Bug 98812 - video and switching windows causing flickering
Summary: video and switching windows causing flickering
Status: RESOLVED MOVED
Alias: None
Product: DRI
Classification: Unclassified
Component: DRM/Radeon (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Linux (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Default DRI bug account
QA Contact:
URL:
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Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2016-11-21 22:14 UTC by Sanjeev Kumar Sharma
Modified: 2019-11-19 09:19 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
i915 platform:
i915 features:


Attachments
most recent Xorg.0.log (181.87 KB, text/plain)
2016-11-22 00:12 UTC, Sanjeev Kumar Sharma
no flags Details
all the dmesg since the last boot (101.49 KB, text/plain)
2016-11-22 00:13 UTC, Sanjeev Kumar Sharma
no flags Details

Description Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-11-21 22:14:51 UTC
my xorg flickers a small amount, temporarily, when focus moves from one window to another.  This happens both when I use alt-tab to cycle through windows or mouse between windows.

What this flicker looks like:

When switching windows the flickering is very short and then ends after the switch is done.

When playing full screen video or the video player window enlarged to more than half the screen size, parts of the picture (an actor's eyes or the timestamp) very quickly show up in other parts of the screen, and parts of other windows show up in the video player window.  with a full screen video player only parts of the playing video show up in other parts of the screen.

with google chrome/chromium pictures of the various windows I have open flashing on screen in different places for very short times.

The flickering is constant and massive with some applications:

1. chrome with one tab  - a little flickering when switching to chrome
2. chrome with many tabs - lots of flicker with occasional quiet times
3. chrome playing video (youtube) much worse than  2, with occasional quiet times with little flicker
4. various video programs - flickering only in full screen or when the window covers most of the screen.  When the window is small (say less than 1/4 of the total screen size) there's zero to little flicker unless I'm doing one of the other flicker-inducing acts.
    mpv
    vlc
    mplayer

with these applications below the flickering is only when moving the pointer onto and off the window. If the pointer is in the window there's no flickering.

    firefox (with or without video, regardless of video size, regardless of full screen video)


This began after a recent reboot - unfortunately I can't blame the most recent kernel upgrade because I did not restart my machine for several weeks - I don't know which kernel (or library or xorg) upgrade this started with

my system information


$uname -a 
   Linux fed2sam 4.8.8-200.fc24.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 15 19:41:51 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$Xorg -version

    X.Org X Server 1.18.4 Release Date: 2016-07-19 X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0 Build Operating System: 4.7.9-200.fc24.x86_64 Current Operating System: Linux fed2sam 4.8.8-200.fc24.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 15 19:41:51 UTC 2016 x86_64 Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.8.8-200.fc24.x86_64 root=LABEL=fed2_slash ro rhgb quiet LANG=en_CA.utf8 Build Date: 15 November 2016 04:39:46AM Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.18.4-5.fc24 Current version of pixman: 0.34.0 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org to make sure that you have the latest version.



Other programs that maybe relevant
Sawfish
xfce (using mostly for panels, application dock / start menu / pager / window list) - the panels are set to always auto-hide - setting them to never auto-hide made no difference

video card
                product: Curacao XT / Trinidad XT [Radeon R7 370 / R9 270X/370X]

monitor  aoc u2868pqu, displayport
Comment 1 Alex Deucher 2016-11-21 22:34:25 UTC
Please attach your xorg log and dmesg output.
Comment 2 Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-11-22 00:06:37 UTC
A bit of clarification: I singled out Firefox as not having much flicker when playing video because most of the video playing applications produce a lot of flicker. 

One more observation just a few minutes ago - I get a couple of lines at the top of the screen, reminiscent of the way we used to get a couple of lines at the bottom of the screen with VCR to PCI cards. 

It does remind me a little of sync problems when I used to play with modelines - but not as regular as those effects like artefacts scrolling across the screen left to right.
Comment 3 Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-11-22 00:12:37 UTC
Created attachment 128125 [details]
most recent Xorg.0.log
Comment 4 Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-11-22 00:13:32 UTC
Created attachment 128126 [details]
all the dmesg since the last boot
Comment 5 Michel Dänzer 2016-11-22 01:15:05 UTC
Any chance you can create a video showing the flickering?
Comment 6 Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-11-22 08:41:42 UTC
(In reply to Michel Dänzer from comment #5)

> Any chance you can create a video showing the flickering?

how large are the attachments allowed here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBg5jvxXMoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1xZlRPCH28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvsMAmzbVBs
Comment 7 Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-11-23 11:28:48 UTC
this got a lot worse and now happens without video.

I had not changed hardware at all for a long time so I thought this could be a software issue

My issue looks  much worse but it could be this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfreP0AESQI

some are claiming it's only 290/290X (the guy there has this and a user there claims it's only 290/290x)

if those symptoms under windows could look like mine please let me know
Comment 8 Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-11-23 12:52:28 UTC
OK - running 20 minutes with zero visible flicker.

Hope this is not a heisenbug that will come back 10 minutes after I post this

solution:


cvt generated modeline
Modeline "3840x2160_50.00"  587.00  3840 4144 4560 5280  2160 2163 2168 2225 -hsync +vsync

xrandr --newmode "3840x2160_50.00"  587.00  3840 4144 4560 5280  2160 2163 2168 2225 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode DisplayPort-0 "3840x2160_50.00" 
xrandr --output DisplayPort-0 --mode "3840x2160_50.00"
Comment 9 russianneuromancer 2016-12-13 14:17:44 UTC
This looks like similar issue: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73116
Comment 10 Michel Dänzer 2016-12-14 07:51:57 UTC
This sounds like a kernel issue rather than a Xorg driver one.
Comment 11 Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-12-17 12:24:05 UTC
The xrandr solution above works but from 3 to 5 days apart the flickering returns and I need to re-run the command
Comment 12 Sanjeev Kumar Sharma 2016-12-17 21:29:47 UTC
>This looks like similar issue: 
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73116

that fix is working for me too - I applied it and reverted the xrandr command to the old rate and no issues for a couple of hours now
Comment 13 Martin Peres 2019-11-19 09:19:49 UTC
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to freedesktop.org's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/issues/755.


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