White boxes instead of shadows on Intel 945 (-intel driver)

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical)]

Binary package hint: compiz

Instead of shadows around items, I see a white box.

This is on an Intel 945 graphics chip with the -intel driver (our preferred vendor!)

This regressed with the 0.5.0 packages, the previous packages in gutsy were fine.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

(High: composite-by-default blocker)

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

(after discussion, upgrading all composite-by-default problems to Critical, since these must be closed for gutsy)

[David McBride (david-mcbride)]

Also observing here, new bug as of 0.5.0 packages on Intel GMA945.

This appears like it may be a problem with gtk-window-decorator; ~/.xsession-errors is indicating the following:

***MEMORY-WARNING***: gtk-window-decorator[29262]: GSlice: g_thread_init() must be called before all other GLib functions; memory corruption due to late invocation of g_thread_init() has been detected; this program is likely to crash, leak or unexpectedly abort soon...

(Perhaps bizarrely, there are other similar warnings for other GTK-using tools, such as gnome-terminal.)

Cheers,
David

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

This is actually a bug in the driver. We can work around it again and again in compiz but it'd be best to get it fixed for real.

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

I can confirm this, using Intel 945 in a Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop + Gutsy Tribe 1.

To get compiz enabled, I have to load it using compiz --replace ini (to bypass bug #119199).
After that, I see a white box around some items instead of shadows.

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

After some recent compiz update (currently using 1:0.5.0+git20070612-0ubuntu1), it looks like it has been "worked around" in gutsy.
I think this bug should be left open until it's fixed in the driver.

[Antonio Barba (thekaneb)]

The same bug occurred to me with Intel GMA915 and i810 driver... white boxes instead of shadows. Because the driver isn't the same, I suppose that something went wrong with Aiglx.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

Lowering importance since we work around it in compiz.

[ThomasGillespie (tomjamesgillespie)]

Still isnt fixed with the kde-window-decorator

[Daniel Ranger (dranger003)]

Problem not present with gtk-window-decorator but kde-window-decorator is showing the problem...
Any ideas?

I added !dock twice to the Window Decoration plugin under the Shadows option as a workaround for now.

DELL Latitude D430
Intel 945GM

[Joseph Smidt (jsmidt)]

I can confirm this bug. I have the same issue during a Gnome session. Also, it still doesn't work after the latest compiz update FYI on Sept. 13.

[Joseph Smidt (jsmidt)]

The last set of updates seem to fix this for me. Thanks.

[Anders K. Madsen (madsen-lillesvin)]

Problem still remains in the current Gutsy (just dist-upgraded from Feisty a moment ago).
In Gnome I get white boxes around panels and menus instead of shadows. Shadows on windows appear to work just fine though.

I'm on a MacBook Core 2 Duo
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

Tell me if there's more info I can supply to help.

[brage (osoi)]

I am experiencing the white boxes as well on a fully updated Gutsy. But I have a ATI graphics card.

My device section from xorg.conf (if that helps):

 Identifier "ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE]"

 Boardname "ati"

 Busid "PCI:1:0:0"

 Driver "ati"

 Screen 0

 Option "MergedFB" "off"

[Anders K. Madsen (madsen-lillesvin)]

Hmm, turns out the white boxes disappear if I increase the shadow radius to >= 8.5. Don't know if that'll do the trick for any of you.

[Anders K. Madsen (madsen-lillesvin)]

Btw, that's in CCSM (CompizConfig Settings Manager) > Window Decorations > Shadow Radius.

[Robert Pickle (rpickle)]

increasing the shadow radius > 8.5 works for me, on both my PCs (ati, intel chipsets). strange.

[Evandro Fernandes Giovanini (evandrofg)]

I have this bug on a GMA950 card with compiz 0.5.2+git20070918-0ubuntu4 with the latest gutsy updates (on a fresh install from 20070921.1 daily-live). The workaround mentioned by Anders fixes it here as well.

[Adriaan Peeters (apeeters)]

The >= 8.5 workaround fixes it for me on a Dell Latitude D505 (00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02))

Maybe as a temporary fix: use at least 8.5 as default?

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

We use 9.0 already.

[Joachim Frieben (jfrieben)]

For a fully updated Gutsy system as of 2007-10-15, I still have these artifacts [see attached screenshot]. The graphics device is an onboard "Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device [8086:2562] (rev 03)".

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I wonder if this is at all related to bug 175774 (badly drawn window shadows on 965GM). Can you test if the fix for that applies here as well?

Test this by launching X in hardy configured to use EXA and the "greedy" migration heuristic. For example:

Section "Device"
  ....
        Driver "intel"
        Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
        Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
  ....
EndSection

If this solves the issue, then we should extend the fix for bug 177492 to cover this chipset as well.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

I doubt it, if I remember correctly Mirco said this has something to do with the shadow size being a power of two and the driver and the X server not agreeing on whether it was a power of two texture or a non power of two texture.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Travis, okay - do you or Mirco have a recommendation for what to do to fix this in the driver?

I would still like to see if the greedy option addresses this bug or not, because that seems to be using a very different rendering approach, and I'm considering making that the default for all Intel chips in Hardy.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Ran across this old bug... we ended up switching greedy on by default, and since there's been no comments since my last one, I'm guessing this no longer affects anyone. If I'm wrong and it still occurs with Intrepid, please feel free to reopen. (A fresh Xorg.0.log and lspci -vvnn output would be nice to include.)

[JZ (jz-45)]

I'm having this issue in Oneiric. White boxes keep appearing around my popup menus. In 11.04 I used to be able to change the Shadow Radius to fix the issue, but that doesn't appear to be the case anymore.