Very dark interface when launcher on secondary monitor

[Luis Alberto Pabón]

I switched back to FF when Quantum came out, this is why I hadn't realised this until today that I had to use hangouts in Chromium.

For some reason, it's like gamma for the Chromium windows is dialled almost all the way down when hardware acceleration is enabled. Please see screenshots. The "chromium-no-hw-accel.png" screenshot shows the same colours as Firefox and Qupzilla.

I've since tried on other browsers using chromium to the same effect:
  * Google Chrome 65.0.3325.146
  * Opera 51.0.2830.55
  * Chromium 64.0.3282.167-0ubuntu0.17.10.1 (as per bug report).

This happens on intel HD630 graphics. I have a bumblebee/bbswitch set up but it seems unable to boot Chromium at all with HW on.

I haven't been able however to see the same stuff on Electron apps though (VS Code and Slack).

My setup:

  * XPS 9560
  * Bumblebee / bbswitch set up
  * i7-7700HQ / Intel HD630
  * Ubuntu 17.10
  * Unity 7
  * Kernel 4.13.0-36-generic

~ cat /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

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

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: chromium-browser 64.0.3282.167-0ubuntu0.17.10.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-36.40-generic 4.13.13
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-36-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.7
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity:Unity7:ubuntu
DRM.card0-DP-1:
 enabled: enabled
 dpms: On
 status: connected
 edid-base64: AP///////wAQrG2gVVZUMB8VAQMONR546rsEoVlVnigNUFSlSwBxT4GA0cABAQEBAQEBAQEBAjqAGHE4LUBYLEUAEyshAAAeAAAA/wBOUlBQNTE3VTBUVlUKAAAA/ABERUxMIFAyNDExSAogAAAA/QA4TB5TEQAKICAgICAgABQ=
 modes: 1920x1080 1280x1024 1280x1024 1152x864 1024x768 1024x768 800x600 800x600 640x480 640x480 720x400
DRM.card0-DP-2:
 enabled: disabled
 dpms: Off
 status: disconnected
 edid-base64:
 modes:
DRM.card0-HDMI-A-1:
 enabled: disabled
 dpms: Off
 status: disconnected
 edid-base64:
 modes:
DRM.card0-HDMI-A-2:
 enabled: disabled
 dpms: Off
 status: disconnected
 edid-base64:
 modes:
DRM.card0-eDP-1:
 enabled: enabled
 dpms: On
 status: connected
 edid-base64: AP///////wBNEHYUAAAAADEaAQSlIxN4DmYap1Q0vCULS1cAAAABAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBTdAAoPBwPoAwIDUAWsIQAAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/gBZMlhORIBMUTE1NkQxAAAAAAACQQMoABIAAAsBCiAgAAY=
 modes: 3840x2160
Date: Thu Mar 8 16:08:08 2018
Desktop-Session:
 'unity'
 '/etc/xdg/xdg-unity:/etc/xdg/xdg-unity:/etc/xdg:/usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kf5-settings'
 '/home/luis/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/:/usr/share/unity:/usr/share/unity:/home/luis/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share:/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/desktop'
DetectedPlugins:

Env:
 'None'
 'None'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-11-30 (97 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Release amd64 (20171018)
Load-Avg-1min: 0.34
Load-Processes-Running-Percent: 0.1%
MachineType: Dell Inc. XPS 15 9560
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.13.0-36-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=979f134e-10a9-41ac-86cb-67c1e8295aaf ro quiet splash acpi_rev_override=5 pci=nommconf vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 01/25/2018
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1.7.1
dmi.board.name: 05FFDN
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.7.1:bd01/25/2018:svnDellInc.:pnXPS159560:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn05FFDN:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.family: XPS
dmi.product.name: XPS 15 9560
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
etcconfigcpepperflashpluginnonfree:
 flashso="/usr/lib/pepperflashplugin-nonfree/libpepflashplayer.so"
 flashversion=`strings $flashso 2> /dev/null | grep LNX | cut -d ' ' -f 2 | sed -e "s/,/./g"`
 CHROMIUM_FLAGS="$CHROMIUM_FLAGS --ppapi-flash-path=$flashso --ppapi-flash-version=$flashversion"
modified.conffile..etc.default.chromium-browser: [deleted]

[Luis Alberto Pabón (copong)]

Also I'm observing the same thing when opening photos (eg the screenshots above) with Gnome Image Viewer 3.26.

[Luis Alberto Pabón (copong)]

Well, I'll be absolutely damned.

I created a new user and initially started in gnome wayland. This issue wasn't present on xwayland. I then reset the user, and logged into gnome xorg. No problem in there either.

I reset the user and logged into Unity 7. Problem wasn't there. Initially.

To cut a long story short, this happens on Unity 7 when the launcher has been configured to show on a monitor that's not the primary (eg built in desktop display).

Steps to reproduce:
  * Connect a second screen
  * Log into unity
  * Configure a dark theme (not totally black) - arc-dark is very good as when the glitch happens you can really tell the difference
  * Open chromium - looks normal and themed.
  * Close chromium
  * Open the display tool, set the launcher placement on the secondary monitor
  * Open chromium - you'll see it looks way darker now

This is at least on my setup.

I can reproduce this as well on my main account. I'll try on a different laptop I have at home.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Per OP comment, this isn't chromium-specific (gnome image viewer also affected).
Re-targetting the bug at unity.