Unity dash extremely slow when attached second monitor

[Paweł Jarosz]

Unity dash is extremely slow when launcher configured to appear on every screen. It takes ~2 secs to appear and 1 to even 10 secs to close it.
Also moving mouse cursor over dash previews/icons/images/entries causes icons to highlight after some time(like 1-10secs), during this time cursor is blocked.
It looks like there is a problem with repainting mechanism or maybe event handling.

Unity 5.16.0 (proposed)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: unity 5.16.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-31.50-generic 3.2.28
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-31-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu13
Architecture: amd64
CheckboxSubmission: 140c097dfb9f06402ec2bfa11be4bf05
CheckboxSystem: b633b4f40868d491c2ae5b50030ce6f3
CompizPlugins: [core,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,grid,resize,gnomecompat,commands,place,regex,snap,vpswitch,move,imgpng,mousepoll,unitymtgrabhandles,session,animation,workarounds,wall,expo,ezoom,fade,scale,unityshell]
Date: Mon Sep 17 19:35:31 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta amd64 (20120328)
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Bilal Akhtar (bilalakhtar)]

You seem to be using fglrx. What are your specs, more specifically, RAM, CPU and GPU?

[Paweł Jarosz (paweljaroszit)]

Yes i'm using fglrx.

My specs:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8400 @ 2.26GHz
MEM: 3GB
GFX: Mobility Radeon HD 3470
Laptop Sony Vaio VGN-FW11E

Do you need any other info/logs?

[Paweł Jarosz (paweljaroszit)]

Also opened dash affects overall system performance. Unity is unusable during that time(lags in moving mouse, moving windows, playing videos, listening to music). After closing the dash, everything seems to go beck to normal.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Paweł,

Does your video card support the radeon driver?

If you're not sure, then please try:
  1. Run: jockey-gtk
  2. Remove the ATI/AMD driver(s)
  3. Reboot

Then if you find that's no better, do this:
  1. Run: jockey-gtk
  2. Re-install the ATI/AMD driver.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I am thinking perhaps bug 1051831

[Paweł Jarosz (paweljaroszit)]

@Daniel

> Does your video card support the radeon driver?

Yes it does. I'll Test it later that day and post back if(not) this problem still exists.

> I am thinking perhaps bug bug 1051831

In my case moving windows (10% max compiz and 10% max Xorg, CPU in state 800MHZ) with this version of unity seems ok. Also cpu usage when doing nothing max 5%. With flgrx Behavior described in this bug in my case is only observable when compiz crashes and reloads itself.

[Paweł Jarosz (paweljaroszit)]

Ok i've installed radeon driver. It's better on this one but not much. When window with dynamic content (movies or even opened gnome-terminal with started top utility) is under opened dash then everything is laggy in this case. Also it takes more time to update dash content on external output with second dash attached than on primary in this case.

[Paweł Jarosz (paweljaroszit)]

This also affects Alt-F2 window

[Paweł Jarosz (paweljaroszit)]

Without external display connected, changing Dash Blur option to No Blur helps a little. But this is not the case when second display attached. This might be related with dash/Alt-F2 dynamic background.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Paweł,

You are now describing two different bugs.
  (1) Dash is slow to open/close and highlight.
  (2) Active blur slows everything down when something is rendering behind the dash.

Please focus on (1) in this bug. Issue (2) should be a separate bug.

[Paweł Jarosz (paweljaroszit)]

Daniel,

I think this two might be related. Changing dash blur setting to static blur makes dash running much faster again. Also there is no problem with opening/closing the dash and icons highlighting in dash is without delay. Everything is almost smooth.

[Paweł Jarosz (paweljaroszit)]

This bug is invalid ... My laptop has only 256MB GFX memory. I've written a little python script to check how much free memory is currently avaliable on my graphics card using ATI_meminfo extension and when i attach external monitor with it's almost none. I think this is the problem with slow running dash.

Thanks for your time.

[christian (chmathieu)]

Why invalid ? ? ? i have this bug:

When i use minimzez dash . All is OK
When I want to have full screen DASH , effects (for exemple right clic animations) become very slow , fluid but slow .

My specs:

PC: Desktop FUJITSU SIEMENS
Motherboard: D1561
CPU: Intel(R) P4 HT @ 3.0GHz
MEM: 3GB
GFX: Radeon HD 3450 (512 MB)
SCREEN: LG FLATRON L1730S (1280x1024) (no External Screen)

DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
no ATI/AMD driver
Kernel: Linux 3.8.0-12-generic (i686)
unity 6.6.0
Compiz 0.9.9.0

[Rodrigo Lledó (rodhos-hp)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug. We have tried to recreate this on the latest release of Ubuntu, but cannot reproduce it. This bug is being marked as Invalid. If you believe the problem to still exist in the latest version of Ubuntu, please comment on why that is the case and change the bug status to NEW.