Fullscreen applications become windowed

[Wolfgang Silbermayr]

Binary package hint: compiz

Some sdl applications leave fullscreen while runnung for no obvious reason. After some seconds they return to fullscreen again. This is very nasty especially for games. It happens on a newly installed Ubuntu Gutsy with Compiz enabled in default settings.
Applications where I have seen this bug occur are einstein and supertux 3.0.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Hardy Heron. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Till Ulen (tillulen)]

My friend and I experience a similar problem under Ubuntu 7.10 with latest security and recommended updates. We run Planetpenguin-racer 0.3.1-10 and Openarena 0.6.0-4. The graphics card is ATI RV350 AP [Radeon 9600] using the radeon driver. The window manager is compiz.

After running in full-screen mode for some time, the game will spontaneously leave it and continue in windowed mode for no visible reason. After a minute or two it goes back to the full-screen mode.

Unfortunately we are unable to download the Hardy pre-release CD and test it under the live CD environment. What can we do in our 7.10 system to diagnose the problem and help the developers reproduce and fix it?

Does anyone know a work-around for this bug?

The user metalf8801 has also suffered from this problem <http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=711356>.

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

@alexander

Did you try with compiz off?

I ask you this because there is another bug not related with compiz.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/163865

2008/3/4, Alexander Konovalenko <email address hidden>:
> My friend and I experience a similar problem under Ubuntu 7.10 with
> latest security and recommended updates. We run Planetpenguin-racer
> 0.3.1-10 and Openarena 0.6.0-4. The graphics card is ATI RV350 AP
> [Radeon 9600] using the radeon driver. The window manager is compiz.
>
> After running in full-screen mode for some time, the game will
> spontaneously leave it and continue in windowed mode for no visible
> reason. After a minute or two it goes back to the full-screen mode.
>
> Unfortunately we are unable to download the Hardy pre-release CD and
> test it under the live CD environment. What can we do in our 7.10 system
> to diagnose the problem and help the developers reproduce and fix it?
>
> Does anyone know a work-around for this bug?
>
> The user metalf8801 has also suffered from this problem
> <http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=711356>.
>
>
> --
> [gutsy] sdl games leave fullscreen mode without obvious reason
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/155263
>
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to compiz
> in ubuntu.
>

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

I experience the same problem at times, but for a known reason - sometimes an application makes a pop-up dialog (like from the notification area), and that forces the game out of fullscreen. After that, I have the full control of the keyboard, but not the mouse - making getting back into the game a very hard thing. Basically alt+tab a whole bunch of times before the game realizes and goes back properly.

I'll give this a try with compiz off, maybe that'll help.

[Till Ulen (tillulen)]

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 6:38 PM, Sergio Zanchetta wrote:
>
> Did you try with compiz off?
>
> I ask you this because there is another bug not related with compiz.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/163865

Sergio, turning compiz off has helped. I can't reproduce the problem
when running metacity. So I guess it is this bug that is relevant to
us and not #163865. Thank you.

[metalf8801 (metalf8801)]

I'm running into the same problem. I'll download Hardy Heron and try to see if the something happens.

[Kurosu (kurosu)]

I think this bug is not a duplicate. Myself and another Hardy Heron + compiz user have noticed this problem with the 2D-only SDL game wormux:
https://gna.org/bugs/?11636

There are 2 things that make me think the game is not the root of the problem:
- remplacing compiz by metacity (metacity --replace) solves the problem
- when asking SDL whether it's fullscreen, it still thinks it's fullscreen

In this later case, to be more precise, the actual video surface is retrieved using this:
http://libsdl.org/cgi/docwiki.cgi/SDL_GetVideoSurface
and then the bit SDL_FULLSCREEN is tested in the flags member of the returned SDL_Surface struct:
http://libsdl.org/cgi/docwiki.cgi/SDL_Surface

Another interesting thing is that it happened for the 2 of us when setting the maximum full resolution. We even have a video demonstrating this effect.

[Martin (martin10)]

I have the same problem as Kurosu.

Tuxracer, Glest, supertuxkart and hedgewars all go out of fullscreen

I use nvidia binary driver

[Kurosu (kurosu)]

Please note that this happens on a intel gfx card, so this is not related to a driver problem I think.

