Some windows are empty

[Sebastian Breier]

Binary package hint: compiz

When enabling compiz through desktop-effect, some windows I open are completely empty, as seen in the following screenshot.

I use feisty, compiz 0.3.6-1ubuntu2 and desktop-effects 0.7.0-0ubuntu1.

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

So far, I haven't found out why only some windows are affected.

[Thomas Butter (tbutter)]

which graphic card do you have? same happens here with intel915 and can be fixed by starting compiz with the --indirect-rendering option.

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

Intel 855 (i810 driver). I can't really try your workaround, because I have no idea what command line desktop-effects uses... I guess I'll add this bug to desktop-effects then, so they'll change the command line.

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

Anyway, thanks for replying and confirming.

[Thomas Butter (tbutter)]

Try "compiz --replace --indirect-rendering gconf". I dont think this is a desktop effects bug since compiz should automatically switch to indirect if it is not supported by the driver.

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

Thanks, that worked. Got another bug (terminal window not updating), but that's another thing.

I guess in that case, that compiz bug should be fixed. We'll see when a dev turns up here.

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort (pochu)]

I also think this is not a desktop-effects bug, but a compiz one. So I close the desktop-effects report. But feel free to reopen it if you need to.

[Thomas Butter (tbutter)]

It works for me with the latest compiz in feisty (1:0.3.6-1ubuntu3) and compiz uses indirect rendering automatically. My terminals are also updating now.

compiz.real: GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap is not supported by direct rendering context, trying indirect rendering context instead

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

I get the

compiz.real: GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap is not supported by direct rendering context, trying indirect rendering context instead

message as well, but I still have empty windows and non-updating terminals. No idea if it's different than before or if I made a mistake, but now even --indirect-rendering doesn't make it work.

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

I just played around a bit. No matter if I enable or disable wobbling or cube (in desktop-effects), no matter if I use d-e or terminal (with --indirect-rendering) to start compiz, it's totally nondeterministic: Sometimes I get blank windows, sometimes my terminals don't update, sometimes everything just works.

Could somebody with compiz working completely try a full reinstall? I just installed feisty herd-3 last weekend and compiz is just not working although it worked perfectly until before herd-2.

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

Apart from that, maybe straces and/or debug packages will help?

[gandalfn (gandalfn)]

Can you check if you have Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" in your xorg.conf Device section. If not, can you try with it.

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

Works with XAANoOffscreenPixmaps. Thanks, Nicolas.

I guess this should be added to xorg.conf when desktop-effects are enabled. Should I reopen the bug for that package?

[Thomas Butter (tbutter)]

Since desktop-effects are enabled instantly and the changes in the xorg.conf only come into effect after restarting X this seems to be the wrong place.

[Sebastian Breier (tomcat42)]

Good point. Well, there needs to be some easy way if enabling desktop-effects should be easy. :-)

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

xserver-xorg would need to put this option in when you configure it.

[Mattias Bengtsson (benmat)]

I can confirm this bug, and that is was solved with XAANoOffscreenPixmaps.

Bug #90184 and #80734 might be dupes.