[ATI 480] Task bars and applets are invisible, only background seen

[Carsten Agger]

Binary package hint: unity

When I log onto Ubuntu Netbook edition, I don't see the applets and shortcuts on the vertical OR the horizontal task bar, only the background image. I can activate them, though, by clicking in the correct locations.

I have attached two screenshots and the output from lspci. More input needed?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: unity 0.2.46-0ubuntu5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.35-generic-pae 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic-pae i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Nov 18 11:23:31 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release Candidate i386 (20100928)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=da_DK.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity

[Carsten Agger (agger)]

See attached screendump for clarification.

[Carsten Agger (agger)]

Here's another telling screenshot.

[Carsten Agger (agger)]

Output from lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 10)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:06.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:07.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:12.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 Serial ATA Controller (rev 80)
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB2 Host Controller (rev 80)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 SMBus Controller (rev 83)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 IDE Controller (rev 80)
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB4x0 High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge (rev 80)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-PCI Bridge (rev 80)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS482 [Radeon Xpress 200M]
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01)
05:04.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): O2 Micro, Inc. Firewire (IEEE 1394) (rev 02)
05:04.2 SD Host controller: O2 Micro, Inc. Integrated MMC/SD Controller (rev 01)
05:04.3 Mass storage controller: O2 Micro, Inc. Integrated MS/xD Controller (rev 01)
05:09.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g (rev 01)

[Carsten Agger (agger)]

I have set status to "Confirmed" on the grounds that the screen dump actually confirm the bug.

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

Thanks for your bug report and help to make ubuntu better.

It's more or less a duplicated with all the other ATI card issue (unity maverick is known to work with few ATI card). Hopefully, the natty rewrite using compiz instead of mutter will bring a wider support.

Can you please try Natty when getting around alpha3 to report that's it will be working with it? Thanks!

[Neil J. Patel (njpatel)]

Hi, we've been working hard to make the Ati support better in the latest version of Unity. With the Natty Alpha 1 release coming this week, could you please try that and see if Unity is still invisible on your system. I'm marking as incomplete pending your test results, thanks.

[Carsten Agger (agger)]

OK. Note that even though the problem is fixed in Natty (and I will test it as soon as I get time) the problem will still be there in Maverick ... but since Maverick is a short-lived release maybe it isn't worth fixing it there.

[Carsten Agger (agger)]

Sorry, but this bug is NOT a duplicate of bug 685682.

I am not using proprietary ATI drivers, actually none is available for my card. For that reason, I have removed the marking as duplicate.

[Tommy Trussell (tommy-trussell)]

Just installed UNE 10.10 Maverick on Acer Aspire 5100-3949 and saw this bug. Same effect on screen.

Unity works correctly on this hardware after installing the xorg-edgers PPA: https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers

I forgot to test Unity with the x-swat PPA.(more stable) PPA installed https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat The x-swat PPA might presumably work too but I didn't test it.

I will use apport-collect to upload a capture in case someone needs that info.

P.S.: I am also seeing Bug #318325 (flickering after resume from ram) but they do not seem to be related, because Unity works correctly when I install the xorg-edgers PPA.

[Tommy Trussell (tommy-trussell)]

Apport collected information from affected Acer Aspire 5100-3949

[Tommy Trussell (tommy-trussell)]

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 10)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:04.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:05.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:12.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 Serial ATA Controller (rev 80)
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB2 Host Controller (rev 80)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 SMBus Controller (rev 83)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 IDE Controller (rev 80)
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB4x0 High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge (rev 80)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-PCI Bridge (rev 80)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS482 [Radeon Xpress 200M]
06:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
06:02.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)
06:04.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-712/4 Cardbus Controller (rev 10)
06:04.1 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc ENE PCI Memory Stick Card Reader Controller (rev 01)
06:04.2 SD Host controller: ENE Technology Inc ENE PCI Secure Digital Card Reader Controller (rev 01)
06:04.3 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc: (rev 01)
06:04.4 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc SD/MMC Card Reader Controller (rev 01)

[Tommy Trussell (tommy-trussell)]

$ sudo lshw -C video
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: RS482 [Radeon Xpress 200M]
       vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
       physical id: 5
       bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=radeon latency=66 mingnt=8
       resources: irq:17 memory:c8000000-cfffffff ioport:9000(size=256) memory:c0100000-c010ffff memory:c0120000-c013ffff

[David Barth (dbarth)]

As Didier pointed out earlier, this is an incompatibility between the ATI drivers and the Mutter version of Unity. We don't have resources to provide fixes for older versions of Unity at this point. Sorry.