Black flicker when leaving monitor

[Michał Podeszwa]

Sometimes, when moving cursor from one monitor to the other, the external monitor turns black and gets back on again.

The hardware is Dell Latitude E5470 with Docking Station and monitor connected via DisplayPort (checked both ports and happens on both of them).

Everything worked correctly on Ubuntu 16.04, but it happens on Ubuntu 16.10. Kernel 4.8.0-25-generic.

The bug isn't related to cursor only, if focus changes by alt+tab it sometimes happens as well.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1553503 This is the same bug as this one, but closed.
---
ApportVersion: 2.20.3-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: vessel 5602 F...m pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: vessel 5602 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: Unity
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=56fab9c8-7226-47b9-91cb-a2c865f81bc0
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-08-31 (47 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160719)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude E5470
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-4.8.0-25-generic.efi.signed root=/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.8.0-25.27-generic 4.8.1
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-4.8.0-25-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-4.8.0-25-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.161
Tags: yakkety
Uname: Linux 4.8.0-25-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to yakkety on 2016-10-14 (3 days ago)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip docker lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
_MarkForUpload: True
dmi.bios.date: 06/15/2016
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1.7.3
dmi.board.name: 0P88J9
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.7.3:bd06/15/2016:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE5470:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0P88J9:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct9:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude E5470
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 1634449

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

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[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Note that these are always hardware specific. You have Skylake, which is known to be broken still on released kernels. Please test latest drm-intel-next mainline build from

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

a bit more context; 4.8 attempted to fix watermark issues but regressed some, stable updates will hopefully fix them

[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

It seems to be working now. I'll test it for a day and will get back to you

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 1626935, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[Andreas Dewes (andreas-dewes)]

I also have this problem, and I don't think it's a duplicate:

* The entire external screen turns black intermittently
* The background image is not affected
* The laptop screen does not flicker

Please reopen this bug.

The issue was already fixed in 16.04 by updating to the 4.6/4.8 kernel, unfortunately it seems to pop up again after upgrading to 16.10. I updated to Kernel 4.8.4 and 4.8.0-997, which both don't solve the issue.

[Michał Podeszwa (michal-podeszwa)]

I agree it's different. However 4.8.0-997 resolved the issue for me.

I think this should be reopened as well

[Andreas Dewes (andreas-dewes)]

I tried various kernels, also 4.4.19-040419, which previously solved the problem for me, but doesn't do so now. I will try 4.8.0-997 again to see if it solves the issue. I'm on a Thinkpad X1 Carbon (first generation) with an Intel HD 5550 using a Broadwell CPU, so this bug is not limited to Skylake CPUs it seems.

[Christian Beaumont (chrisbe)]

I've been seeing this as well (currently testing on Linux Mint Cinnamon)

I have an Asus UX501V Skylake laptop, with secondary display connected via HDMI.

A little black square with a few pieces of white trash appears in the top corner of the *current* display (the display where the mouse is), every time I move the mouse to the other display. It appears and disappears instantly, as if it is there for one frame only.

Kernel is: 4.8.0-040800-generic
Primary display is Hi-DPI, secondary is 1920x1280

Also, as I type in my console window, the same square appears when I type. But only on the first key press.

I disabled the Intel driver and am running on the latest 375.10 NVIDIA driver to see if things would be better, but they aren't.

Will try to update the kernel soon, but having issues with current builds atm.

[Andreas Dewes (andreas-dewes)]

Can someone reopen this bug, please? This is clearly not a duplicate of bug #1626935.

[Andreas Dewes (andreas-dewes)]

Never mind, I removed it myself (I wasn't aware that I could do that :D)

[Jase Whipp (jason-whipp)]

Same issue here on a Dell Latitude E5470.

OS: Ubuntu 16.10
Kernel: 4.8.0-22-generic
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6600U CPU @ 2.60GHz
GPU: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 520 (rev 07)
Xorg (package version): 1:7.7+13ubuntu4

Also it's very intermittent, hard to forcefully reproduce. I was doing a test with Xenial on the same laptop earlier today and it never happened.

Also, may be related, may not be: When I first turned off mirror screens so I had the second screen, I ended up with a flickering, messed up background. To get rid of it, I had to full screen something.

