Graphics unstable on Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10 using Intel HD Graphics 5500

[seth goldstein]

Trying to achieve: Get a more stable graphics environment up and running

Steps to take: basic ubtuntu 14.04 install. Boot up and run for a few minutes and then ...

What happens: After running for a few minutes the graphics gets flacky.

What should happen: Graphics should not get flaky.

I have just installed ubuntu 14.04 on my new thinkpad t450s. Everything basically works, but something is very flaky about my keyboard or display or both. After running for awhile some apps (E.g., thunderbird and sometimes emacs for example) will display garbage. If I refresh by moving the screen around or changing buffers/tabs/etc. they can often recover.

I see that there is an [Intel(R) Graphics Installer for Linux* 1.0.7](https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2014/intelr-graphics-installer-linux-1.0.7). I am leery about just loading this and running it. Any suggestions about how I should proceed?

    $ sudo lshw -c video
      *-display
           description: VGA compatible controller
           product: Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics
           vendor: Intel Corporation
           physical id: 2
           bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
           version: 09
           width: 64 bits
           clock: 33MHz
           capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
           configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
           resources: irq:63 memory:e0000000-e0ffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:3000(size=64)
    $ modinfo i915 | head
    filename: /lib/modules/3.16.0-31-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915.ko
    license: GPL and additional rights
    description: Intel Graphics
    author: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
    srcversion: 9929027A8A6F05972AD6986
    alias: pci:v00008086d000022B3sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
    alias: pci:v00008086d000022B2sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
    alias: pci:v00008086d000022B1sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
    alias: pci:v00008086d000022B0sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
    alias: pci:v00008086d0000162Dsv*sd*bc03sc*i*
    $ uname -a
    Linux mypad 3.16.0-31-generic #43~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 10 20:13:38 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

Hello, can you attach the screenshot when this happens?

[seth goldstein (seth-o)]

Here are a few screen shots of portions of the screen that show the kinds of corruption that are happening.

[remerson (ubuntu-remerson)]

I have a NUC5i3RYH with a very similar issue. Same kernel/driver.

I get the "missing (corrupt) letters" only, but no "black blobs". Particularly, this is an issue after resume from suspend. Regular usage is stable fresh from boot, so I do not get it as bad as Po-Hsu Lin.

Seems certain font sets get corrupted but once corrupted, are stuck. E.g. switching font size in terminal shows this. 11 pt broken, 12 point fine (until next suspend). Maybe if I do enough stuff (moving/resizing windows) the corruption moves.

See attached - note the "V" of "VGA compatible controller" near the bottom is mangled. This is typical. Corruption can occur within any app/title bar etc.

Is this any better on 15.04? Happy to help out testing fixes.

uname -a
Linux remerson-desktop 3.16.0-31-generic #43~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 10 20:13:38 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

sudo lshw -c video
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:61 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64)

lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Host Bridge -OPI (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics (rev 09)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Audio Controller (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP USB xHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP MEI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (3) I218-V (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev e3)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #4 (rev e3)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP USB EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP SATA Controller [AHCI Mode] (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7265 (rev 59)

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

Often this is accompanied by Xorg consuming more than 50% of the cpu cycles. Once it gets into that state the only thing I can do is log out and log back in. Help!

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

One more thing. Enclosed is another screen shot. I have also tried 14.10 and similar issues happen there.

[klinge (rosgnilk)]

The same problem here. Unfortunately i didn't find out how to make a screen shot to share the disaster ;-)

Ubuntu 14.04
Kernel 3.16.0-33

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

This is not a solution, but under kubuntu things work pretty well. Maybe this has something to do with the different window managers. I would really like to go back to unity and ubuntu. I hope someone looks into this.

[GH (chili-g)]

I am also seeing this on a fresh 14.04 install on a T450s.
So far I'm only seeing the missing letters.
So far have only seen it on the external 2550x1400 monitor, and not the native laptop screen.... but I don't have a lot of hours in yet, and it happened fairly quickly on the external monitor.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Hello same problem here on Dell Latitude E7450 with kernel 3.16.0-33 and with xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic stack on Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS.

Mostly black rectangles and missing letters, for example in folder's name on the Desktop. This occurs after some time after having boot and probably when resuming from sleep.

I Will try to provide screenshot next time it happens. To resume to a normal situation, I have to logout & logon, but it doesn't work each time.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Please find screenshots as attachement

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

an an other screenshot

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

I forgot to say the bug occurs this time just after having boot (not from resume).

[Michael Holler (mikejholler)]

I am affected by this bug as well. T450s running Ubuntu 14.10 on kernel 3.16.0-33-generic #44-Ubuntu SMP Thu Mar 12 12:19:35 UTC 2015. Attached are is a screenshot of the error (one taken with an actual camera because Ubuntu won't let you snap a screenshot while you have a right-click context menu open). The system has been like this since boot, and the missing letters manifest themselves in different ways whenever I restart. However, they only seem to show up around system utilities like the WiFi drop downs, right-click context menus, and yes, even my terminal.

