Characters destroyed see screenshot

[BertN45]

After a while all Unity generated characters are garbled, see screenshot

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: unity 5.8.0-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-22.35-generic-pae 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-22-generic-pae i686
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.0-0ubuntu4
Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: [core,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,vpswitch,snap,mousepoll,resize,place,move,wall,grid,regex,imgpng,session,gnomecompat,animation,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,workarounds,scale,expo,ezoom,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: compiz
Date: Sat Apr 7 20:41:46 2012
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: precise
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus: vboxhost, 4.1.12, 3.2.0-22-generic-pae, i686: installed
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Alpha i386 (20120201.2)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq dc7100 CMT(PP480US)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-22-generic-pae root=UUID=af8c719f-9a9c-473f-881e-d9aad93d6765 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 06/16/2004
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 786C1 v01.05
dmi.board.name: 0968h
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 2UA5310HC5
dmi.chassis.type: 6
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr786C1v01.05:bd06/16/2004:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPCompaqdc7100CMT(PP480US):pvr:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn0968h:rvr:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct6:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP Compaq dc7100 CMT(PP480US)
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.7.4-0ubuntu3
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.32-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 8.0.2-0ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 8.0.2-0ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.11.4-0ubuntu10
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.7.0-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.99~git20111219.aacbd629-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.17.0-1ubuntu4
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20111201+b5534a1-1build2

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, is that specific to Unity sessions? Does it happen often or did that happen once only?

[BertN45 (lammert-nijhof)]

It happens always, if I keep the system up for a long time. I have no
idea what causes it. I also noticed that from time to time my background
picture get shifted, it looks like small blocks of say 2 millimeters of
the picture are shifted a few millimeters to the left or right. So the
picture gets garbled in the same way. I think that is what happens to
those characters too, part of the character is shifted a few mm to the
left or right. The distortion of the background picture4 is less
frequently.

Finally sometimes my complete screen is frozen. say once a week. The
system does not respond anymore to any keyboard or mouse input and only
a 4 seconds power off helps. That seems to occur if the the dash window
is overlapping with a windows that gets changed while those windows
(dash and application) overlap. In most occasions the underlaying
windows is related to a video display.

I hope it helps, if I can help any further I'll try.

On Mon, 2012-04-23 at 22:26 +0000, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> Thank you for your bug report, is that specific to Unity sessions? Does
> it happen often or did that happen once only?
>
> ** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided => High
>
> ** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

It would be useful to see if those issues also happen in a GNOME classic session or some session different from Unity

[Andy Braben (abraben)]

As I am suffering from this bug, I will try Gnome classic under Ubuntu and report back, but I can assure you I have a seperate partition running Debian Testing/Gnome3 which has no problems at all.

Also, Unity run fine on 11.10 and 12.04.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Bert, Can you try with unity 5.12 from precise-proposed ? atleast the first character in the panel that looks broken is fixed with that version of Unity

[Andy Braben (abraben)]

I have upgraded unity to 5.12 and as soon as it was booted and I hit the
dash, the computer froze, so no, this does not fix the problem.

Regards,
Andy.

[Andy Braben (abraben)]

I have run Gnome Shell and it does not have the same problem at all. It runs fine. There is no Dash button to press to freeze the system, so it runs smoothly. No "garbled" text appears either.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for unity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Cathal Mooney (cmooney-iol)]

I just started getting this starting yesterday.... very strange!

Bert did you ever get this resolved?

Not sure what is up. Happens with Unity 3D and 2D. Will try GNOME shell this evening when I get home.

Using 12.04, upgraded to kernel 3.2.0-29 yesterday but it worked fine following that for a time. NVidia graphics card.

[Cathal Mooney (cmooney-iol)]

Ok brief update. Came home this evening to try a few things (reinstall unity, X, video drivers, stab in the dark stuff) and gather more info to post but guess what? Symptoms are gone.

Had rebooted to Win partition this morning and when booted back everything was fine. BTW error above upgraded to 3.2.0-30 yesterday not -29.

But anyway this is a very mysterious one, think my computer must have been dabbling with some hallucinogens.