[M6-LY] Gimp brushes leave garbage pixel trails

[Eric Seppanen]

Binary package hint: gimp

I just upgraded from Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.10, and now Gimp has a horrible display artifact: every tool that uses a brush leaves bright green pixel trails across the image. Though they go away when the window refreshes (i.e. minimize and then restore the window), this makes Gimp essentially unusable for me.

This is with gimp-2.4.0~rc3-1ubuntu7.

A screenshot of the problem is here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v50/bitwise/Screenshot1.png

[Michel-tungstengraphics (michel-tungstengraphics)]

Please attach (as opposed to paste) the full xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log files.

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

Sorry about the phenomenal bug spam, guys. Adding xorg-team@ to the QA contact so bugs don't get lost in future.

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

Binary package hint: gimp

I just upgraded from Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.10, and now Gimp has a horrible display artifact: every tool that uses a brush leaves bright green pixel trails across the image. Though they go away when the window refreshes (i.e. minimize and then restore the window), this makes Gimp essentially unusable for me.

This is with gimp-2.4.0~rc3-1ubuntu7.

A screenshot of the problem is here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v50/bitwise/Screenshot1.png

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for your report, sadly i can't see the image, may you submit it to the report as an attachment? thanks.

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

I have attached the screenshot.

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

This problem exists in the code released with Ubuntu 7.10.

I have seen scattered reports of this all around the net. It seems that recent versions of Gimp use new XOR code that reveal a problem with the driver for ATI Radeon VE/7000 RV100 cards.

Please see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gimp/+bug/156556

I will attach screenshot, conf, and logs.

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

Created an attachment (id=12197)
Eric's xorg.conf

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

Created an attachment (id=12198)
Eric's Xorg.0.log

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

Created an attachment (id=12199)
screenshot of problem

[agd5f (agd5f)]

*** Bug 12853 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

I have heard a rumor that this may have been encountered by Debian, and that it only appears in systems that have been upgraded (i.e. not clean installs), and also that the bug is actually due to xorg and gtk miscommunicating.

So far I have been unable to find any proof of this: mailing list messages, debian bugtracker entries, etc.

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

Someone saw this on Fedora: http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=168979

It has a tantalizing reference to debian having identified and fixed the problem, but there's not enough information to identify what package was fixed. It does say, however, that an update landed in debian sid "this morning" (meaning 10/24/07, I think).

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

Here is a bug listing at gnome.org that describes the problem in a little more detail, and mentions a patch to Gimp that fixes the problem (though the underlying bug seems to be in xorg or gtk).

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=421466

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

Here's a bug report at debian, and a mailing list message from gimp-user.

Looks like it's related to the ati video drivers; both I and the reporter have the same video card: an ATI Radeon 7000 / VE / RV100.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=433230

http://<email address hidden>/msg12871.html

[Eric Seppanen (eds-reric)]

Here is a workaround for now. Put this in ~/.gimp-2.4/gimprc:

(show-brush-outline no)

I can confirm this works, but as you might guess, the whole brush outline goes away. When Gimp 2.4.1 is released, a slightly more sophisticated workaround will be present, where you can use:

(xor-color (color-rgb 1.0 1.0 1.0))

That will change the drawing mode gimp uses from XOR to INVERT, and the brush outline will work better.

These are just workarounds; new users are going to keep encountering this until the bug in the radeon driver is fixed:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9877
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12853

[Bendetto (biengo)]

I would like to add that the bug applies to Gimp 2.4.2 with both the ati and radoen driver.
The graphics card is ATI Radeon Mobility M6LY although the bug may apply to others, I've read the Radeon 7200 is affected as well.

[shemgp (shemgp)]

I just like to point out that this bug still exists in hardy beta GIMP 2.4.5 and that adding

(xor-color (color-rgb 1.0 1.0 1.0))

to the gimprc fixes it.

[Bendetto (biengo)]

I just found out, that this bug does not show if the option "AccelMethod" "EXA" in xorg is enabled. Sadly, this results in painfully slow konqueror performance while accessing uncached folders.

[Pablo Angulo (pablo-angulo)]

 This is certainly an xorg problem. Both using xgl and Xephyr servers solved the problem. Unfortunately, there is no longer 3D acceleration on my ati mobility u1 card so xgl doesn't feel right, and I was unable to configure xephyr as the only graphics server. Can run gimp in a Xephyr window, but it's no good.