[Michael Holler (mikejholler)]

I was just playing around with it some more, and discovered that a x session logout followed by a login seemed to fix the issue, at least temporarily. I am no longer seeing any missing text anywhere. I'll keep trying to see if I can reproduce it reliably.

[girisha (girishad)]

logging out and logging in again fixes the issue.. But it keeps coming up sometimes..

I am running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 3rd Gen

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

Logging out and logging in will sometimes fix the issue for me, but only temporarily. More info, changing fonts in a particular application will generally cause the letters to be rendered correctly. Changing back (in the same session) will show the missing letters again. This happens on all of Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Kubuntu 14.10 on a Thinkpad T450s. (It is least problematic on Kubuntu 14.10). Hope this extra bit of info helps.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Sounds like bug 1311488

[Michael Holler (mikejholler)]

Has anyone tried the Intel graphics installer that seth mentioned in his original post?

* Intel(R) Graphics Installer for Linux* 1.0.7 -- https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2014/intelr-graphics-installer-linux-1.0.7

There seems to be a new version, too. Maybe this is fixed in that:

* Intel(R) Graphics Installer for Linux* 1.0.8 -- https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2015/intelr-graphics-installer-linux-1.0.8

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

1.0.8 will not work on 14.04. I tried it on 14.10 and it complained and woudn't load.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

I had 1.0.8 installed on Ubuntu 14.04 before it was made impossible (because of potential problem with backported graphic stack on 14.04.2). Anyway it was well installed and the missing letter bug was also present. Note that Intel driver is not annonced as compatible for HD graphic 5500.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[girisha (girishad)]

has anyone experienced this bug on Gnome or Xfce?

[Michael Holler (mikejholler)]

Judging by the bug attachments, it looks like Unity and LXDE are confirmed so far.

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

I see similar to this on a Dell E7450.

Symptoms include:
- title bar corruption (title_bar_corruption.png)
- incorrectly rendered fonts
- incorrectly spaced fonts (similar to screenshot here - http://askubuntu.com/questions/594451/14-04-thinkpad-t450-text-getting-messed-up-on-large-screens)

sandy:~ $ lspci -nnk | grep '\[03' -A2
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics [8086:1616] (rev 09)
 Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:062e]
 Kernel driver in use: i915

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

I can confirm that it is also happening on KDE (version 4.14.1) running ubuntu 14.10 and kernel 3.16.0-33-generic

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Sad but seems to work solution: disabling SNA for old XUA method (as described here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_graphics#SNA_issues).

It seems it works better (for now) with UXA method, but it's a sad story as performance drops a little (and it is worthy...)

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

I was going to try out John's suggestion, but it seems that I don't have xf86-video-intel installed on my system. So, should I try and install it (and if I do, can I remove it easily?) and if I install it, should i take the suggestion above?

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

As per the comment from "John doe", switching the intel X11 driver AccelMethod to uxa fixed the problem for me.

[Michael Holler (mikejholler)]

Is the workaround much of a performance drop? In any case, it's good there is at least a workaround.

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

Noticeably slower than sna when alt-tab'ing between applications.
But better than corrupted text and/or graphics.

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

Since I don't have xf86-video-intel installed, is there a way to disable sna on what I am using? Should I switch? I am attaching my xorg.log.

[Robert Erdin (robert-erdin)]

I can confirm that the fix from comment #28 works for me. Don't notice any difference in performance but don't do anything that would require any noticeable graphics performance.

[girisha (girishad)]

as mentioned in #33, I also don't have xf86-video-intel installed. tired installing it and its not possible to install as there are unmet dependencies

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Switching from SNA to UXA downgrade 2D day-to-day performances as SNA is the not-so-new default acceleration method for recent Intel graphics card (as in my case Broadwell HD 5500). More info about performances here :
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_2dxorg30_ubuntu1404&num=1

For example, at startup, the only icon folder on my desktop is now displayed slowly with UXA rather than SNA. However as Luke #32 said before this is better to have this workaround than missing letters problem, but it's only a workaround, not a real solution.

@girisha #35: forget about xf86-video-intel, your xorg.log show you have Intel driver :
 3.831] (II) intel(0): Using Kernel Mode Setting driver: i915, version 1.6.0 20080730
[ 3.831] (II) intel(0): SNA compiled: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.2 (Maarten Lankhorst <email address hidden>)

In any case, try to create the following folder:
sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/

Then create inside the new folder a file named for example "20-intel.conf" with the following content:
Section "Device"
 Identifier "Card0"
 Driver "Intel"
 Option "AccelMethod" "uxa"
EndSection

Then reboot and voila. If something goes wrong (if X server failed for example), you just have to delete the 20-intel.conf to revert back.

[girisha (girishad)]

@John doe #36: thank you very much for the reply. I will try it out :)

[Fluepke (fluepke)]

I am running Ubuntu GNOME with kernel 4.0.0-040000rc7 on a T450s. I could solve the issue of missing letters by changing font hinting to medium or slight in the gnome-tweak-tool. But I am still experiencing rendering issues sometimes. Will try out the fix.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Do you mean that by modify font size the missing letter prb is permanently solve or were you modify the font when the prb occurs to temporary resolve it?

