Comment 42 for bug 1573959

Hello

I at least have a very similar problem; so close I think it is the (therefore this comment).

I have the latest and greatest of Ubuntu (Gnome) 16.04.1 LTS. (It is an upgrade from 14.04 LTS, but I do not know if this has any effect here). The problem started, for me, this month or late October.

> uname -s -r -v -m -p -i -o
Linux 4.4.0-47-generic #68-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 26 19:39:52 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

All letters have "disappeared" (ie were not visible anymore) from the affected programs, but not all are affected.
In the gnome-terminal it is possible to select the text and where the mouse pointer hovers while selecting you will be able to read the text, but it disappears on next redraw.

Some NOT AFFECTED programs (except menus etc):
- Firefox (so I was able to do this)
- Chromium
- Ubuntu Help
- xterm
- dash (the ubuntu menu)
- google calendar (web-app)
- (The document part of Libre Office Writer)

Some AFFECTED programs:
- Nautilus
- The desktop
- Remmina
- gnome-terminal
- Thunderbird
- ubuntu-software
- (All menus and toolbars etc of Libre Office Writer)
- All except the document part of the document viewer
- eclipse (eclipse-cpp-luna-SR2-linux-gtk-x86_64)
- skype (only the system-bar(?) (uppermost bar))
- dropbox (except the settings dialog box)
- alarm-clock-applet
- gedit (except the document area)

(It seems document areas are generally not affected, that excepts the buffer, or "document area", of gnome-terminal)

The ctrl+alt+F[1-6] ttys seems to have stopped or not started after printing the following text:
--- start of text ---
  lvmetad is not active yet, using direct activation during sysinit
/ev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root: clean, aaaaaaa/bbbbbbbb files, cccccccc/ddddddddd blocks
_
--- end of text ---
note: the '_' seems more to be like a cursor than an (overwrite) underscore, but it is not blinking. (the 'a's, 'b's, 'c's, and 'd's are numbers. The number of digits are shown by the number of letters.)