font corruption with xserver-xorg-video-ati driver

[Rocko]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-ati

Since upgrading to the latest open-source ATI driver, I have been getting random font corruption. One or more characters will become corrupted, after which all occurrences of these characters will be corrupted. Eg see attached screenshot, which shows a corrupted bold 'C' in the Places menu - normal 'C's are fine at this point, but all bold 'C's are corrupted in this manner, eg in window titles. Typically this happens after some days, and seemingly randomly. Eventually X will completely freeze and the PC will require rebooting.

I first noticed this in Jaunty when I upgraded xserver-xorg-core and the ati driver to the version in Karmic (around September) to test if the Google Earth corruption was fixed in the latest drivers, but it is now also happening since upgrading to Karmic.

I don't get any such corruption on a different computer running Karmic/compiz with an nvidia card, so it seems to be related to the ati drivers.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Nov 5 20:25:13 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:6.12.99+git20090929.7968e1fb-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.4+3ubuntu7
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.6.0-1ubuntu4
 libdrm2 2.4.14-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.99+git20090929.7968e1fb-0ubuntu1
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-ati
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-02063101-generic i686
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 architecture: i686kernel: 2.6.31-02063101-generic

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

This attachment shows the title bar when I view the previous screen, showing how each instance of (bold) 'c' is corrupted.

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

And since opening this bug a few minutes ago, the non-bold 'g' characters have become corrupted, as you can see in the attached screenshot.

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Some non-character corruption has now appeared along the top menu.

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

I switched to metacity, and more corruption appeared, although it seems to be restricted to the Applications/Places/System menu.

I also tried switching to a tty console (ctrl-alt-f1) and back. The console is fine, but the corruption remains in the X window.

[hansvw (hansvw)]

Experienced the same issue on an older radeon card (radeon 8500) following an automated update of xserver-xorg-video-radeon (update manager suggestion). Solved the issue by adding some sections to the auto-configured xorg.conf. Notably changing to the older "XAA" AccelMethod appears to fix the issue:

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Radeon 8500"
 Driver "ati"
 BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
 Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"
 Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
 Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
 Option "TripleBuffer" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Monitor "Configured Monitor"
 Device "Radeon 8500"
EndSection

[Pauli (paniemin)]

This looks like download from screen bug. You can disable the feature with
Option "EXANoDownloadFromScreen" "on"
in xorg.conf

On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 12:50 AM, hansvw <email address hidden> wrote:

> Experienced the same issue on an older radeon card (radeon 8500)
> following an automated update of xserver-xorg-video-radeon (update
> manager suggestion). Solved the issue by adding some sections to the
> auto-configured xorg.conf. Notably changing to the older "XAA"
> AccelMethod appears to fix the issue:
>
> Section "Device"
> Identifier "Radeon 8500"
> Driver "ati"
> BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
> Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"
> Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
> Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
> Option "TripleBuffer" "true"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Monitor"
> Identifier "Configured Monitor"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Screen"
> Identifier "Default Screen"
> Monitor "Configured Monitor"
> Device "Radeon 8500"
> EndSection
>
> --
> font corruption with xserver-xorg-video-ati driver
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/475428
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to
> xserver-xorg-video-ati in ubuntu.
>

[OlivierS (olivier-olivier)]

a similar bug is reported here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fontconfig/+bug/554935

[OlivierS (olivier-olivier)]

also very similar to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfonts-base/+bug/326487?comments=all which happens on Intel chipsets

[OlivierS (olivier-olivier)]

Fabio, can you comment why this bug is either incomplete or invalid?

[Bob Getsla (rgetsla)]

I have a Gateway LT3114 notebook with an AMD64 processor and ATI graphics. I am experiencing this same corrupted fonts bug. I actually have two LT3114s, and both of them do the same thing, and it does not seem to matter which release I try. I was running 10.04 LTS, but decided to try 11.04 in one of my LT3114s, but there was no difference. I also tried 10.10, and saw the same thing.

This randomly corrupted font thing can happen while I am viewing a web page. I seems to happen a few seconds after the page initially loads, which makes me think this is somehow provoked by something a script in the page is doing. Some web pages are almost guaranteed to clobber the font memory.

However, I can also clobber the font memory simply by scrolling too quickly through a PDF document.

Is there some way in which I can replace the defective driver that comes with the Ubuntu distro with one that does not cause this font corruption? I am something of a newbie, and would like to have a step by step procedure I can follow to remedy this situation, because power cycling my machines frequently just to be able to read the screen is getting old. I have tried to be an Ubuntu evangelist in my company, but this is a "Show Stopper" that has caused me no end of grief. And needless to say, I will not be able to convince my co-workers to abandon MicroSloth in favor of Ubuntu with stuff like this going on in the software that is reputed to "just work" making my own work difficult.

[Bob Getsla (rgetsla)]

I have tried another FOSS distro -- Trisquel 4.5 in my LT3114, and it does not exhibit the font corruption bug, no matter what I do, so it looks like the driver included in the Trisquel 4.5 distro (also FOSS) does not use the same defective code as is included with Ubuntu. I suggest someone should try the ATI driver from Trisquel (64 bit, as that is what I am using in my LT3114s) with the rest of the Ubuntu distro, to see if the driver from Trisquel solves this problem, because if it does, that should be an easy substitution. The resulting Ubuntu should "Just Work" again, and I can resume evangelizing for Ubuntu Linux over MicroSloth anything.

Please keep me posted on this. While I am not a coder or a hacker, I hope the above is useful to those who are.

P.S. This message came from my LT3114 running Trisquel.