Chrome on Ubuntu, press F11 for full screen and the message flashes continuously

[Barry Neilsen]

After pressing F11 there's a text box at the top of the screen with the message Press F11 to Exit, etc. Usually this goes away by itself after a few seconds. Now it flashes continuously and won't clear. Pressing F11 again quits full screen mode, but the tab is still flashing in some way and the whole browser is now unstable and not usable.

Chrome: Version 86.0.4240.75 (Official Build) (64-bit)
System: Ubuntu Studio,
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
Release: 20.04
Codename: focal

upstream bug: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1142850

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[zasran (erik-zasran)]

Same here, it stared in Chrome maybe a week ago but now it also affects Chromium.

In addition to that opening a new window results in a window that does not update its content, there is just snapshot of whatever was on the screen below the window. Usually maximize/restore fixes it.

Ubuntu 20.04 kernel 5.4.0-52-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 15 10:57:00 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Chromium 86.0.4240.75 snap

Google Chrome 86.0.4240.75

Intel Corporation Iris Plus Graphics 655, using xorg 'intel' driver, using xorg because Wayland crashes on my system.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

That sounds like a graphics driver issue, maybe. To everyone affected, could you please open "chrome://gpu" in a new tab, save that web page and share it here? Thanks!

[Barry Neilsen (bn701)]

Here's my chrome://gpu output (with acceleration enabled, if that makes a difference):

Graphics Feature Status
Canvas: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
Compositing: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Out-of-process Rasterization: Disabled
OpenGL: Disabled
Hardware Protected Video Decode: Disabled
Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Skia Renderer: Enabled
Video Decode: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Vulkan: Disabled
WebGL: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
WebGL2: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
Problems Detected
Gpu compositing has been disabled, either via blocklist, about:flags or the command line. The browser will fall back to software compositing and hardware acceleration will be unavailable.
Disabled Features: gpu_compositing
Accelerated video decode has been disabled, either via blocklist, about:flags or the command line.
Disabled Features: video_decode
Version Information
Data exported 2020-10-20T16:06:56.191Z
Chrome version Chrome/86.0.4240.75
Operating system Linux 5.4.0-51-lowlatency
Software rendering list URL https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/c69c33933bfc72a159aceb4aeca939eb0087416c/gpu/config/software_rendering_list.json
Driver bug list URL https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/c69c33933bfc72a159aceb4aeca939eb0087416c/gpu/config/gpu_driver_bug_list.json
ANGLE commit id 8fe030942169
2D graphics backend Skia/86 fe61f1806d406858a2ed399b6dfeef1c40d06284
Command Line /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end
Driver Information
Initialization time 50
In-process GPU false
Passthrough Command Decoder false
Sandboxed true
GPU0 VENDOR= 0x8086 [Google Inc.], DEVICE=0x0166 [Google SwiftShader] *ACTIVE*
Optimus false
AMD switchable false
Driver vendor
Driver version 4.1.0.7
GPU CUDA compute capability major version 0
Pixel shader version 3.00
Vertex shader version 3.00
Max. MSAA samples 4
Machine model name
Machine model version
GL_VENDOR Google Inc.
GL_RENDERER Google SwiftShader
GL_VERSION OpenGL ES 3.0 SwiftShader 4.1.0.7
GL_EXTENSIONS GL_OES_compressed_ETC1_RGB8_texture GL_OES_depth24 GL_OES_depth32 GL_OES_depth_texture GL_OES_depth_texture_cube_map GL_OES_EGL_image GL_OES_EGL_image_external GL_OES_EGL_image_external_essl3 GL_OES_EGL_sync GL_OES_element_index_uint GL_OES_fbo_render_mipmap GL_OES_framebuffer_object GL_OES_packed_depth_stencil GL_OES_rgb8_rgba8 GL_OES_standard_derivatives GL_OES_surfaceless_context GL_OES_texture_float GL_OES_texture_float_linear GL_OES_texture_half_float GL_OES_texture_half_float_linear GL_OES_texture_npot GL_OES_texture_3D GL_OES_vertex_array_object GL_OES_vertex_half_float GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_color_buffer_float GL_EXT_color_buffer_half_float GL_EXT_draw_buffers GL_EXT_float_blend GL_EXT_instanced_arrays GL_EXT_occlusion_query_boolean GL_EXT_read_format_bgra GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1 GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_format_BGRA8888 GL_EXT_texture_rg GL_ARB_texture_rectangle GL_ANGLE_framebuffer_blit GL_ANGLE_framebuffer_multisample GL_ANGLE_instanced_arrays GL_ANGLE_texture_compression_dx...

