[RV730XT] Enabling desktop effects causes desktop black out, when using ATI fglrx drivers

[Robert Osfield]

OS : Kubunutu 9.04 beta, fully update to date as of 4th of April, 2009.

Hardware : Intel iCore7 + ATI Radeon HD 4670, fglrx drivers installed.

How to recreate bug: Open SystemSettings, select Desktop icon, on Configure desktop effects tab click "Enable desktop effects" toggle button, then click on Apply.

Symptoms: On enabling the desktop effects the screen immediately goes black, and then either flickers and starts working OK with desktop effects, or stay black for several to several dozen seconds with occasional flickers back of original desktop. Pressing escape earlier enough does sometimes recover the desktop without the effects, leave it too long and you can't get back to a usable desktop.

In cases where a desktop becomes blacked out and usable I have to do an Ctrl Atl F4 then log in, manually disable the effect by editing ~/.kde/share/configs/kwinrc to disable desktop effects, and then shutdown the machine - I haven't yet been able to shutdown X and restart it despite trying sudo init 3, sudo init 5. This is obviously a bit advanced a workaround to getting a usable desktop back... If I don't reset kwinrc by hand and just reboot the desktop remains blacked out on boot and unusable.

Problem is intermittent, sometimes when I log in it fails all the time, other times it succeeds in enable desktop effects. If it does succeed then the desktop starts working great, but on reboot typically the black + inaccessible desktop problems return. I've been testing on ATI hardware for the last three days and during this period the ability to enable desktop has always been problematic, but the percentage of times when things work I think has gone up. Failure rate is still well over 50% though.

Prior to beginning testing on ATI hardware I tested Kubuntu 9.04 beta out on NVidia hardware and desktop effects worked great - Kubuntu/KDE 4.2 when it works is really beautiful and fund desktop to use :-) The problem looks very much like it's related to ATI drivers in some way.

Robert.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation X58 I/O Hub to ESI Port [8086:3405] (rev 12)
     Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:836b]
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RV730XT [Radeon HD 4670] [1002:9490]
     Subsystem: PC Partner Limited Device [174b:e100]

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi robertosfield,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log (and maybe Xorg.0.log.old) file from after reproducing this issue. If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Robert Osfield (robertosfield)]

Hi Bryce,

Thanks for following up on this matter. I just done three consecutive tests, the first two failed, and generated identical Xorg.0.log output finishing at the line:

  (II) AIGLX: Suspending AIGLX clients for VT switch

While the third test succeeded and same Xorg.0.log output save for and added section at the end after the above Suspending AIGLX, and reads

(II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)
(II) AIGLX: Resuming AIGLX clients after VT switch
(II) fglrx(0): UVD2 feature is available
....

I've attached the two Xorg.0.log as Xorg.0.log.failure and Xorg.0.successful. I've also attached the ouput of 'lspci -vvnn' as lspci-vvnn.txt' and my xorg.conf. The later I haven't hand tweaked though.

[wketchin (wketchin)]

I have the same exact symptoms, and this is getting really frustrating. I have eliminated every plugin ONE at a time, and everything else one at a time, and still, it causes my system to flicker the "Desktop - System Settings," then everything disappears and it goes back to OEM state on the desktop with the default background.

Like the OP, the only way i can recover this crash is if i modify ~/.kde/share/configs/kwinrc so that the Enable=false. I have also tried compiz, which worked for one boot, and then it didn't work any more.

I love the desktop effects, since i am indeed an aesthetically oriented person when it comes to my computer.

Another odd detail i have noticed, when i boot up after CRTL+ALT+DEL when i open "CTRL+ALT+F1" the splash screen is really choppy.

I have tried numerous tactics to get this thing to work, and it DID WORK FOR A SOLID 3 DAYS, then stopped working.

Anything on how to get my desktop graphics back and working properly, would be much appreciated.

System:
Acer Desktop
4 GB RAM
AMD Phenom 9500
ATi Radeon HD 2600 Pro
Soundblaster Audigy 4
1.5TB SATA hard drives

Thanks in advance.

[Robert Osfield (robertosfield)]

I have just installed the Kubuntu 9.04 rc and then enabled the proprietary ATI drivers that come with 9.04 rc and found that enablind desktop effects is still broken - I end up with a black screen and unusable desktop. I had do Ctrl-Alt-F4, log in, then edit kwinrc manually to get back to usable desktop. glxinfo reports a driver of 2.1.8575

If I then download and manually install the latest ATI drivers which they describe as 9.4 on ATI dev website I am able to get things working smoothly and can reliably enable/disable desktop effects. flxinfo reports a driver of 2.1.8591. This driver also fixed by Kubuntu 9.04 beta that I had been keeping up to date.

I am about to do some more testing with the Kubuntu 9.04 rc, but given the significant improvement w.r.t enabling desktop effects with the proprietary driver is looks like the final Kubuntu 9.04 really should go out with the latest ATI driver, anything less and we'd be shipping that breaks when using ATI hardware.

Kudos to AMD/ATI for the improvements with the drivers.

Robert.

[Robert Osfield (robertosfield)]

Since yesterday I've continued testing Kubuntu 9.04 rc with the ATI 9.4 fglrx driver with desktop effects enabled all the time and haven't seen a single desktop effects problem yet - so this particle bug does looked to have been solved by the latest ATI drivers.

For the final 9.04 release it would be good to at least have the 9.4 drivers available with Ubunutu/Kubuntu as the existing proprietary drivers that get pulled down the 9.04 rc are badly broken as soon as you enable desktop effects.

Thanks,
Robert.

[wketchin (wketchin)]

I ended up upgrading my device driver to the new one on the ati site, and now it works beautifully :D

Thanks guys!

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I've posted a new version of the -fglrx driver to our xorg-edgers PPA,
would you mind testing it either on Jaunty or Karmic and see if it
resolves this bug?

Get fglrx 8.620 here:

  https://edge.launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.