[nvidia] Blank windows when you Minimize, then Restore with Alt-` (Alt-Grave)

[Edward Donovan]

Steps to reproduce, under Unity 3D with the Nvidia proprietary driver (on my machine, GeForce GT 240):

1. Minimize a window, by any means, mouse or keyboard.

2. Restore it with the Alt-` key. You can Alt-Tab through the window spread, Alt-` just needs to be the last key you hit, to activate the window.

3. Repeat if necessary. It does not happen every time, for me, but generally within three tries.

    * Once you have done this, window will show as blank, in the spread.

    * I think for some similar bugs, the window would be blank in the spread, right after being minimized. Not the case, here.

4. Un-maximize the window, and the content will re-appear.

    * Sometimes, it will reappear under other conditions. I don't have a strict definition for this yet. These operations restored the content with other apps, but not with Firefox:

       Minimize again, then restore with Alt-Tab or the mouse. I was able to repeat this with Totem, just now.

       Switch to another window of the same app, then back. I was able to repeat this with EoG.

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Bug 938658 was also about blank windows when restoring from minimized. The conditions were a bit different. To help triage this, here are a couple comments from there -- one by the maintainer, and one from another user confirming this problem.

Didier Roche (didrocks) wrote on 2012-04-24: #54

  @Edward: I suggest that you open another bug report describing exactly the condition for the remaining issues (quite a lot of noise in that bug report). I'll then have a look at it and see if it can be worked for a stable release update :)

Rainer Rohde (rainer-rohde) wrote on 2012-05-02: #57

  In-line with comment #56, I can confirm that the Alt-` (grave accent) window switch produces a blank window several times in a row, while Alt-Tab and maximizing by mouse works just fine.

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DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: unity 5.12-0ubuntu1
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64

[Edward Donovan (edward.donovan)]

I've added nvidia-drivers-ubuntu to the report, just imitating what I've seen didrocks do in the past. Please undo if wrong. Thanks.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Many different white/blank window bugs specifically with the nvidia driver have all been marked as duplicates of bug 729979. They are not all the same, but we think/hope the fix might be the same.

I suggest this bug should be a duplicate of bug 729979 unless proven otherwise.

[Edward Donovan (edward.donovan)]

Thanks, Daniel. Now that bug 729979 is marked fixed, I can (unfortunately) still reproduce this. Maybe I will comment there, later, and see if anyone else will try to confirm this behavior on their machines. I'll try to let the Xorg 1.12 updates arrive, first, just in case.

[Edward Donovan (edward.donovan)]

Oh, bug 729979 is clarified as not-fixed. I will mark this as a dupe then. I am not using the closed nvidia driver on a regular basis anymore (yay), but maybe I'll be able to re-test this issue, some time. Thanks.

[ThawM (thawm91)]

Hey all, i found a fix for this problem, maybe this will give you more informations to fix the bug.. the only thing i needed to disable to fix the black window problem is the "Show live previews of windows in the Switcher" in the Switcher tab in Ubuntu Unity Plugin in CCSM. Hope i helped!

[Alexander (aheihachi)]

I had to set animation to "none" in CCSM -> Animations -> Unminimize Animation.
Do they plan to fix this bug?