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

That output is from /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable (for the record).

This is relevant:

Problems Detected
Gpu compositing has been disabled, either via blocklist, about:flags or the command line. The browser will fall back to software compositing and hardware acceleration will be unavailable.
Disabled Features: gpu_compositing

GPU0 VENDOR= 0x8086 [Google Inc.], DEVICE=0x0166 [Google SwiftShader] *ACTIVE*

Do other applications support hardware acceleration on your machine?
Can you share the output of the glxinfo command (from the mesa-utils package)?

[Barry Neilsen (bn701)]

glxinfo output is attached.

I'm not routinely running anything that needs acceleration. I'm a musician/programmer so primarily audio and code, not even games come to think of it. I did do some work in Blender over a year ago, but I only used this machine for extra rendering work (using the CPU, not the GPU). I just fired it up again and it's behaving properly, though I've no idea whether it's using acceleration.

By the way, the Software Update package is reporting that a new version of Google Chrome is available. Would it be helpful if I held off updating it until you've got to the bottom of this. Or shall I go ahead and check behaviour in the latest version?

B

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

This is relevant:

Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: Intel Open Source Technology Center (0x8086)
    Device: Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2) (0x166)
    Version: 20.0.8

My guess is that Google is blacklisting this GPU, for some reason.

Can you try running chrome/chromium with --ignore-gpu-blacklist, and let us know whether chrome://gpu reports that compositing is hardware-accelerated?

[Barry Neilsen (bn701)]

Here are the first sections of chrome://gpu output without and with --ignore-gpu-blacklist. The only difference is in Hardware Protected Video Decode which is 'Unavailable' in the first case and 'Hardware Accelerated' in the second.

Note, also, that both of these lists are different to the output that I posted a couple of days ago where, despite my having written that Hardware Acceleration was turned on in chrome://settings, I believe it was still actually turned off when I captured the output. (I've a feeling that although I changed the setting I didn't click the Relaunch button.) Please accept my apologies for this, I hope it hasn't caused much confusion. For confirmation, I've reattached the full set of chrome://gpu output captured without --ignore-gpu-blacklist.

B

> /opt/google/chrome/chrome

Graphics Feature Status
Canvas: Hardware accelerated
Compositing: Hardware accelerated
Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Out-of-process Rasterization: Disabled
OpenGL: Enabled
Hardware Protected Video Decode: Unavailable
Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Skia Renderer: Enabled
Video Decode: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Vulkan: Disabled
WebGL: Hardware accelerated
WebGL2: Hardware accelerated

> /opt/google/chrome/chrome --ignore-gpu-blacklist

Graphics Feature Status
Canvas: Hardware accelerated
Compositing: Hardware accelerated
Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Out-of-process Rasterization: Disabled
OpenGL: Enabled
Hardware Protected Video Decode: Hardware accelerated
Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Skia Renderer: Enabled
Video Decode: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Vulkan: Disabled
WebGL: Hardware accelerated
WebGL2: Hardware accelerated

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Ok, so now your GPU isn't blacklisted anymore, regardless of the command-line switches. Does the bug with the fullscreen popover still manifest itself?

[Barry Neilsen (bn701)]

Yes, there are still problems regardless of the command line switches, as long as "Settings/Use hardware acceleration ..." is turned on. (Go full screen and we have an unstable display with elements that flash or alternate between one position and another. Opening 'Help/Report an issue' also gives unreliable results, sometimes with the Cancel and Save buttons flashing, too.)

B

[Barry Neilsen (bn701)]

And still present after updating to Chrome/86.0.4240.111.

B

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Seeing that chromium and chrome appear to be similarly affected, this sounds like an upstream bug. Would you mind filing it at https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list (upstream only cares about chrome, so use that to provide data for the bug), and sharing the link to it here?

Thanks!

[Barry Neilsen (bn701)]

Filed ...

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1142850

:)

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Thanks Barry!