[RV515] Kubuntu: Corrupted mouse cursor after moving between screens

[Niels Slot]

On two machines, I've experienced a corrupted cursor. The cursor image seems to be 'cut in slices' and put back in the wrong order. The corruption is not easy to reproduce. When it does happen, it seems to happen after moving of the cursor between the different monitors.

Configuration of the two machines:
- Both machines have a dual screen setup.
- Both machines are Dell desktops with an ATI graphics card.
- Machine 1 has a R500 graphics chip, machine 2 a R600 graphics chip.

I've seen the corruption on Intrepid and Jaunty. The Intrepid installations were running KDE 4.2 from PPA. The Jaunty installation was at beta.

The problem occurs with different drivers, both fglrx and xf86-video-ati have this problem.

Restarting the X session doesn´t restore the cursor. Only a reboot seems effective. Changing the cursor theme in KDE's system settings also has no effect.

I'm unable to make a screenshot of the mouse cursor. When I make a screenshot using the GIMP, and tell it to include the mouse cursor, it captures a correct mouse cursor. Attached is a photo of poor quality (blame my phone), it however shows the problem.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 Memory Controller Hub [8086:29a0] (rev 02)
     Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01db]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RV516 [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series] [1002:7183]
     Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0302]

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi nielsslot,

Thanks for including an image to demonstrate the issue. Could you also please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log or 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.]

[Niels Slot (nielsslot)]

I haven't booted the Jaunty installation on this machine since encoutering the bug. The Xorg.log's should still be the same. I copied them by mounting the Jaunty partition from Hardy (this machine is dualboot Hardy/Jaunty)

[Niels Slot (nielsslot)]

A colleague of mine had his camera with him when this bug occured again. He made a photo which shows the problem more clearly then the photo's I previously took.

[dancfreitas (dancfreitas)]

I have also the same problem...

I have an ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 Series card in a Dell OptiPlex 745

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV516 [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series]
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV516 [Radeon X1300 Pro] (Secondary)

Linux version 2.6.27-11-generic (buildd@vernadsky) (gcc version 4.3.2 (Ubuntu 4.3.2-1ubuntu11) ) #1 SMP Wed Apr 1 20:57:48 UTC 2009

the system works more or less in gnome but in kde it does'nt work, the mouse gets blured...
it confuses the dysplays DVI-0 and DVI-1 if when kde starts are both plugin... xrand makes it work more or less the problem is when reboots...all gets mess up again...

[Jean-Paul (jeanpaul145)]

This isn't an Ubuntu-specific issue: I use Kubuntu 9.04 with kde 4.3rc2 installed from the backports, and it doesn't happen there.
However, at work I use a Debian squeeze machine with kde 4.2.2, and there it happens quite often, which is incredibly annoying. So maybe it would be a good idea to explicitly work with upstream on this one?

[Jean-Paul (jeanpaul145)]

Additional info: I use a R500 chip in a dual monitor setup.

I did just find a workaround (for kde4):
start krandrtray, and set the refreshrates of your monitors to 75 Hz.
There'll probably be an equivalent thing for gnome.

[Jan van Oosterom (jvanoosterom)]

I use a dual setup on Radeon HD 3470 / kubuntu and I have this problem.
workaround by Jean-Paul did not work for me.

last time i got so irritated by it, that I rebooted, and that did the trick for me.
is there a better workaround?

[bugbot (bugbot)]

This bug report was filed against an old version of Ubuntu.
Can you confirm whether this is still an issue in natty?

If you don't mind, it would be very helpful if you could update the bug
report in launchpad to 'Fix Released' if it is no longer an issue for
you, or if it is still occurring under natty, please tag the bug 'natty'
so it's easier for us to track.

[bugbot (bugbot)]

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.