As the problem seems to be a mixtape between kernel, Intel Driver, glib2, etc. I was hoping it may be solve using kernel 4.0 so thanks to have reported that it's not the case.

[seth goldstein (seth-u)]

I can confirm that the temporary fix john proposed is working well under kubuntu 14.10 on my T450s. Particulars:
KDE: Platform Version 4.14.1, Ubuntu: 14.10, Kernel: 3.16.0-33-generic

[Fluepke (fluepke)]

Well, when I was using an older kernel I applied this tweak, always when font rendering was messed up. Since Kernel 4.0 I haven't had letters disappearing.
But sometimes I still have rendering issues. I did not yet apply the mod suggested in #28.
I have attached an example.

[Michael Holler (mikejholler)]

Can anybody explain why John doe's 20-intel.conf has Identifier "Card0" instead of Identifier "Intel Graphics" like these other sources suggest?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_graphics#SNA_issues
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/lubuntu-users/2014-April/007019.html

[Michael Holler (mikejholler)]

I should also add that I have tried John's method and it seems to be working well. I will report back if I find any more graphical corruption.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Because "Identifier" is only a label to name a component inside x.org conf file. In fact you may put what you want as value as long as you re-use the same when you want to refer to the component.

[Moritz Reiter (reitermoritz)]

Downgrading to UXA instead of SNA as John doe suggested works for me too.

But the implications for performance are considerable. Just to name two examples: after logging in it takes about 10 seconds until the Desktop is loaded and resizing a Terminal window (solid background colour) is difficult due to severe lagging. Both of these performance issues do not exist with SNA. But of course this is still better than missing characters.

I'm running Ubuntu 14.04.02 on a Thinkpad T450s with Ultra Dock.

I should also mention: Before I was using the Ultra Dock, I was hooking the Thinkpad via DisplayPort to the external monitor. With that set up, the missing character problem did occur very rarely. Now the Thinkpad is hooked to the external Display via Ultra Dock and DVI cable and with this set up there are so many characters missing after every log in and so severe rendering problems that it's utterly unusable.

Thanks John doe, for the workaround, it makes my set up at least usable but I hope there's a chance to see a proper fix in Ubuntu 14.04.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

I revert back to SNA since kernel 3.16.0-34 and liboxide updates (3 days ago) on Ubuntu 14.04.2.

Chance or not, no prb occurs since theses updates: as the problem was not so frequent I'll wait a few days before to say if it works because I don't see any good reasons :)

If someone else could try to revert back to SNA afeter updates, it also could be cool.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Forget previous post: the bug occurs again with SNA :(

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Does anybody try Intel driver 2.99.917, as shiped for example with Ubuntu Vivid Vervet?

[Robert Foerster (robert-erafx)]

I have a Thinkpad X1 Carbon (3rd gen) here with many rendering and distortion issues on latest ubuntu 14.04.

I have recurring issues with both missing characters and distorted characters.

I have these issues on the inbuilt WQHD display and on an external monitor connected to HDMI.

[Yang Yang (uk0052003)]

I just got a new X1 carbon 3 gen (intel i5 5300, 2560x1440, intel 5500 graphics) and installed ubuntu 14.04 (3.16.0-34-generic). I experienced all same problems list above and still can not fixed them by any methods listed above. Just to confirm this bug also exist in X1 carbon 3 gen. Thanks!

[Yang Yang (uk0052003)]

@John doe (r9-launchpad-fq) #39: It is solved temporarily. After you restart, it might appear again. Or if you connect to an external monitor, it also appears. Each time, you select a different scale of font, rendering comes back to normal. However, when you choose scale back, the bug returns again.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

@Yang Yang: did you try #36?

[Robert Foerster (robert-erafx)]

I did #36 and so far, no distortion on the laptop display or external monitor.

[Yang Yang (uk0052003)]

@John doe: I tried but it seems not working. :-(

[Yang Yang (uk0052003)]

@John doe: I created the file at this place: /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d, and it works! But it is slow and also the external monitor's resolution is different from previous. I have no idea to get original resolution now. At least, it works!

[faceman (jfacemyer)]

I confirm that this is a problem on XFCE as well. I'm on a Carbon X1 3rd gen, and got the corrupted characters and other artifacts/missing objects (Icons, ui elements, etc).

I used the SNA workaround, and have been bothered by the slow performance ever since. Specifically, scrolling in most apps (most notably in a browser) is excruciatingly slow. The time it takes to render anything on screen is really noticeable (and by noticeable I mean painful.)

I use this laptop for work in Inkscape, Gimp, Scribus for graphics layouts, etc, and it's only barely usable compared to my 6-year-old x100 original. It's the main issue which keeps this from being an awesome Linux laptop.

Any idea on whether the Intel drivers are supposed to get some attention for this?

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

Hello Chris,
I don't now if I'm right to do like this but this bug makes it almost impossible daily use of new laptops and this is why I allowed myself to assign it to you. Feel free to contact me for any useful details, regards.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

So it seems it has been fixexxxxs in upstream several months ago:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90047

Anybody from Ubuntu team here?

