Ubuntu
mesa package

Unity launcher disappears on mouse-over launcher

Bug #1741925 reported by Bruce MacAlister on 2018-01-08

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #1735594: [regression] compiz crashes after Mesa upgrade. Edit Remove

This bug affects 1 person

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	mesa (Ubuntu)	New	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

Move the mouse over the launcher and the EVERYTHING on the desktop disappears for a few seconds. Only the wallpaper remains. Failed immediately after the latest update (installed by me on 5 Jan 2018) and a reboot. Reboot doesn't help.

Launcher and the other desktop displays return after a 10 to 30 second pause. No disk activity is observed during recovery.

"ClassicMenu Indicator" is installed and it is the only way to start an application.

Executing the bug and then immediately examining all the /var/log logs showed no recorded error or incident in any log.

uname -a = Linux bruce-Latitude-D630 4.10.0-42-generic #46~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Mon Dec 4 15:57:59 UTC 2017 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux

Abridged hardware list from sudo lshw

    description: Portable Computer
    product: Latitude D630
    vendor: Dell Inc.
    width: 32 bits
    capabilities: smbios-2.4 dmi-2.4
    configuration: boot=normal chassis=portable uuid=44454C4C-6E00-1039-8032-B2C04F376831
  *-core
       description: Motherboard
       vendor: Dell Inc.
       physical id: 0
       serial: .2n927h1. .
     *-firmware
          description: BIOS
          vendor: Dell Inc.
          physical id: 0
          version: A12
          date: 06/20/2008
          size: 64KiB
          capacity: 1984KiB
          capabilities: isa pci pcmcia pnp upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect int13floppy720 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer int10video acpi usb agp smartbattery biosbootspecification netboot
     *-cpu
          description: CPU
          product: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7250 @ 2.00GHz
          vendor: Intel Corp.
          physical id: 400
          bus info: cpu@0
          version: 6.15.13
          serial: 0000-06FD-0000-0000-0000-0000
          slot: Microprocessor
          size: 2GHz
          capacity: 2001MHz
          width: 64 bits
          clock: 200MHz
          capabilities: x86-64 fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority dtherm ida cpufreq
          configuration: cores=2 enabledcores=2 id=0 threads=2
        *-cache:0
             description: L1 cache
             physical id: 700
             size: 32KiB
             capacity: 32KiB
             capabilities: internal write-back data
             configuration: level=1
        *-cache:1
             description: L2 cache
             physical id: 701
             size: 2MiB
             capacity: 2MiB
             clock: 66MHz (15.0ns)
             capabilities: pipeline-burst internal varies unified
             configuration: level=2
        *-logicalcpu:0
             description: Logical CPU
             physical id: 0.1
             width: 64 bits
             capabilities: logical
        *-logicalcpu:1
             description: Logical CPU
             physical id: 0.2
             width: 64 bits
             capabilities: logical
     *-memory
          description: System Memory
          physical id: 1000
          slot: System board or motherboard
          size: 2GiB
        *-bank:0
             description: DIMM DDR Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
             product: V916765G24QCFW-F5
             vendor: ProMOS/Mosel Vitelic
             physical id: 0
             serial: 07B02E7C
             slot: DIMM_A
             size: 1GiB
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 667MHz (1.5ns)
        *-bank:1
             description: DIMM DDR Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
             product: V916765G24QCFW-F5
             vendor: ProMOS/Mosel Vitelic
             physical id: 1
             serial: E9AE2E7D
             slot: DIMM_B
             size: 1GiB
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 667MHz (1.5ns)
     *-pci
          description: Host bridge
          product: Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub
          vendor: Intel Corporation
          physical id: 100
          bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
          version: 0c
          width: 32 bits
          clock: 33MHz

Tags:

Revision history for this message

Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton) wrote on 2018-01-08:

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1741925/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

tags:

added: bot-comment

Brian Murray (brian-murray) on 2018-01-08

affects:

ubuntu → mesa (Ubuntu)

Revision history for this message

Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton) wrote on 2018-01-09:

This is a dupe of 1735594, but since I have a similar laptop which doesn't suffer from this issue, let's keep it separate for now.

Do you have an additional monitor connected? What is the display resolution you use? Do things still crash if you change the resolution to something smaller than the native one?

Revision history for this message

Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton) wrote on 2018-01-09:

I was able to reproduce after all, marking as a dupe

Revision history for this message

Bruce MacAlister (w4bru) wrote on 2018-01-09:

before launcher failur Edit (1.6 MiB, image/png)

Download full text (4.3 KiB)

Answers:
Do you have an additional monitor connected? NO What is the display resolution you use? 12??X800 Do things still crash if you change the resolution to something smaller than the native NO

