pretty much up-to-date Debian jessie but kernel 3.17-1.
Comment 7 Ralf-Peter Rohbeck 2014-11-07 21:40:34 UTC
Created attachment 109120 [details]
Font corruption example
Comment 8 Ralf-Peter Rohbeck 2014-11-07 21:45:24 UTC
Nothing interesting in my dmesg but there's many of these from hours ago:

[351665.023972] AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT device=04:00.0 domain=0x0019 address=0x00000000044c3f40 flags=0x0020]
[351665.023975] AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT device=04:00.0 domain=0x0019 address=0x00000000044c3fc0 flags=0x0020]
[351665.023978] AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT device=04:00.0 domain=0x0019 address=0x00000000044c3f80 flags=0x0020]
Comment 9 Adam Flott 2014-11-09 09:54:09 UTC
Created attachment 109145 [details]
3.18-git dmesg

[ I'm one of the posters from the linked forum posts in comment#1 ]

In the interest of making my system actually usable (font corruption + very consistent gpu lock ups), I went ahead and upgraded to kernel 3.18 from git.

After using the system for half a day or so, it appears stable, but not quite there. While a few apps (Chromium, XBMC, emacs, etc) open I just had another lock up. Although this time, it did not totally corrupt the running system and forcing a full power off. I was able to restart my login manager to get back into X to post this comment.

Attached is my demsg output from seconds after the crash.
Comment 10 Michel Dänzer 2014-11-10 01:12:36 UTC
(In reply to Adam Flott from comment #9)
> After using the system for half a day or so, it appears stable, but not
> quite there.

This bug report is about font corruption, not about stability issues. Please file your own report about your stability issues.
Comment 11 Michel Dänzer 2014-11-10 01:15:47 UTC
(In reply to Jonathan Schuster from comment #3)
> For some reason it's not happening at all now, after upgrading back to 7.5.

Are you sure that it doesn't happen with older versions of the driver? I think this is actually more likely a bug in the glamor glyph cache code.
Comment 12 Jonathan Schuster 2014-11-10 14:03:46 UTC
(In reply to Michel Dänzer from comment #11)
> (In reply to Jonathan Schuster from comment #3)
> > For some reason it's not happening at all now, after upgrading back to 7.5.
> 
> Are you sure that it doesn't happen with older versions of the driver? I
> think this is actually more likely a bug in the glamor glyph cache code.

I don't recall seeing this issue until I did an upgrade a month or so ago, and it happens often enough these days that it's hard to imagine I wouldn't notice it. Still, I've just downgraded to 7.4 again (the 1:7.4.0-3 Arch package, from mid July), and I'll post logs if I see the issue happening again.

It's also possible this is a bug in a completely different piece of software, but if that's the case, I wouldn't know where to start looking. If anyone has suggestions for other logs to look at, etc., I'd be happy to take a look.
Comment 13 Jonathan Schuster 2014-11-11 14:59:16 UTC
(In reply to Michel Dänzer from comment #11)
> (In reply to Jonathan Schuster from comment #3)
> > For some reason it's not happening at all now, after upgrading back to 7.5.
> 
> Are you sure that it doesn't happen with older versions of the driver? I
> think this is actually more likely a bug in the glamor glyph cache code.

You were right. It just happened again with 7.4. I'll add a new Xorg log and dmesg output.
Comment 14 Jonathan Schuster 2014-11-11 14:59:39 UTC
Created attachment 109284 [details]
7.4 dmesg
Comment 15 Jonathan Schuster 2014-11-11 14:59:57 UTC
Created attachment 109285 [details]
7.4 Xorg log
Comment 16 Ralf-Peter Rohbeck 2014-11-18 18:08:15 UTC
Created attachment 109678 [details]
Thunderbird screenshot

Interesting case: Two "/" corrupted, another is fine.
Comment 17 Hermann K 2014-11-23 23:39:50 UTC
The same happens in Opnesuse 13.2 The graphic card is a Radeon R7 240. Affected are primarily Firefox and Thunderbird. It is always one particular letter, that becomes distorted throughout the text. Increasing or decrasing the font-size lets everything go back to normal - but not for long.
Comment 18 Michal Suchanek 2014-12-11 19:56:48 UTC
This happened to me after I upgraded Xorg in the hope I will get performance improvement. Last upgrade seems to be xorg 1.16.1 -  1.16.1.901. However, I did whole system upgrade so might have installed a new library of something or other that uses a different X path and triggers the bug. I also enabled glamor. I have occasoinal corrupted characters but while the issue is noticeable it is not reliably reproducible.


01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Redwood XT [Radeon HD 5670/5690/5730] [1002:68d8]
Comment 19 Alex Deucher 2014-12-11 20:46:26 UTC
Is this still an issue with xserver 1.17/git?
Comment 20 Jonathan Schuster 2014-12-11 23:39:28 UTC
Alex: I can probably 1.17/git either tomorrow or early next week. 

Has anyone found a reliable way to reproduce the bug, though? Right now the only way I can report if it's gone or not is to run my computer for a few days and see if it shows up at all or not, which is not a particularly fast turnaround time.
Comment 21 Michel Dänzer 2015-01-08 08:18:46 UTC
Jonathan, did you get a chance to test a newer xserver? Some people in another related bug report claimed it's fixed for them in xserver Git master.
Comment 22 Jonathan Schuster 2015-01-08 15:23:50 UTC
I don't remember when I last updated, but I've apparently been running this version all this week:

X.Org X Server 1.16.99.901 (1.17.0 RC 1)

I haven't seen the issue pop up at all this week, so it appears to be fixed.
Comment 23 Michel Dänzer 2015-01-09 00:45:31 UTC
(In reply to Jonathan Schuster from comment #22)
> I haven't seen the issue pop up at all this week, so it appears to be fixed.

Great, thanks, resolving.

Use of freedesktop.org services, including Bugzilla, is subject to our Code of Conduct. How we collect and use information is described in our Privacy Policy.