Also, if someone may try with more updated drivers as theses, maybe it fixes the issue:
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/ubuntu/x-updates

[milegrin (milegrin)]

Confirmed bug on Lenovo E550 i7 16GB with Intel i915 video configured to use 1GB RAM.

Predominantly appears when plugging in an external Samsung S23C350 screen before boot/power on however plugging it in once logged it. Thus far the bug has only once occurred when the external screen is not plugged (only had the notebook a few days).

 bug #1444436 refers to the same/similar issue but the fix provided has not fixed my installation using xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic ver 2.99.914-1 (Comment #8 on bug #1444436 mentions that fix is not for utopic - possibly why the fix did not work for me)

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90047 mentioned that a fix was produced multiple months ago and Ubuntu notified but I can't find it.

<code>
root@u1404:~/# uname -a
Linux u1404 3.16.0-34-generic #47~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 10 17:49:16 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
root@u1404:~/# lshw -c video
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:63 memory:d0000000-d0ffffff memory:a0000000-bfffffff ioport:5000(size=64)
root@u1404:~/# modinfo i915 | head
filename: /lib/modules/3.16.0-34-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915.ko
license: GPL and additional rights
description: Intel Graphics
author: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
srcversion: 4623F6696D48BF78FB054D5
alias: pci:v00008086d000022B3sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d000022B2sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d000022B1sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d000022B0sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d0000162Dsv*sd*bc03sc*i*
root@u1404:~/# lspci -nnk | grep '\[03' -A2
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics [8086:1616] (rev 09)
 Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:5021]
 Kernel driver in use: i915
--
05:00.0 Display controller [0380]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Opal XT [Radeon R7 M265] [1002:6604] (rev ff)
 Kernel driver in use: radeon
06:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5227 PCI Express Card Reader [10ec:5227] (rev 01)
root@u1404:~/# dpkg -l | grep -i video-intel
ii xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.2~trusty1 amd64 X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver
root@u1404:~/#
</code>

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

Still no fix for this issue.
It would be awesome to enable the sna driver to improve graphics performance.

[girisha (girishad)]

I am using 15.04 for the past two days. I am yet to get the issue. Updated from 14.04 since my thinkpad was giving me the aforementioned issues

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

So Bug #1374389 is supposed to fix this issue, but installing updated kernel from it (Bug #1374389, available for all in updates!) introduce the kernel won't boot Bug #1449401 for me and others.

When #1449401 will be fixed I will report here if updated kernel from Bug #1374389 fix or not this HD Graphics issue.

[Michael Holler (mikejholler)]

@girisha Is UXA working for you on 15.04 or just SNA?

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

I just updated my 14.04 to 3.16.0-36-generic
And now ubuntu fails to boot unless I select the recovery option.
And then I can start unity but it doesn't display on the connected monitor, just the laptop screen.

If I drop back to 3.16.0-34-generic I can boot as normal and the connected monitor works.
But the sna X11 option is still causing issues on 3.16.0-34-generic
And I need to use the uxa option to get a usable system.

Does LTS actually mean Long Term Support?
As per @girisha seems like this bug has as been fixed on 15.04
Should I just move to 15.04?

[Eoin (eoingillen)]

Seeing the same behaviour as @q-luke on a Thinkpad L450. Dropping back to 3.16.0-34-generic is my workaround for the moment.

[Jordan (vadavim)]

Same exact problem that happened with @q-luke and @eoingillen happened to me as well on a G50-80. Very frustrating...

[girisha (girishad)]

@Michael I didn't change anything after installation. So it should be SNA right?

@Luke, I have been using 15.04 for a while on my thingkpad X1 carbon 3rd gen. So far I have not got the missing letter issue. And in 15.05 the special keys (brightness + wifi), the touch pad and the trackpad all worked perfectly without any configuration needed

[girisha (girishad)]

Furthermore, I think its not 15.04 that fixes the issue.. Its the kernel 3.19. If you read the description about whats new in 3.19 they specifically talk about intel broadwell graphics support

[Torsten Harenberg (harenberg)]

Running 14.04.2 on a X1 Carbon 3rd gen, suffering from the same problems. Especially when an external screen is attached, Thunderbird has corrupted fonts when opening directly on the external screen. If I open Thunderbird on the internal screen and move it over to the external, all is fine. Firefox also suffers from that (same rendering engine?), especially Google maps. Chromium doesn't show that behaviour.

As suggested in #67, #68 upgraded now to 3.19.0-12-generic. That makes the system at least bootable without having to break into the recovery mode (#64). And all the special keys now work :).

But, the graphics problems are still there. I will try to add two screenshots. Maybe 15.04 has some more changes than just the kernel? I haven't tried that release yet, would love to stick with 14.04.

[Torsten Harenberg (harenberg)]

Just a follow up on #69 to attach the 2nd screen shot.

[girisha (girishad)]

Torsten. I also tried updating the kernel to 3.19 (on 14.04) first rather than installing 15.04. But once I updated and rebooted my wifi stopped working (the driver was not detected). Afterwards I did a fresh install of 15.04 and it has been over a week and I have no font issues..