[Tom Lianza (78luphr0rnk2nuqimstywepozxn9kl19tqh0tx66b5dki1xxsh5mkz9gl21a5rlwfnr8jn6ln0m3jxne2k9x1ohg85w3jabxlrqbgszpjpwcmvkbcvq9spp6z3w5j1m33k06tlsf-launchpad-a811i2i3ytqlsztthjth0svbccw8inm65tmkqp9sarr553jq53in4xm1m8wn3o4rlwaer06ogwvqwv9mrqoku2x334n7di44o65qze67n1wneepmidnuwnde1rqcbpgdf70gtqq2)]

I can repro on the latest version of Ubuntu. For me it triggers sometimes using Synergy between Ubuntu and Windows on another machine. Requested information attached.

[Tom Lianza (78luphr0rnk2nuqimstywepozxn9kl19tqh0tx66b5dki1xxsh5mkz9gl21a5rlwfnr8jn6ln0m3jxne2k9x1ohg85w3jabxlrqbgszpjpwcmvkbcvq9spp6z3w5j1m33k06tlsf-launchpad-a811i2i3ytqlsztthjth0svbccw8inm65tmkqp9sarr553jq53in4xm1m8wn3o4rlwaer06ogwvqwv9mrqoku2x334n7di44o65qze67n1wneepmidnuwnde1rqcbpgdf70gtqq2)]

seemed that attachment might not have gone so well. Here's a zip with 3 files.

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

I have exactly the same problem. I use Kubuntu 12.04 (but I experience the problems for years already), KDE 4.9.2, ATI Radeon HD 5870, fglrx driver.

On my primary monitor the mouse cursor is corrupted sometimes and on the secondary monitor it is always looking good.
So by moving the mouse from the secondary to the primary monitor the image gets corrupted and when moving back it gets fix again...?!

Additional observations:
 * When the problem starts manifesting, it happens for all (both OS and application) mouse cursor images.
 * Restarting seems to only (temporarily) fix.

I am happy to provide more information, if required. So please let me know.

[Michael Kostrzewa (michael-kostrzewa)]

I confirm the findings of Marteen. My setup is very similar (KDE 5.9.2, kubuntu 12.04, fglrx, ATI Radeon HD 5000M), and I'm getting identical results (cursor on secondary monitor is OK, cursor on primary is corrupted).

My other findings:

- hibernate to RAM -> wakup fixes this same as reboot does

- you can fix this on 1st monitor and move to 2nd monitor by doing the following:
   1) disable first monitor (I use krandrtray for this), the cursor is now corrupted on the 2nd monitor
   2) enable 1st monitor again (cursor OK on 1st monitor, broken on 2nd one)

[Cade Robinson (cade-robinson)]

I hate to necro old posts but I have the same issue.
But I use Arch and have had this on KDE 4.9 and 4.10 RCs. Probably 4.8 too.

Just like the reporter my cursor corrupts on the line between my screen 1 and screen 2.
For me everytime it happens it is corrupt on screen 1 and just fine on screen 2.

[gonssal (gonssal)]

Kubuntu 12.10 with KDE 4.10.2 here. Radeon HD 3870 with fgrlx-legacy. This has been happening to me since I got a dual screen setup, when I had KDE 4.7.4 and standard fglrx driver.

[Johannes Singler (johannes-singler)]

Same problem here with a three-screen Radeon setup (fglrx, Kubuntu 12.04). A workaround is to disable the hardware cursor

Option "SWCursor" "true"

But then, the cursor flickers and disappears when scrolling with the mouse wheel. So you can replace one evil with another only.

[morgajel (morgajel)]

This isn't a great fix, but I've found putting my laptop into sleep mode and waking it back up clears the issue.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Niels Slot, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xserver-xorg-video-ati REPLACE-WITH-BUG-NUMBER

Please note, given that the information from the prior release is already available, doing this on a release prior to the development one would not be helpful.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

I have had the same issues, but I must say that lately (I do not know when exactly) I did not experience this issue anymore... So maybe it got fixed at some point?

[Marc (marc2014)]

It's still an issue. I'm on the latest Kubuntu with a Radeon, and my experience is almost exactly the same as described above. I'm using KDE PPAs (so I should have the latest KDE packages as well). Also on the latest standard kernel, etc.