[Lifepower (yunkot)]

On my new desktop machine I'm having dual monitor setup. Sometimes one of monitors gets black for a second and then shows image again - this is especially visible on logon screen. Also, when running an OpenGL application, if it starts on one specific monitor, the whole screen flickers quite badly with random rectangles starting at mouse cursor position. If same app starts on another monitor, no flashing occurs. Vulkan demo apps also don't exhibit flashing.

OS: Ubuntu 16.10 64-bit
Kernel: 4.8.0-26-generic
CPU: Intel Core i7 6700K
GPU: HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2)

I always edit my /etc/X11/xorg.conf as:

Section "Device"
   Identifier "Intel Graphics"
   Driver "intel"
   Option "TearFree" "true"
   Option "DRI" "3"
EndSection

By the way, when tried installing Xenial, it wouldn't even work with dual monitor setup, when adding above settings (works perfectly fine on Haswell desktop).

[Lifepower (yunkot)]

On my new desktop machine I'm having dual monitor setup. Sometimes one of monitors gets black for a second and then shows image again - this happens when mouse cursor goes from one display to another. Also, when running an OpenGL application, if it starts on one specific monitor, the whole screen flickers quite badly with random rectangles starting at mouse cursor position. If same app starts on another monitor, no flashing occurs. Vulkan demo apps also don't exhibit flashing. This happened when one monitor is connected to DP, while the other on HDMI. Using different connections, e.g. DP 1.2 with two monitors chained, I couldn't reproduce the flashing, but still, each of them can go black intermittently.

OS: Ubuntu 16.10 64-bit
Kernel: 4.8.0-26-generic
CPU: Intel Core i7 6700K
GPU: HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2)
Multi-monitor setup, where one monitor is in portrait orientation.

Note that I haven't experienced any of this issues on exactly same monitor setup, but Haswell 4790K setup and Xenial (Xenial on my Skylake machine doesn't work with aforementioned monitor setup at all).

[MisterZ (misterz)]

Same problem here. Using triple screen (laptop + 2 external monitors) on a Lenovo ThinkPad t460s.

Monitor on display port is turning black for 2-5 seconds on cursor movement or focus changes with alt+tab.

OS: Ubuntu 16.10 amd64
Kernel: 4.8.0-26
CPU: Intel Core i7-6600U
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 520 (Skylake GT2)

Totally related to the fact that Intel didn't make available the latest drivers for yakkety. You can't even get them with the updater because it's not mentioned in here:
https://download.01.org/gfx/ilg-config.cfg

There is simply no 16.10 repo:
https://download.01.org/gfx/repos/ubuntu/

Two possible fix I found for now:

- Use the kernel 4.6.7: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.6.7/
- Use the drm-intel-nightly kernel 4.9.0-994: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/drm-intel-nightly/
==> there is no amd64 successful build available anymore, last was 201610192310

Drawback: I don't have the linux-image-extra for those kernels so I don't have aufs for docker.

I had no issues whatsoever on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with kernel 4.4.x

[Lars Magnus Herland (zhakal)]

Asked for the 16.10 drivers from Intel and they are on it's way.
https://01.org/comment/2783
Hopefully this will fix some of the issues we are facing with this.

[Andrew (andrewkvalheim)]

For anyone else just looking for a workaround, I've had success with this arrangement. I don't really know what I'm doing, so imitate at your own risk.

Hardware:
    Dell XPS 13 9350 Developer Edition
    Cable Matters 201016
    Dell P2415Q
Distribution:
    Ubuntu 16.10
Linux 4.9 from zesty:
    $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/zesty.list
    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty-proposed main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty-security main restricted universe multiverse
    $ cat /etc/apt/preferences.d/zesty
    Package: *
    Pin: release n=zesty
    Pin-Priority: 400
    $ sudo apt install -t zesty linux-image-generic
Docker options:
    --storage-driver=overlay2

[Mihai Tonea (mihai-tonea)]

Same issue: two monitors connected.
When moving the cursor from a monitor to another, the first monitor becomes black and sometimes it remains black until I unplug and plug it again.
I have a HP EliteBook 850 G3 with Intel HD Graphics 520 (Skylake GT2).

