SNA acceleration causes black background and window issues on secondary display

[Dylan Borg]

After upgrading my laptop to Ubuntu 16.10, I noticed that the secondary monitor I use at work was showing a black background instead of the background shown on my primary display. Also if windows were dragged to the secondary display I would see weird artifacts such as multiple stacked copies of the window being dragged. I believe that this is an SNA issue on multi-monitor setups. I managed to get the old correct behaviour back by switching the accelaration method to UXA by means of Xorg configuration file.

My workaround involves putting:

Section "Device"
   Identifier "Intel Graphics"
   Driver "intel"
   Option "AccelMethod" "uxa"
EndSection

inside a file named /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

The information needed to assemble this file was found on the Arch Linux Wiki.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
Package: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20160706-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.8.0-27.29-generic 4.8.1
Uname: Linux 4.8.0-27-generic x86_64
.tmp.unity_support_test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.20.3-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: compiz
CompositorUnredirectDriverBlacklist: '(nouveau|Intel).*Mesa 8.0'
CompositorUnredirectFSW: true
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Mon Oct 24 08:46:43 2016
DistUpgraded: 2016-10-23 12:03:44,922 ERROR got error from PostInstallScript ./xorg_fix_proprietary.py (g-exec-error-quark: Failed to execute child process "./xorg_fix_proprietary.py" (No such file or directory) (8))
DistroCodename: yakkety
DistroVariant: ubuntu
ExtraDebuggingInterest: I just need to know a workaround
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [1043:124d]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-08-04 (80 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160719)
MachineType: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. X550CA
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.8.0-27-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=3df9651c-956b-4a87-92ed-ac0e4f4b605d ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-intel
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to yakkety on 2016-10-23 (0 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 03/24/2014
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: X550CA.300
dmi.board.asset.tag: ATN12345678901234567
dmi.board.name: X550CA
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrX550CA.300:bd03/24/2014:svnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:pnX550CA:pvr1.0:rvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:rnX550CA:rvr1.0:cvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:ct10:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.name: X550CA
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.13.0+16.10.20160818.2-0ubuntu2
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.70-1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 12.0.3-1ubuntu2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 12.0.3-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.18.4-1ubuntu6
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.10.2-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.7.1-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20160706-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.12-2
xserver.bootTime: Mon Oct 24 08:43:49 2016
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.errors:

xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.version: 2:1.18.4-1ubuntu6
xserver.video_driver: intel

[Dylan Borg (borgdylan)]

Also for stuff to work, X must be started after the secondary display gets connected. The use of UXA is still needed.

[Dylan Borg (borgdylan)]

This issue seems to be resolved when a nautilus update happened.