Thank you for your direction. In attempt to narrow the failure down I examined the two visible symptoms:
1. Mouse-over the launcher causes the launcher and the task line at the top to disappear
2. There appears to be a recovery time of 10 to 30 seconds and then the launcher and all reappear
The most likely culprits appear to be:
1. Mouse software; I assume that is part of the Lunux kernel. I was unable to find any information on the Ubuntu software stack or architecture so I could not identify the process(es) used for the mouse.
To evaluate mouse malfunction I (a) tried both the laptop’s mouse-pad and a USB mouse with no difference in behavior and (b) did a mouse-over of some Linux apps where the button or widget reacts to a mouse-over; the mouse-over behavior worked as expected.
My conclusion is that the mouse and the mouse code is behaving properly.
2. Launcher code; without a software stack the name of the process is unknowable. Doing a query in the System Monitor gave a likely “api-spi-bus-launcher” (see that attached image, “Launcher properties 2018-01-09 12-44-12.png”).
An strace on that pid
sudo strace -p 1488 -b execve -o launcher.txt
[sudo] password for bruce:
yielded
   restart_syscall(<... resuming interrupted poll ...>) = 1
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16) = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1) = 1 ([{fd=3, revents=POLLIN}])
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16) = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1) = 1 ([{fd=3, revents=POLLIN}])
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16) = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1
I do not know how to read strace output. The “restart_syscall” line looks suspiciously like an error recover execution.
The launcher disappearance behavior is captured in two images, before the failure “Launcher failure a 2018-01-09 12-23-23.png” and during recovery “Launcher failure b 2018-01-09 12-24-39.png”. They are attached.?field.comment=Answers:
Do you have an additional monitor connected? NO What is the display resolution you use? 12??X800 Do things still crash if you change the resolution to something smaller than the native NO

Answers:
Do you have an additional monitor connected? NO What is the display resolution you use? 12??X800 Do things still crash if you change the resolution to something smaller than the native NO

Thank you for your direction. In attempt to narrow the failure down I examined the two visible symptoms:
1. Mouse-over the launcher causes the launcher and the task line at the top to disappear
2. There appears to be a recovery time of 10 to 30 seconds and then the launcher and all reappear
The most likely culprits appear to be:
1. Mouse software; I assume that is part of the Lunux kernel. I was unable to find any information on the Ubuntu software stack or architecture so I could not identify the process(es) used for the mouse.
To evaluate mouse malfunction I (a) tried both the laptop’s mouse-pad and a USB mouse with no difference in behavior and (b) did a mouse-over of some Linux apps where the button or widget reacts to a mouse-over; the mouse-over behavior worked as expected.
My conclusion is that the mouse and the mouse code is behaving properly.
2. Launcher code; without a software stack the name of the process is unknowable. Doing a query in the System Monitor gave a likely “api-spi-bus-launcher” (see that attached image, “Launcher properties  2018-01-09 12-44-12.png”).
An strace on that pid
	sudo strace -p 1488 -b execve -o launcher.txt
	[sudo] password for bruce: 
yielded
   restart_syscall(<... resuming interrupted poll ...>) = 1
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16)         = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1) = 1 ([{fd=3, revents=POLLIN}])
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16)         = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1) = 1 ([{fd=3, revents=POLLIN}])
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16)         = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1
I do not know how to read strace output. The “restart_syscall” line looks suspiciously like an error recover execution.
The launcher disappearance behavior is captured in two images, before the failure “Launcher failure a 2018-01-09 12-23-23.png” and during recovery “Launcher failure b 2018-01-09 12-24-39.png”. They are attached.?field.comment=Answers:
Do you have an additional monitor connected? NO What is the display resolution you use? 12??X800 Do things still crash if you change the resolution to something smaller than the native NO

Thank you for your direction. In attempt to narrow the failure down I examined the two visible symptoms:
1. Mouse-over the launcher causes the launcher and the task line at the top to disappear
2. There appears to be a recovery time of 10 to 30 seconds and then the launcher and all reappear
The most likely culprits appear to be:
1. Mouse software; I assume that is part of the Lunux kernel. I was unable to find any information on the Ubuntu software stack or architecture so I could not identify the process(es) used for the mouse.
To evaluate mouse malfunction I (a) tried both the laptop’s mouse-pad and a USB mouse with no difference in behavior and (b) did a mouse-over of some Linux apps where the button or widget reacts to a mouse-over; the mouse-over behavior worked as expected.
My conclusion is that the mouse and the mouse code is behaving properly.
2. Launcher code; without a software stack the name of the process is unknowable. Doing a query in the System Monitor gave a likely “api-spi-bus-launcher” (see that attached image, “Launcher properties  2018-01-09 12-44-12.png”).
An strace on that pid
	sudo strace -p 1488 -b execve -o launcher.txt
	[sudo] password for bruce: 
yielded
   restart_syscall(<... resuming interrupted poll ...>) = 1
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16)         = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1) = 1 ([{fd=3, revents=POLLIN}])
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16)         = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1) = 1 ([{fd=3, revents=POLLIN}])
   read(3, "\2\0\0\0\0\0\0\0", 16)         = 8
   poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}], 2, -1
I do not know how to read strace output. The “restart_syscall” line looks suspiciously like an error recover execution.
The launcher disappearance behavior is captured in two images, before the failure “Launcher failure a 2018-01-09 12-23-23.png” and during recovery “Launcher failure b 2018-01-09 12-24-39.png”. They are attached.

Revision history for this message

Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton) wrote on 2018-01-09:

no need to debug anymore, the issue is well known by now and 1735594 has more information, you should have received my emails about it

Revision history for this message

Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton) wrote on 2018-01-09:

not emails but replies/edits to that bug