[pheeror (pheeror)]

I can also confirm the bug (intel gpu,amd64,hardy,compiz)

simple test code attached
* depends on gcc and libsdl1.2-dev
* edit values of resX and resY
* gcc sdl.c -o sdl -L/usr/lib -lSDL #to compile
* and then run './sdl' (:

[pheeror (pheeror)]

I've tried compiz 0.7.7+git20080618-0ubuntu1 and sdl applications don't unintentionally leave fullscreen anymore but in this version such applications can't leave fullscreen at all.

[karlrt (karlrt)]

please take kurosu serious, this IS NOT A DUPLICATE

for me, it happens under 8.04 amd64, wormux, and compiz enabled. I dont have screensaver enabled, and the problem starts seconds after i go into fullscreen, so there cant be any reason for the screensaver to do anything this early. AND wormux is played with the mouse, so screensaver should stay idle!

so this is its own bug with compiz. Kurosu showed really good what happens in the movie, please reopen this bug!

[Olivier G. (olivierg)]

Hello all,

I have the same problem.

When I play Frets on Fire, after something like 5 minutes, it leaves fullscreen and my keypresses are not sent anymore to the game, so I loose a lot of points which is very frustrating.
After something like 10 seconds, the game comes back in fullscreen, and I can continue playing.

There is no popup or anything displayed. It happens also when I am not connected to any network, so it's not an update from any gnome applet.
It happens also when the screensaver is activated.

Playing the game in verbose mode doesn't help : nothing appears in the terminal when it happens.

I use compiz (version 0.7.4-0ubuntu7) with the visual effects set to "extra" and with the "advanced desktop effects settings" (I like to show people how my system looks better than theirs ;-).
I have an nvidia graphic card with the nvidia proprietary driver (I know, shame on me... but compiz need it for the visual effects).

I don't have the problem with other fullscreen applications than games, for example, watching a movie works fine.

I would like to help more, by providing some log but I don't know how to start compiz in verbose or debug mode. Does somebody know?

[Hew (hew)]

I have not experienced this issue. Could you please test if it still occurs with Intrepid? Thanks in advance.

[zub (zub-linux)]

Unfortunately, I still can reproduce this in Intrepid.

I've seen this on two different boxes running Hardy. Both were running nvidia binary blob. It seemed to affect pretty much all OpenGL (?) fullscreen apps: I have seen this in extreme tux racer, wormux, frozen bubble.

Subjectively it might be that in Intrepid it manifests less often, as I had to keep playing frozen bubble for ~ 10 mins till it first manifested.

As noted above, there's nothing related to this issue in the console (when the game is started form the console).

It seems to manifest only when running compiz at the same time.

On a side note: I never saw it when playing tile racer, which otherwise would be a game where I'd expect this to occur too.

[Hew (hew)]

Does the problem still occur if you disable Workarounds (specifically Legacy Fullscreen Support) with ccsm?

[Andrew Dyson (andrew-dyson)]

I'm having the same problem with things jumping out of fullscreen and have had for some time.

I'm running 8.04 with a Radeon 9250 using the open source drivers, AMD Athlon 2000 cpu, and "Normal" Desktop Effects enabled.

Games affected (that I've tried) include SuperTux, Trigger, WormUX, NeverPutt, Pingus. It usually happens every 5-10 minutes or so.
It's pretty annoying, as you have to click back into the game with the mouse to regain control of it, plus you lose a few seconds to a blank screen while it switches. This is fairly critical if you're playing a real-time game.

Can confirm that turning Compiz off seems to fix it.

[Hew (hew)]

Andrew, could you please try reproducing the problem with compiz workarounds disabled, as I mentioned in my previous comment? Thanks.

[Hew (hew)]

I'll ask again: Does the problem still occur if you disable Workarounds (specifically Legacy Fullscreen Support) with ccsm?

