background graphical flashing (corruption) when compiz is disabled

[Jerone Young]

Binary package hint: notify-osd

This has been raised as a issue from OEMs through ODM testing. The video attached demonstrates the issue.

The problem is that when compiz is disabled and a notification (like sound volume) comes up. You get a lot of background graphical white flashing around the notification window.

This happens with 10.04 & 10.10.

I have tested and seen the issue on a Thinkpad T410 (with Intel HD graphics) & Thinkpad X301 (Intel X4500). The initial issue was reported on a machine using nvidia graphics with the nvidia proprietary driver.

[Ameet Paranjape (ameetp)]

Hi Jerone,

I didn't see X crashing in your video; however, please clarify the meaning of the word "corruption" in the bug summary. I want to be extra sure that your haven't seen X crash during your recreates because that would be very bad :). Thanks.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

The best way to fix this, is to fall back to metacity (+compositor) if compiz fails. You can do that by doing:

gconftool-2 -s /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager -t bool true
metacity --replace &

notify-osd is designed for composited environments, because several of its key-interaction features (click-through, proximity-fade, styling) require working desktop-composition. There was some effort spent in making notify-osd also work ok in non-composited environments. But its looks under non-composited desktops has never been and will never be a focus of development.

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

@Ameet
          This issue is not about X crashing. It's about the graphical corruption caused when compiz is disabled.

@Micro
           This is a case where Compiz is disabled. There are many reasons why and something we offer to disable through the UI. When it is disabled the issue in the video occurs when you have a notification.

[David Barth (dbarth)]

Mirco proposes to use metaciry + it's compositor mode.
Jerone: As that been tester?

The non-composite fallback mode as its limits.

[David Barth (dbarth)]

Can you get back to us if the metacity + compositor doesn't fix the issue. Thanks

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for notify-osd (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]