Mouse disappears when moved over kstars star chart

[Phil Bull]

Binary package hint: kdeedu

Open KStars and hover the mouse over the main star chart viewing area. The mouse pointer becomes invisible, so it's impossible to see which part of the map you are hovering over. This makes it difficult to select stars and view their properties, for example.

The expected behaviour is that the pointer is *not* invisible. The pointer *is* visible when hovering over the rest of the UI, just not the star chart.

When you click-and-drag on the star chart, the pointer becomes visible again with the "dragging in progress" pointer icon. When you stop dragging, it disappears again.

kstars 4:4.1.0-0ubuntu5 running on up-to-date Ubuntu Intrepid.

[Stefano Maioli (smaioli)]

Thank you for reporting this issue and helping making Ubuntu better.

Could you please provide us with the following additional details as attachments:
- The output of: lspci -nn | grep VGA
- Your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file

Also, do you notice the same behavior in any other application that uses 3d graphics?

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

kstarts isn't 3D, afaik.
Anyway, what happens here is that the cursor changes to this x-shaped crosshair when you mouse over the main viewing area.
Which cursor theme are you using? Could you see if this happens with a different cursor theme? (I have the oxygen-cursor-theme installed and in use.)

[Phil Bull (philbull)]

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller [8086:2592] (rev 04)

[Phil Bull (philbull)]

Thanks for your replies. I'm running Ubuntu rather than Kubuntu, and the GNOME and KDE cursor themes are set independently. Is there a way of changing the KDE cursor theme without having to install lots of KDE packages? Changing the GNOME cursor theme has no effect.

[Stefano Maioli (smaioli)]

Jonathan: it's not 3d, but it can still use opengl for rendering. But still, I was mistaken, opengl support is not there yet, it's a planned feature.

I was unable to reproduce the issue, but it still sounds X related to me. I'm not sure if changing cursor theme could fix it.
You could try falling back to XAA acceleration, some EXA implementations are buggy, or turning off compiz (if you're using it).

Let's see if the Xorg crew can provide some insights. Assigning to xorg intel driver.

[Phil Bull (philbull)]

Hi Stefano,

I'm not using Compiz, and still have this issue as of the latest intrepid updates (Thu 4 Sept).

[Phil Bull (philbull)]

I still have this issue (kstars 4:4.1.2-0ubuntu3).

I've tried changing the cursor theme using KDE's systemsettings (still running under GNOME), but it has no effect on the KStars issue.

[Terry (terry-kryogenic)]

I can confirm that I also get the very same issue.

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a2] (rev 03)

[Terry (terry-kryogenic)]

Falling back to XAA works for me. I've also noticed some improvements in other apps too.

Phil, not sure if you have already but try adding the following to /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the device section:

    Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"

and see if it works OK after that.

[Jure Repinc (jlp)]

Created an attachment (id=20605)
xorg.conf from Gentoo

I'm using KDE 4.1.3 on Mandriva Linux 2009 and on Gentoo Linux. Both are 64-bit. on both of these systems I use the open source radeon drivers. In one system I have integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 200M and in another I have ATI Radeon 9600 XT. If I use EXA mode the crosshair cursor that should show when mouse is over the skymap is invisible. If I switch to XAA mode the cursor shows just fine.

[Jure Repinc (jlp)]

Created an attachment (id=20606)
Xorg.0.log from Gentoo

[Pierre-François Giraud (giraudpf)]

1) I confirm I have this same issue.

2) I also have Intel graphics:
$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a2] (rev 03)

3) Adding the "XAA" option to my xorg.conf, as suggested by Terry, solved the problem.

[Terry (terry-kryogenic)]

I should add that falling back to XAA may cause problems elsewhere when having desktop effects enabled, such as video playback. However, video playback is the only problem I have had by falling back. I guess the temporary solution is when falling back to XAA to disable desktop effects as well.

[Jure Repinc (jlp)]

It looks like this bug is not limited only to radeon driver. Other drivers also have it when using EXA:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-driver-i810/+bug/260630
Could these be a problem in the Xorg server then?

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

This is a confirmed driver issue, so closing the kdeedu task.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

You need to do some additional debug analysis to identify what is failing in X before ruling out an application issue here. Just spotting a difference between XAA and EXA behavior really is not sufficient to pinpoint the problem.

[Jure Repinc (jlp)]

I've just tried with X.Org X Server 1.5.99.902 (1.6.0 RC 2) and the bug is still present.

[Michel Dänzer (michel-daenzer)]

Marking as blocker for 1.6 as I have a fix I'll send out for review shortly.

[Michel Dänzer (michel-daenzer)]

Created an attachment (id=23175)
Fix

[Michel Dänzer (michel-daenzer)]

Created an attachment (id=23176)
Fix against Git master

The previous fix depended on other pending changes of mine.

[Michel Dänzer (michel-daenzer)]

Fixed in xserver master commit 170cf1270dff38d3cce7f5ba5b940d1c0d70eff5, leaving this report open for consideration for the 1.6 branch.

[Keith Packard (keithp)]

I can't apply the EXA patch as it breaks most existing drivers, and we've already frozen the server ABIs for this release. If a fix which doesn't require driver updates is made, we can put that into 1.6.1, otherwise the change will have to wait for 1.7 when an EXA ABI change can be incorporated.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

According to Xorg upstream it's an XServer problem that can't be fixed until XServer 1.7 when they can break ABI

[Michel Dänzer (michel-daenzer)]

ABI preserving fix in commit 4cfb36f6ad2df01215028fec48d99239a0e4496b .

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Cleaning up the upstream tasks.

[MaxNegro (maxnegro)]

I have the same problem, kstars Version: 4:4.2.1-0ubuntu1 in jaunty beta, resolved by setting accel to XAA. My video card is an ati:

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AS [Radeon 9550] [1002:4153]

[noisymime (josh-noisymime)]

I am also experiencing this in jaunty but I have found a work around. If I start kstars with the following I get a cursor over the map:
kstars --graphicssystem raster

This is a QT option and is not specific to kstars.
I'm not sure if it helps explain the root cause, but it at least provides a solution.

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a2] (rev 03)

[Michel Dänzer (michel-daenzer)]

The fix has been merged to server-1.6-branch.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Fix committed upstream for the next xserver 1.6-series release.

[Torsten Rahn (rahn)]

Same problem with

* Intel 945GM (Thinkpad X60s)
* UXA "acceleration"
* KDE 4.2.2 and KStars 1.5.0
* on (K)Ubuntu 9.04
* Kernel 2.6.30,
* intel driver compiled for 1.6.1.901, module version = 2.7.99 (xorg bleeding edgers) from June 13th 2009.

The cursor doesn't show up on this configuration :-(

As with all other remaining XOrg problems using kstars with

kstars -graphicssystem raster

makes everything work kind of decent and the cursor reappears (but of course kind of circumvents XOrg).

Should I reopen?

[Michel Dänzer (michel-daenzer)]

(In reply to comment #11)
> * UXA "acceleration"
> [...]
> Should I reopen?

UXA is an intel driver specific fork of EXA, so if anything, reopen the corresponding intel driver bug.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Fix released to Karmic.