I think you can first try using a live usb with 15.04 and use it for a while and see if you get any issues.

[Torsten Harenberg (harenberg)]

grisha,

you can get the Wifi running, "only" the firmware is missing:

git clone https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware
cd~/linux-firmware
sudo cp iwlwifi-7265D-1* /lib/firmware/

But I updated yesterday evening to 15.04. You are right, font problems are finally gone now :). Thanks for testing this.

(Although I would have loved to stick with the LTS version)

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

Hello Ubuntu people??
Is anyone listening???

14.04 is currently a pile of crap on broadwell laptops.
Is anyone looking?
Or is LTS just lip service?

[Yang Yang (uk0052003)]

upgrade my x1 carbon 3rd to 15.04 and all problems are gone. for those who
can upgrade easily (not need to backup or config a lot), maybe this is a
good choice.

On Sun, May 3, 2015 at 8:07 PM, Luke Darnell <email address hidden> wrote:

> Hello Ubuntu people??
> Is anyone listening???
>
> 14.04 is currently a pile of crap on broadwell laptops.
> Is anyone looking?
> Or is LTS just lip service?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1432194
>
> Title:
> Graphics unstable on Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10 using Intel HD Graphics
> 5500
>
> Status in The Linux Kernel:
> New
> Status in X.org xf86-video-intel:
> Confirmed
> Status in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Trying to achieve: Get a more stable graphics environment up and
> running
>
> Steps to take: basic ubtuntu 14.04 install. Boot up and run for a
> few minutes and then ...
>
> What happens: After running for a few minutes the graphics gets
> flacky.
>
> What should happen: Graphics should not get flaky.
>
> I have just installed ubuntu 14.04 on my new thinkpad t450s.
> Everything basically works, but something is very flaky about my
> keyboard or display or both. After running for awhile some apps
> (E.g., thunderbird and sometimes emacs for example) will display
> garbage. If I refresh by moving the screen around or changing
> buffers/tabs/etc. they can often recover.
>
> I see that there is an [Intel(R) Graphics Installer for Linux*
> 1.0.7](https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2014/intelr-graphics-
> installer-linux-1.0.7). I am leery about just loading this and running
> it. Any suggestions about how I should proceed?
>
> $ sudo lshw -c video
> *-display
> description: VGA compatible controller
> product: Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics
> vendor: Intel Corporation
> physical id: 2
> bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
> version: 09
> width: 64 bits
> clock: 33MHz
> capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
> configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
> resources: irq:63 memory:e0000000-e0ffffff
> memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:3000(size=64)
> $ modinfo i915 | head
> filename:
> /lib/modules/3.16.0-31-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915.ko
> license: GPL and additional rights
> description: Intel Graphics
> author: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
> srcversion: 9929027A8A6F05972AD6986
> alias: pci:v00008086d000022B3sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
> alias: pci:v00008086d000022B2sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
> alias: pci:v00008086d000022B1sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
> alias: pci:v00008086d000022B0sv*sd*bc03sc*i*
> alias: pci:v00008086d0000162Dsv*sd*bc03sc*i*
> $ uname -a
> Linux mypad 3.16.0-31-generic #43~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 10
> 20:13:38 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/1432194/+subscrip...

[Yang Yang (uk0052003)]

upgrade my x1 carbon 3rd to 15.04 and all problems are gone. for those who can upgrade easily (not need to backup or config a lot), maybe this is a good choice.

[Gerry Donlon (gerdawg)]

Same issue here....bitten by both bugs on a Toshiba Satellite E45-B4100..

3.16.0.34 - garbled text, inability to even upgrade to proprietary Intel drivers for the HD5500...3d rendering of applications like google maps or steam browser are broken and distorted.

Upgrading to kernel 3.16.0.36 results in boot lockup.

Installing 15.04 (3.19.0-15-generic) and the video is normal...no more missing text or weird artifacting of folders on the desktop. Too bad this isn't fixed in LTS as either bug renders the laptop fairly unusable or unstable.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

kernels up to and including 3.16.0-37.50 are broken, -37.51 will fix the boot issue too (caused by a backport fail)

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

seth: do you still have the bug with xserver-xorg-video-intel 2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.3 and kernel from

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~tjaalton/bdw/

and check that you don't have a GPU hang reported in dmesg when the corruption starts

This bug has become a meta bug with all sorts of issues and handwaving. Most are probably fixed by the new kernel, some SNA backports to -intel might still be necessary.

[Moritz Reiter (reitermoritz)]

I still get the missing characters and rendering issues in Trusty with kernel 3.16.0-37.51.

$ uname -a
[...] 3.16.0-37-generic #51-Ubuntu [...]

$ sudo aptitude show xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic
Package: xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic
State: installed
Automatically installed: yes
Version: 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.3~trusty1

Still have to fall back to UXA to have a system I can work with.