[.::welemski::. (welemski)]

Hi, I've been playing tremulous for years now since 7.04 but I'm using hardy now.
Everytime I played openGL enabled games in full screen like , Tremulous, warsow, etc... while compiz is enabled it always leaves the full screen after a couple of minutes from launching the game. Though the keyboard is responsive since I can still switch from console to gnome and vice versa I can't seem to control my mouse.

This is really anoying because I have to disable compiz and switch to metacity before playing any graphics intensive games.

[Kevin Fishburne (kevinfishburne)]

This may be the same bug or a related one, as there are quite a few bugs being listed regarding Compiz + screensaver + games, full screen or otherwise. The bugs I've seen under all Ubuntu distributions are:

1) Compiz + screensaver + games = Screensaver snaps the game out of full screen mode because it thinks the PC is idle (ignores mouse and keyboard input). Disabling Compiz or the screensaver is a workaround. Disabling Workarounds in Compiz makes no difference.

2) Compiz + full screen games @ desktop resolution = Upon launching the game it repeatedly switches between windowed mode and full screen mode. Disabling Compiz or running games at a different screen resolution than the desktop is a workaround. Disabling Workarounds in Compiz makes no difference.

I've tested bug 1 with LTris among other games, and bug 2 with OpenArena and Nexuiz (among others). Bug 1 may have something to do with Compiz having some interaction with the screensaver or input devices (mouse and keyboard), meaning either or both could be at fault. Bug 2 sounds like it's strictly an issue with Compiz.

These bugs occur across multiple motherboards, GPU's and Ubuntu distributions.

Bug 1 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libsdl1.2/+bug/32457
Bug 2 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/216322

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Wolfgang Silbermayr : Can you follow these steps to disable gnome-screensaver and confirm if the issue is still reproducible?

1. Go to System / Preferences / Screensaver
2. Uncheck "Activate screensaver when computer is idle"
3. Click the "Close" button.

As Kevin Fishburne mentionned, there is a lot of chances that this bug is a duplicate of bug 216322 or bug 32457

[Hew (hew)]

I was getting this in Jaunty with SuperTuxKart and Nexuiz when using Compiz. Metacity did not have the same problem. Disabling the screensaver, as mentioned in the previous comment, seems to have fixed the problem when using Compiz.

[NY00123 (ny00)]

I'm not sure bug 216322 is a duplicate of this.
Do SDL applications switch to windowed mode almost immediately (as described in 216322) and then stay windowed, or it takes, say, more than 10 seconds?

There may be a common source to both bugs, though.

[Eemil Lagerspetz (eemil-lagerspetz)]

For me it took some minutes of using the application. Disabling gnome-screensaver is the workaround.
I recommend people whose applications switch to windowed immediately test if disabling gnome-screensaver helps; this would make compiz inhibiting gnome-screensaver when fullscreen applications are launched the solution to both bugs.

[Tony Houghton (h-realh)]

I've noticed the screensaver problem with other window managers when playing Wesnoth. I think it might be better to ask the upstream SDL developers to support gnome-screensaver/xscreensaver than to fix it in compiz.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

Can anyone reproduce this if they disable Unredirect Fullscreen Windows? You can disable it in ccsm in the General Settings or with gconf-editor by changing /apps/compiz/general/screen0/options/undirect_fullscreen_windows.

[VPablo (villumar)]

No, with that checkbox disabled I had not the problem in this bug but there is another problem related with screensaver which is very similar to this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/gnome-screensaver/+bug/32457

But there are NOT the same.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

Alright, thanks for testing that at least this bug is fixed. In karmic we've changed to disabling this option by default so I'm closing this bug as fixed.

[Luke Wallner (lukas-wallner)]

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=karmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.10"

Still happens for Warzone 2100 and Glest. Additionally Audio is scrambled.

[Andrea Amoroso (heiko81)]

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=Maverick
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.10"

Still happens for Wolfenstein Enemy Territory..I can't get it to work..the qame always starts windowed and in my netbook I can't find a way to play with it because I can't see the lower part of the window and can't change the resolution..I googled and tried so many ways, even changing Compiz settings..but I failed..I think this shoud be also a problem for Unity that always has the superior bar visible..

[Andrea Amoroso (heiko81)]

I have Maverick beta with hp mini 2133..
Intel GMA video card..
thanks..