And adding

(xor-color (color-rgb 1.0 1.0 1.0))

to the gimprc in gimp 2.4.2 fixes it.

[Bugs-freedesktop-org (bugs-freedesktop-org)]

I confirm the existence of this problem.

[Christopher Sawtell (csawtell)]

As of GNU Image Manipulation Program version 2.4.5 using:-

X.Org X Server 1.4.0.90
Release Date: 5 September 2007
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux Ubuntu
(xorg-server 2:1.4.1~git20080131-1ubuntu9.2)
Current Operating System: Linux imogen 2.6.24-18-generic #1 SMP Wed May 28 20:27:26 UTC 2008 i686
Build Date: 13 June 2008 01:08:21AM

That's Kubuntu Hardy Heron fully updated as of 2008-06-17 this bug appears to have been fixed.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

I also experience this problem. Confirming.

[Bugs-freedesktop-org (bugs-freedesktop-org)]

well, I just confirmed three hours ago that this problem still exists in my equally up-to-date ubuntu hardy install (which probably prompted you to look back here). I assume, you just masked the problem by one of the various workarounds.

Reopening.

[agd5f (agd5f)]

(In reply to comment #10)
> well, I just confirmed three hours ago that this problem still exists in my
> equally up-to-date ubuntu hardy install (which probably prompted you to look
> back here). I assume, you just masked the problem by one of the various
> workarounds.

What exactly is the problem here? Is it a particular tool in GIMP, or just GIMP in general? Also can you attach your xorg log and config? Do any of the following options help?

Option "RenderAccel" "FALSE"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"

[James H. Cloos Jr. (cloos-jhcloos)]

The various linked bug reports strongly suggest it only occurs when
using XAA.

[Pcpa (pcpa)]

  I think it may be related to composite.

  Try adding

Section "Extensions"
    Options "Composite" "disable"
EndSection

to xorg.conf

But the problem seems to be related to some ati cards.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Does anyone see this with the fglrx driver?

[Bugs-freedesktop-org (bugs-freedesktop-org)]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/xserver-xorg-driver-ati/+bug/156556 should have all the necessary information. Yes, it seems to be an ATI problem. There are various workarounds. Decreasing importance.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. In the development cycle for Intrepid there have been some vast improvements in the open source ati video driver and we could use your help testing them. Could you please download the latest Alpha CD image of Intrepid and test this particular bug just using the Live CD? You can find the latest image at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . Your testing can help make Ubuntu and the open source ati driver even better! Thanks in advance.

[Pablo Angulo (pablo-angulo)]

Unfortunately, this still happens in Intrepid with a radeon card, despite the changes in the new ati driver. But adding

(xor-color (color-rgb 1.0 1.0 1.0))

to the gimprc in gimp 2.4.2 still fixes it.

[Prosthetic Head (propanone)]

I can confirm this in intrepid (up to date as of about an hour ago) on a thinkpad x31. 'radeon' driver, Gimp 2.6.1.
I have had it since i started using ubuntu 3 or 4 versions back.

I'll try the "(xor-color (color-rgb 1.0 1.0 1.0))" trick and see if it works with this version of GIMP.

Thanks, hope this will eventually get fixed!

[Prosthetic Head (propanone)]

Just to update, appending "(xor-color (color-rgb 1.0 1.0 1.0))" to "/home/<user>/.gimp-2.6/gimprc" DOES work in intrepid (gimp2.6.1,radeon driver, etc) on my TPx31.
Thanks :)

[agd5f (agd5f)]

is this still an issue with a more recent driver/xserver version?

[Bugs-freedesktop-org (bugs-freedesktop-org)]

I am still on hardy, but comment 18 from https://bugs.launchpad.net/xserver-xorg-driver-ati/+bug/156556 confirms this to be still present in Intrepid. xserver-xorg seems to be at version 1:7.4~5ubuntu3 in Intrepid.

[Carey Underwood (cwillu)]

Might try setting Option "AccelDFS" "false" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf's display section.

[Corbin Simpson (mostawesomedude)]

Closing as WONTFIX; XAA is too far gone these days. If EXA does not work, file a new bug or attach yourself to an existing bug matching your issues.

For this particular bug, I'd say that re-opening is fine if it still happens with EXA.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I see that gimp is marking this bug resolved, and there's been no recent comments that this is still an issue, so I'm going to tentatively and optimistically close this bug as no longer an issue. It seems to be an XAA-specific issue.

If it can still be reproduced on current Lucid using EXA, please re-open the upstream bug.