Nothing on screen updates other than cursor when moving window

[Carey Underwood]

When moving a window, the screen doesn't update except for the mouse cursor if I move the cursor more than ~20 pixels per second, until I slow/stop. If I continue to move the window back and forth continuously, the screen will never update.

Occasionally a new window will have fluid movement, but that goes away under many different circumstances (alt-tabbing to it, having it touch an edge of the screen while moving it, etc), at which point it acquires the taint, and will never move smoothly again (i.e., after a minimize/restore).

This occurs with or without sync-on-vblank.

This still occurs after updating from the latest in -proposed and rebooting; it seemed like some of the recently fixed bugs regarding lazy-positioning in the move plugin might have also fixed this, but evidently not.

Before updating to -proposed, I compiled a version of the move plugin with an instrumented moveHandleMotionEvent which logged which branch was being invoked of:

     if (ms->optionGetLazyPositioning () &&
       ms->hasCompositing &&
       !MoveWindow::get (ms->w)->mLocked)
     {
       /* FIXME: This form of lazy positioning is broken and should
          be replaced asap. Current code exists just to avoid a
          major performance regression in the 0.5.2 release. */
       w->serverGeometry ().setX (w->geometry ().x ());
       w->serverGeometry ().setY (w->geometry ().y ());
     }
     else
     {
       w->syncPosition ();
     }

Windows used the first branch when moving smoothly, but _only_ the second branch once they had been "tainted". I haven't repeated the test with the code in -proposed, although I believe this was reworked somewhat there.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: compiz 1:0.9.6+bzr20110929-0ubuntu5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,mousepoll,wall,place,compiztoolbox,move,resize,imgpng,regex,gnomecompat,snap,grid,vpswitch,animation,session,workarounds,expo,ezoom,staticswitcher,fade,scale,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: compiz
Date: Fri Oct 14 12:18:38 2011
DistUpgraded: Log time: 2011-10-07 04:59:03.351026
DistroCodename: oneiric
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus: bcmwl, 5.100.82.38+bdcom, 3.0.0-12-generic, i686: installed
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:a011] (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:83ac]
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:83ac]
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110427.1)
MachineType: ASUSTeK Computer INC. 1015PEM
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=5f4837ae-14eb-4df6-9b43-665b25da1b9c ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: compiz
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-07 (7 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 11/08/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 0903
dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: 1015PE
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.board.version: x.xx
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 0x00000000
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.chassis.version: x.x
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr0903:bd11/08/2010:svnASUSTeKComputerINC.:pn1015PEM:pvrx.x:rvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:rn1015PE:rvrx.xx:cvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:ct10:cvrx.x:
dmi.product.name: 1015PEM
dmi.product.version: x.x
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.6+bzr20110929-0ubuntu5
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.26-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg: xserver-xorg 1:7.6+7ubuntu7
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.6.0-1ubuntu13
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.99~git20110811.g93fc084-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.15.901-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20110411+8378443-1

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Dennis-martin-herbers (dennis-martin-herbers)]

I can confirm this with my AMD Radeon HD 6870 @ Catalyst. Works fine with my AMD Fusion E-350 @ Catalyst.

[Matt Pharoah (mpharoah)]

I can confirm this with an nVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M. It makes Compiz pretty much unusable.

[Matt Pharoah (mpharoah)]

I found a good alternative to compiz until this gets fixed.

Use Metacity, and instead cairo-compmgr from here:
https://launchpad.net/~gekkio/+archive/cairo-compmgr

(It's for Maverick, but it seems to be working perfectly on Oneiric so far. Just edit the repository line to say maverick instead of oneiric after adding it, and it will show up)

cairo-compmgr isn't stand-alone- it adds onto Metacity but it doesn't have the bugs that xcompmgr has, and it supports effects that you can customize like compiz.

[Matt Pharoah (mpharoah)]

Sorry for the triple post, but HOLY CRAP I FIGURED IT OUT after lots of searching.

I noticed that the problem only occurred when moving windows with my MOUSE, not with my TOUCHPAD.

The problem is with mouse polling. Here's the fix:

1) Open /etc/modules with your favourite editor.
2) Add the following to the end of the file:
-r usbhid
usbhid mousepoll=10
3) Reboot

[Achim (ach1m)]

Exüerance, nop your "trick" doesn't work for me.

[Matt Pharoah (mpharoah)]

Huh, I've discovered that this fix only seems to work on ONE of my USB ports, and I can't figure out how to get it to work on all of them. Weird.