[Dragos Vingarzan (vingarzan)]

Confirmed in xfce. But messing around with the font size makes some things bearable - fonts are not that much affected, but still big parts of the screen do not refresh properly.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

As Moritz, I still get the missing characters in Trusty with following packages and SNA enabled:

$ uname -a
Linux [snip] 3.16.0-37-generic #51~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 6 15:23:14 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ dpkg -l | grep video-intel | grep ii
ii xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.3~trusty1 amd64 X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver

@timo: Does your kernel packages differ from .51?

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

then file new bugs, your issues are not what this was about... and test 15.04 too

no need to test my kernel anymore, -37.51 has everything

[Bernd Schlapsi (bernd-sch)]

So 15.04 is the answer?
"New" hardware and no change to use the LTS version? That doesn't sound right?! Or do we have to wait for 14.04.3 for a newer kernel? -> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack#Kernel.2BAC8-Support.A14.04.x_Ubuntu_Kernel_Support

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

@timo: i'm confident that my bug is related to the one reported by seth in this bug issue:
seth bug screenshot: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/1432194/+attachment/4347477/+files/screen1.png
my bug screenshot: https://launchpadlibrarian.net/201749121/missing_letter_1.png

Of course it will not be the case if seth issue is fixed.

@seth: does the kernel 37.51 fix your issue ? if not, I think we may keep open this bug report no?

[Moritz Reiter (reitermoritz)]

I have to agree with Bernd and John. The problems I'm experiencing to my understanding match the description of this report and the many screenshots people attached here perfectly. And they persist with the most current packages in the official repositories. It may be due to a lack of technical understanding on my side, but I don't understand how this issue could be regarded as resolved.

People already reported that the rendering and font issues don't occur in 15.04. But I'm using LTS for a reason. And it's not like Intel's HD 5500 would be some obscure, negligible piece of hardware.

But if for whatever reason this issue should not be regarded as important enough to get further investigation, it would be nice to know, just to make an informed decision. Because in that case I would probably prefer switching to 15.04.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Feel free to bisect xserver-xorg-video-intel between 2.99.914..2.99.917 if it's fixed in 15.04 (which has .917). Only when something has been identified to fix something it'll be SRU'd.

I can't reproduce any of the issues with current utopic-proposed (or the equivalent lts backports), and I have the same GPU on my laptop.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

is thje problem present with xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.910-0ubuntu1.6 on Trusty? If not, I would be happy to revert back to original Trusty package (and leave LTS enablement stack).

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

only you can tell:

apt-get remove .*lts-utopic

[Moritz Reiter (reitermoritz)]

Had time to experiment a little bit more. Turns out I can now only reproduce the rendering and font issues when the T450s is attached to the Ultra Dock docking station (which is how I most of the time use it).

When I remove the laptop from the Ultra Dock and reboot, everything seems fine. As soon as I attach it to the Dock again, rendering and font errors start to occur and seem to gradually get worse the longer I keep closing and opening apps.

When booting with the laptop attached to the Dock it's worst and the system is utterly unusable right from the start.

[wmgroot (wmgroot)]

I am using a Thinkpad t450s and also experiencing these symptoms on 3.16.0-37-generic #51~14.04.1-Ubuntu. The issues are immediately apparent after logging in. UXA is a functional workaround, but I would much prefer the performance of SNA.

[brokeasshachi (greasemunkeyparts)]

I was able to resolve this on trusty doing the following:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-video-intel (and all the depends)

then reboot.

Just FYI, i'm on -30 kernel, and using ubuntu-mate as as desktop.

Linux dave-ot-trusty 3.16.0-30-generic #40~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 15 17:43:14 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

~ % dpkg -l xserver-xorg
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
ii xserver-xorg 1:7.7+1ubunt amd64 X.Org X server

~ % dpkg -l xserver-xorg-video-intel
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
ii xserver-xorg-v 2:2.99.910-0 amd64 X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9x

~ % dpkg -l ubuntu-mate-desktop
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
ii ubuntu-mate-de 1.119~trusty amd64 Ubuntu MATE - full desktop

No more issues with missing characters, unstable graphics, etc.

[Gerry Donlon (gerdawg)]

Still the same problem for me on 3.16.0-37-generic after a fresh install. (But at least now I'm able to boot....)

Easily reproducible by opening up Google maps, all text becomes garbled. Other programs that require slight 3d rendering also cause this issue. 15.04 works fine. I suppose I'll try the information above and see how it goes.

[Gerry Donlon (gerdawg)]

On a fresh install I get the following when trying the above solution on 3.16.0-37-generic.

user@user$ sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-video-intel
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 unity-control-center : Depends: libcheese-gtk23 (>= 3.4.0) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libcheese7 (>= 3.0.1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

[Dan Gillmor (dan-gillmor)]

Can verify that this isn't fixed...total mess when using external monitor on my T450s.

[Dan Gillmor (dan-gillmor)]

However, the suggested temporary fix in #36 has seems to have helped for now.

[Dan Gillmor (dan-gillmor)]

Spoke too soon; nothing has changed.

[Gerry Donlon (gerdawg)]

I guess this has been abandoned because it's marked as fixed, even though it's not?

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

I just updated my 14.04 install to 3.16.0-37-generic.
And although the occurrence of rendering issues seems to have reduced, they are still there.