On reboot, the mouse cursor is the same on both monitors. For some reason that I can't determine, moving between them sometimes triggers the cursor to split into a vertical line into about a dozen very small cursors. (Sounds just like the report here: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33183 which is almost certainly the same issue). Then moving back and forth causes the cursor to become larger and completely garbled (in a square about 1 cm x 1 cm, at least twice as large as the original cursor), and after a few more times between each monitor, the cursor settles into the "chopped" cursor posted in the images by those above until reboot.

Some other observations:

* The cursor still "points" at the same spot, so it seems to be a purely rendering issue.

* The two monitors are not the same resolution.

* If I open a virtual machine on the corrupted monitor, the cursor is still corrupted inside the virtual machine window, but changes color as expected (from Kubuntu blue to Ubuntu white).

* Nothing else seems to be affected visually.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Marc, thank you for your comment. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report by executing the following in a terminal:
ubuntu-bug xorg

For more on this, please see the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu X.Org Team, Ubuntu Bug Control, and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Please note, not filing a new report will delay your problem being addressed as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Marc (marc2014)]

Done. Let me know if there's any other information that you need.

[clickwir (clickwir)]

I'll chime in too. I've had this issue for several releases of Kubuntu, it's annoying and sometimes will just go away on it's own after moving back and forth between screens. Right now, any cursor (arrow, resize, move) on my right screen is perfect. But my left screen, the same ones, are sliced up and put together wrong.

I didn't see anyone mention it, but sometimes instead of being sliced up and put back together wrong, I'll get a 1.5inch long, thin row of vertial triangles. That one is more rare. Both are fixed by rebooting.

^
^
^
^
^
^
^

Kinda looks like that, but they point to the left instead of up.

Seems to be a theme here, I'm also using an AMD Radeon card. A 5770.

Bug reported: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1272291

[Bart De Schuymer (bdschuym)]

I occasionally have the same issue. As already mentioned by Tom Lianza above, for me the issue happens when I enter the client screen using Synergy. When the issue occurs, I always observe the thin row of vertical triangles as mentioned by clickwir.
Usually the issue goes away when I hover over a close icon (X). However, today I couldn't get it to go away that easily.
I found a workaround that I can live with now (hopefully it will work next time too): simply put the machine to sleep and wake it up again.
I'm using Ubuntu 13.10 with Kubuntu installed on top of it using apt-get.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

clickwir / Bart De Schuymer, thank you for your comment. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report by executing the following in a terminal:
ubuntu-bug xorg

Please ensure you have xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information.

For more on this, please see the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu X.Org Team, Ubuntu Bug Control, and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Please note, not filing a new report will delay your problem being addressed as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Travis Odom (travis-a-odom)]

I am also experiencing this bug on several Kubuntu machines, and have submitted a detailed bug as requested here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1362633

[Ebanizmus (ya-x)]

Hello.
Confirming this.
Kubuntu 14.04.1, all updated. Using fglrx, AMD Radeon Redwood 5570.
Mouse pointer is corrupting many times per day, on the second screen it looks normal, but on first is corrupted. And some times it is long vertical line.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Me (ya-x), thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, this bug report is not scoped to you, or your problem. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report with Ubuntu by executing the following in a terminal while booted into the default Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline one) via:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please read the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu Bug Control and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Kernel Team: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelTeamBugPolicies#Filing_Kernel_Bug_reports
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

As well, please do not announce in this report you created a new bug report.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Balazs Kelemen (balazskelemen99)]

Happening to me as well since Kubuntu 14.04. Sliced up or 1.5 inch long crap.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Balazs Kelemen, thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, this bug report is not scoped to you, or your problem. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report by executing the following in a terminal:
ubuntu-bug xorg

Please ensure you have xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information.

For more on this, please see the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu X.Org Team, Ubuntu Bug Control, and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

As well, please do not announce in this report you created a new bug report.

Thank you for your understanding.

[dino99 (9d9)]

outdated flavor, report about a newer active version if needed