Horizontal white lines appear messing the screen display after upgrading to Kubuntu 15.10 a computer with Intel Graphics hardware

[Mishal]

Output of lspci command:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 3 (rev 01)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 4 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 01)

I open Firefox and after some minutes using it, suddenly the screen display is "visually damaged" by a lot of very thin horizontal white lines. This began to happen after upgrading to Kubuntu 15.10 and someone via IRC suggested me this workaround: Go to KDE System Settings -> Display configuration -> Compositor -> Tearing prevention (vsync) = set to 'never'; I did that and by fortune it worked!

After this bug is reviewed and solved, I would like to restore the Tearing prevention (vsync) setting to "Automatic" again.

Thanks in advance for attending this.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: i965-va-driver 1.6.0-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-16.19-generic 4.2.3
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-16-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Sun Oct 25 16:28:21 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-02-14 (253 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 14.10 "Utopic Unicorn" - Release amd64 (20141022.1)
SourcePackage: intel-vaapi-driver
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mishal (mishal-strogoff)]

After about 1 hour working fine, the failure is present again, so the previous workaround of setting Tearing prevention (vsync) to 'never' no longer worked. I experimented again with some display settings and found that setting Rendering Engine to XRender, instead of OpenGL 2.0 or OpenGL 3.1 solves the failure, at least for now.

[Mishal (mishal-strogoff)]

After another 1 hour working fine using XRender, again it attempted to fail for a while, but it recovered when I pressed the Alt+Tab keyboard combination. The log file /var/log/syslog has these entries:

Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820045] [drm] stuck on render ring
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820750] [drm] GPU HANG: ecode 3:0:0x7f7fffc1, in Xorg [2616], reason: Ring hung, action: reset
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820836] ------------[ cut here ]------------
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820884] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 4782 at /build/linux-AxjFAn/linux-4.2.0/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c:3294 intel_crtc_wait_for_pending_flips+0x192/0x230 [i915]()
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820887] WARN_ON(ret)
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820889] Modules linked in: pci_stub vboxpci(OE) vboxnetadp(OE) vboxnetflt(OE) vboxdrv(OE) gpio_ich input_leds joydev snd_hda_codec_realtek snd_hda_codec_generic snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec snd_hda_core snd_hwdep snd_pcm coretemp snd_seq_midi snd_seq_midi_event snd_rawmidi serio_raw lpc_ich snd_seq snd_seq_device snd_timer snd shpchp soundcore mac_hid 8250_fintek parport_pc ppdev lp parport autofs4 hid_generic usbhid hid psmouse i915 pata_acpi video i2c_algo_bit drm_kms_helper r8169 drm mii
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820937] CPU: 1 PID: 4782 Comm: kworker/u8:2 Tainted: G W OE 4.2.0-16-generic #19-Ubuntu
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820939] Hardware name: /D945GCNL, BIOS NL94510J.86A.0017.2007.0828.1137 08/28/2007
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820964] Workqueue: i915-hangcheck i915_hangcheck_elapsed [i915]
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820967] 0000000000000000 0000000039c9a788 ffff880068a87a78 ffffffff817e8c09
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820972] 0000000000000000 ffff880068a87ad0 ffff880068a87ab8 ffffffff8107b3c6
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820975] ffff880068a87ab8 ffff880035a50000 0000000000000001 ffff8800358b7000
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820979] Call Trace:
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820988] [<ffffffff817e8c09>] dump_stack+0x45/0x57
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820993] [<ffffffff8107b3c6>] warn_slowpath_common+0x86/0xc0
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.820997] [<ffffffff8107b455>] warn_slowpath_fmt+0x55/0x70
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.821019] [<ffffffffc012e6fd>] ? i915_gem_object_wait_rendering+0x6d/0xc0 [i915]
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.821044] [<ffffffffc0170b62>] intel_crtc_wait_for_pending_flips+0x192/0x230 [i915]
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.821069] [<ffffffffc0026be0>] ? drm_modeset_lock_all_crtcs+0x90/0xa0 [drm]
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.821095] [<ffffffffc0171f62>] intel_crtc_disable_planes+0x32/0x100 [i915]
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.821120] [<ffffffffc01720f5>] intel_prepare_reset+0x75/0x90 [i915]
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.821143] [<ffffffffc013e3b2>] i915_reset_and_wakeup+0xe2/0x170 [i915]
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostname kernel: [12166.821167] [<ffffffffc0142f3a>] i915_handle_error+0xca/0x660 [i915]
Oct 25 18:32:53 hostn...

[Mishal (mishal-strogoff)]

I recently created a bug report in the FreeDesktop website related to DRI component. It's available at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92716

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Mishal, thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command only once, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:
apport-collect 1509868

[Mishal (mishal-strogoff)]

Hi!

You're welcome. At the end of December 2015, I found a workaround to bypass this error, which I described in the bug report I sent to FreeDesktop, available at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92716 as I noted in a previous comment.

Nonetheless, I'll execute the command you asked for, hoping that it could help to solve the root cause of the problem.

[Mishal (mishal-strogoff)]

I tried to submit the required debugging information by running the command "sudo apport-collect 1509868", but it failed showing the following output:

dpkg-query: no packages found matching linux
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/apport/apport-kde", line 530, in <module>
    sys.exit(UserInterface.run_argv())
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/ui.py", line 653, in run_argv
    return self.run_update_report()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/ui.py", line 569, in run_update_report
    response = self.ui_present_report_details(allowed_to_report)
  File "/usr/share/apport/apport-kde", line 367, in ui_present_report_details
    desktop_info)
  File "/usr/share/apport/apport-kde", line 184, in __init__
    self.ui.ui_update_view(self)
  File "/usr/share/apport/apport-kde", line 358, in ui_update_view
    QTreeWidgetItem(keyitem, [str(line)])
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xf3' in position 117: ordinal not in range(128)