Chromium address bar flickers and renders oddly

[Ken T]

- As seen in yesterday's daily build of UB 18.04 32-bit, with updates applied today. Chromium Version 64.0.3282.167 (Official Build)

See attached brief screencast, which I've tested can be viewed via VLC.

Thanks,
Ken.
***

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

Address bar seems to flicker during many events where the screen re-draws - it constantly flickers while downloading a file, and does so when moving the mouse around the address bar, clicking on it, etc. Also happens when a tab is loading a new page.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Can you share some details about your graphics card and drivers?

There's a new version in the archive (65.0.3325.146-0ubuntu1), can you please upgrade and let us know if that makes a difference?

Is the chromium snap also affected? You can install it with:

    snap install chromium

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

Hi Olivier,
To answer the first of your three questions (I'll answer the other ones separately), I'm using an old Dell laptop which probably has no discrete graphics card, with the standard driver - i.e. no additional / proprietary driver. Here's what my terminal says - I'm pretty sure that the several references to "915GM" point to an integrated graphics setup.

output of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.3 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 01)
03:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI6515 Cardbus Controller
03:01.5 Communication controller: Texas Instruments PCI6515 SmartCard Controller
03:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2915ABG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

And I've upgraded to the latest version (65.0.3325.146), and the flickering is still present.

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

I've just installed the snap, and got the following confirmation:
   :~$ snap install chromium
   chromium 64.0.3282.167 from 'canonical' installed

...and yes, the flickering is evident there as well.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Thanks for the feedback Ken.
Can you browse to chrome://gpu, save the page and attach it here?

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

Hi Olivier,

sorry for my slow reply - am writing from another machine at present. Will post the results of that test in the next day or so, but in the meantime stopped by to report the following:

The other day I spent an hour in Chromium on the laptop on which I'd reported this issue, and for reasons I'm not sure of, the screen didn't flicker! Will do some more testing and report back.

Ta,
K.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Thanks Ken. Looking forward to further feedback from you.

[Ken T (professorsnapper)]

Well!
After a couple of sessions using Chromium with no flickering (and a long time away from the laptop I'd reported the fault from), the flickering is again evident on that same build of Budgie. Will test again from the latest daily build. In the meantime, copy of details from chrome://gpu below:

Graphics Feature Status
Canvas: Hardware accelerated
CheckerImaging: Disabled
Flash: Hardware accelerated
Flash Stage3D: Hardware accelerated
Flash Stage3D Baseline profile: Hardware accelerated
Compositing: Hardware accelerated
Multiple Raster Threads: Disabled
Native GpuMemoryBuffers: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Video Decode: Unavailable
WebGL: Hardware accelerated
WebGL2: Hardware accelerated
Driver Bug Workarounds
adjust_src_dst_region_for_blitframebuffer
clear_uniforms_before_first_program_use
count_all_in_varyings_packing
decode_encode_srgb_for_generatemipmap
disable_framebuffer_cmaa
disable_post_sub_buffers_for_onscreen_surfaces
msaa_is_slow
scalarize_vec_and_mat_constructor_args
Problems Detected
Accelerated video decode is unavailable on Linux: 137247
Disabled Features: accelerated_video_decode
Clear uniforms before first program use on all platforms: 124764, 349137
Applied Workarounds: clear_uniforms_before_first_program_use
Mesa drivers in Linux handle varyings without static use incorrectly: 333885
Applied Workarounds: count_all_in_varyings_packing
Disable partial swaps on Mesa drivers (detected with GL_RENDERER): 339493
Applied Workarounds: disable_post_sub_buffers_for_onscreen_surfaces
Always rewrite vec/mat constructors to be consistent: 398694
Applied Workarounds: scalarize_vec_and_mat_constructor_args
On Intel GPUs MSAA performance is not acceptable for GPU rasterization: 527565
Applied Workarounds: msaa_is_slow
Timer queries crash on Intel GPUs on Linux: 540543, 576991
Applied Workarounds: disable(GL_ARB_timer_query), disable(GL_EXT_timer_query)
Use GL_INTEL_framebuffer_CMAA on ChromeOS: 535198
Applied Workarounds: disable_framebuffer_cmaa
Disable partial swaps on Mesa drivers (detected with GL_VERSION): 339493
Applied Workarounds: disable_post_sub_buffers_for_onscreen_surfaces
Decode and encode before generateMipmap for srgb format textures on os except macosx: 634519
Applied Workarounds: decode_encode_srgb_for_generatemipmap
adjust src/dst region if blitting pixels outside read framebuffer on Linux Intel: 664740
Applied Workarounds: adjust_src_dst_region_for_blitframebuffer
Disable KHR_blend_equation_advanced until cc shaders are updated: 661715
Applied Workarounds: disable(GL_KHR_blend_equation_advanced), disable(GL_KHR_blend_equation_advanced_coherent)
Don't expose disjoint_timer_query extensions to WebGL: 808744
Raster is using a single thread.
Disabled Features: multiple_raster_threads
Native GpuMemoryBuffers have been disabled, either via about:flags or command line.
Disabled Features: native_gpu_memory_buffers
Checker-imaging has been disabled via finch trial or the command line.
Disabled Features: checker_imaging
Version Information
Data exported 2018-04-21T07:40:41.492Z
Chrome version Chrome/65.0.3325.146
Operating system Linux 4.15.0-10-gen...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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