To reproduce easily, open up google earth, do some zooming around in there, then start doing some alt-tab and moving windows around.
You can see the rendering issues show up pretty quickly.

I'm on an external monitor connected via a dock.

In summary, it's better now than before, but still not fixed completely.

[Robert Erdin (robert-erdin)]

I can confirm that there is an improvement with 3.16.0-37-generic on a X1 Carbon 3rd gen. For example the "shutdown menu" and all the other dropdowns in the black menu bar are fixed for me. It still appears in 3rd party apps, such as Guake or Libre Office (those two are particularly annoying as you can guess).

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

test packages for both utopic (x-x-v-i) and trusty (x-x-v-i-lts-utopic)

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~tjaalton/bdw

the hint about external monitor was the key, bisected it down to

commit 0532a3313ad9c76a6e1d28e8a1c2ea495583fead
Author: Chris Wilson <email address hidden>
Date: Wed Nov 5 20:11:54 2014 +0000

    sna/gen8: Clear instancing enabled bit between batches

[phitastic (robbel)]

The experimental packages in #100 appear to do the trick for me! Tested under trusty on a lenovo t450s, no external monitor, and have not observed rendering issues so far. Thanks a lot!

[phitastic (robbel)]

Spoke too soon. After waking up from suspend witness a graphics bug(as before), not sure if this is related to this bug report. dmesg reveals:

[ 1700.310259] [drm] stuck on render ring
[ 1700.311378] [drm] GPU HANG: ecode 0:0x84dffefc, in Xorg [1330], reason: Ring hung, action: reset
[ 1700.311380] [drm] GPU hangs can indicate a bug anywhere in the entire gfx stack, including userspace.
[ 1700.311381] [drm] Please file a _new_ bug report on bugs.freedesktop.org against DRI -> DRM/Intel
[ 1700.311382] [drm] drm/i915 developers can then reassign to the right component if it's not a kernel issue.
[ 1700.311383] [drm] The gpu crash dump is required to analyze gpu hangs, so please always attach it.
[ 1700.311384] [drm] GPU crash dump saved to /sys/class/drm/card0/error
[ 1702.309120] [drm] Enabling RC6 states: RC6 on, RC6p off, RC6pp off
[ 1706.330906] [drm] stuck on render ring
[ 1706.331979] [drm] GPU HANG: ecode 0:0x84dffefc, in Xorg [1330], reason: Ring hung, action: reset
[ 1706.332053] [drm:i915_context_is_banned] *ERROR* gpu hanging too fast, banning!
[ 1708.329919] [drm] Enabling RC6 states: RC6 on, RC6p off, RC6pp off

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

not related, file a new bug

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

@Timo: your last packages seems to work for me ! At least I have no issue since the beginning o the day and after several reboots.
I will confirm in 1 or 2 days as the issue may still occurs after several hours. Thank you very much to have spent time looking for the issue: it's so much faster with SNA !

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Good to hear

There has been another SRU update in the meantime, so if you use 4.3.1 and upgrade to 4.4 you'll lose this bugfix. I'll upload 4.5 next week.

[Moritz Heiber (mheiber)]

I think I'm affected by this bug as well. The relevant bits in dmesg:

[55632.090484] i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment
[55632.090918] pci_bus 0000:01: Allocating resources
[55632.091041] pci_bus 0000:02: Allocating resources
[55632.091090] i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment
[55632.093607] pci_bus 0000:01: Allocating resources
[55632.093746] pci_bus 0000:02: Allocating resources
[55632.093798] i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment
[55632.093896] i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment
[55632.094026] i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment
[55632.094136] i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment
[55632.094535] pci_bus 0000:01: Allocating resources
[55632.094660] pci_bus 0000:02: Allocating resources
[55632.094708] i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment

This occurs whenever I wake my laptop from suspend. The fonts are grossly distorted and unreadable. I've attached one example screenshot (note: it's a HiDPI setup). I tried using a newer video driver from ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers (which fixed a suspend/resume issue), to no avail.

I'm running on a DELL XPS13 9343 (2015).

$ sudo lshw -c video
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:47 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64)

$ uname -a
Linux paperclip 3.19.0-17-generic #17-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 6 16:46:12 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 15.04
Release: 15.04
Codename: vivid

$ apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-video-intel
xserver-xorg-video-intel:
  Installed: 2:2.99.917+git1505041932.5054e2~gd~v
  Candidate: 2:2.99.917+git1505041932.5054e2~gd~v
  Version table:
 *** 2:2.99.917+git1505041932.5054e2~gd~v 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/oibaf/graphics-drivers/ubuntu/ vivid/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2:2.99.917-1~exp1ubuntu2.1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid-updates/main amd64 Packages
     2:2.99.917-1~exp1ubuntu2build1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/main amd64 Packages

[Moritz Heiber (mheiber)]

For some reason the screenshot didn't catch on. Trying again.

Also, I noticed that this bug might be connected to me running 'compton' as my compositor. Is anybody else running a compositor by any chance?