Are there any other details I could supply in order to fix this issue?

[MisterZ (misterz)]

The latest intel drivers are available for Ubuntu 16.10 now.

https://download.01.org/gfx/repos/ubuntu/
https://download.01.org/gfx/ilg-config.cfg

After updating to stable kernel 4.8.0-30 it solved the problem for me. I don't need to use the drm-intel-nightly kernel 4.9.x anymore.

[Saleem Raza (saleem1185)]

Hello Linux Community,

I just installed Ubuntu 16.04 a couple of days ago on my new Lenovo T560 laptop, I have an other 27 inch display connected to my docking station. I am also feeling an issue with black line flickering around at random time whenever I move cursor on the Chrome.

I have dual boot system with Windows 10, everything works fine in windows 10. But in Ubuntu 16.04 I am facing this issue which is annoying. I disabled the hardware acceleration on chrome but then my screen image breaks like a old mp3 movie or distortion kind of thing at different parts of my lcd screen. But again i enabled the hardware acceleration the black line on the upper side of my monitor flickers at every random time. Its annoying.

Can some tell me, which kernel version should i switch to, to avoid this annoying issue.

Thank you so much.

BR Saleem

[beaverusiv (loomy-man)]

Same as @MisterZ, the problem is fixed for me with the latest updates.

[Saleem Raza (saleem1185)]

But @MisterZ says this "I had no issues whatsoever on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with kernel 4.4.x".

I have kernel version 4.4.0-53-generic.

[Andrew (andrewkvalheim)]

Following up with comment #32, Linux 4.8.0-30-generic from the default repositories does appear to have resolved the problem.

[Lifepower (yunkot)]

Similarly to others, after updating 4.8.0-30-generic kernel, the issue appears to be fixed on my Intel Core i7 6700K desktop.

[Christopher Barrington-Leigh (cpbl)]

I'm on a Lenovo T450s and have this problem immediately after updating to 16.10. I believe I'm running 4.8.0-34-generic kernel (standard default repos) and the problem still exists. So I'm without a workaround. If there is a fix other than default update, can someone spell it out?

[Max Goodhart (chromakode)]

I am experiencing this issue as well on 16.10 on my X1 Carbon 3rd gen (Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5600U CPU @ 2.60GHz / HD Graphics 5500 (rev 09)). Tried mainline kernels 4.9.9, 4.9.10, and 4.10.0-997-drm-intel-next, and reproduced the issue on all. Also tried pinning libdrm2/linux-firmware/xserver-xorg-* to zesty versions, as well as installing intel-microcode, which made no difference. Xorg is running the modesetting driver.

[Max Goodhart (chromakode)]

This appears to be a problem with the modesetting Xorg driver. After switching back to the intel driver (sudo cp /usr/share/doc/xserver-xorg-video-intel/xorg.conf /etc/X11/) I haven't seen this recur yet.

[Chris Pedersen (ubuntucuro.dk)]

@Max:

On Ubuntu 16.04 there's no xorg.conf in /usr/share/doc/xserver-xorg-video-intel/, only these files

changelog.Debian.gz copyright NEWS.gz README README.Debian

My xorg.conf with the bug:

Section "Device"
   Identifier "Intel Graphics"
   Driver "intel"
   Option "AccelMethod" "uxa"
EndSection

This is on a Thinkpad X201.

Any way to get around this bug?

[Jeremy LaCroix (j-jlacroix)]

I now have this problem ever since the HWE kernel has been installed in 16.04.2.

[Chris Pedersen (ubuntucuro.dk)]

This is likely a problem with the power saving mode in the kernel driver i915.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/intel_graphics

I have created a file i915.conf in /etc/modprobe.d/

contents of i915.conf:

options i915 enable_rc6=0

then the problem has disappeared for me.

[plafue (plafue)]

I followed Max Goodman's suggestion (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1634449/comments/42) and that fixed it for me as well.

[cement_head (andorjkiss)]

I also found this bug using the HWE stack.

System76 Lemur 6 (i7-6500U CPU Skylake GT2 HD520) running 16.04.3 LTS

Flicker occurs on return from black monitor to screens after screen has been turned off. Worse with a second monitor plugged in. Resolution is to click on the workplace switcher and then select a screen (1/4).