Try killing/starting/restarting it .. it fixed it for me. As suggested by https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90047#c8

[brokeasshachi (greasemunkeyparts)]

All,

As per my above comment, running those commands did fix the issue. Note: as I mentioned, you need to install the depends also.. example:

~# sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg unity-control-center xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-core xorg-video-abi-15 libcheese-gtk23 libcheese7 libclutter-1.0-0 libclutter-gtk-1.0-0 libcogl15 libclutter-gst-2.0-0 gstreamer1.0-clutter

(I think that's everything but if it pops up with the message Garry mentioned above, just install that package as well.)

Moritz,

I'm using compton as well and no issues after doing the above.

[Gerry Donlon (gerdawg)]

The above fix worked for me.....however on reboot my touchpad was not usable.

I had to run - sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics - to restore functionality.

Just FYI in the event someone else runs into this issue.

[Jan Newmarch (jan-newmarch)]

I've got a Gigabyte Brix GB-BXi7H-5500. This computer only has HDMI and mini DisplayPort outputs, no VGA. All the Desktop systems I have tried to install (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) have all failed because the screen is totally unreadable, with graphics flashing all over the place and nothing sensible to be seen. I managed to install Ubuntu 14.10 server and installed xinit and twm (yes, those ooollllllddd ways of doing X!). A barely usable system as long as only xterm was used. Trying to run e.g. firefox was a total mess (photo attached). So it's not a window manager issue, nor a GUI toolkit issue: this was absolutely minimal X. Updating linux kernel to 4.0.2 didn't help. Ubuntu 15.04 was no good - triple mouse pointers against a magenta screen.

Fix #32 worked and I can play 1080p movies such as Big Buck Bunny (a bit jerky as no i965 loaded). But it only works once I have the server install done - doesn't help Desktop installs.

I've also logged this as bug 90401 on bugs.freedesktop.org as "HDMI i915 driver broken on Gigabyte Brix GB-BXi7H-5500"

 *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:63 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64)
Linux desktop-14-10 3.16.0-37-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Tue May 5 13:45:59 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[David Abergel (davelargeuk)]

I am also experiencing this kind of issue. For me, the problems manifest as buggy display of video when VLC is in windowed mode. (Fullscreen mode is fine.) Also, when I suspend my laptop, the display is partially corrupted when I resume. See here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pm-utils/+bug/1452318

The UXA tweak does work for me, but makes my laptop noticeably slower, and unusable when I run Virtualbox (this is something I have to do quite a lot, so it a bit of a deal-breaker). I am also using a new Dell XPS 13 and see similar log messages to Moritz Heiber in post #106 above.

Is it safe to try the test packages from post #100 in vivid?

Thanks.

[John doe (r9-launchpad-fq)]

As said is #104, I can now confirm after 2 days of usage that issues (missing letters, etc.) have disappeared since I installed packages from #100 (I simply done a dpkg -i as the same older package was previously installed).

[LSW (lorax)]

I can also confirm what appears to be this bug on 14.04 running on an Asus UX303LAB (Google maps is practically unusable). However, the fix from #100 seems to resolve the issue.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

davelargeuk, jan-newmarch, mheiber: this is not your bug, file a new one

[Nigel Rook (nigelrook)]

Confirming that I had this issue , and this it is fixed for me using the driver package from #100

Running ubuntu 14.04 with kernel 3.16.0-38-generic and lts-utopic xserver installed

Hardware:
Dell XPS13 (9343) plugged into a Dell U2515H via displayport

[Francisco Cribari (cribari)]

I am running Ubuntu 15.04 on a Dell XPS 13 (2015 edition, model 9343, dual boot w/ Windows) and I believe I am affected by this bug as well. I am experiencing crashes when suspending (to RAM). See
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1457447

cribari@darwin4:/etc/default$ uname -a
Linux darwin4 3.19.0-18-generic #18-Ubuntu SMP Tue May 19 18:31:35 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
cribari@darwin4:/etc/default$ sudo lshw -c video
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:48 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64)
cribari@darwin4:/etc/default$ modinfo i915 | head
filename: /lib/modules/3.19.0-18-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915.ko
license: GPL and additional rights
description: Intel Graphics
author: Intel Corporation
author: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
srcversion: D9518833453F92314BDA2ED
alias: pci:v00008086d0000162Dsv*sd*bc03sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d0000162Asv*sd*bc03sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d0000162Esv*sd*bc03sc*i*
alias: pci:v00008086d0000162Bsv*sd*bc03sc*i*
cribari@darwin4:/etc/default$

[girisha (girishad)]

@ Francisco Cribari (#116), did you update to the latest xserver-xorg-video-intel package? I had no issues with 15.04 but few days back I updated it and started to see missing letter bug again. Try downgrading back to the older package.

[Jan Newmarch (jan-newmarch)]

Re: #114. In the bug 90401 at bugs.freedesktop.org (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90401) I was pointed to the xf86-video-intel page http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-intel/. Building and installing this got rid of the flashing lights, unusable display, etc and seems to have fixed the bug I saw.

[chrisber (chrisber)]

It affects me too, really annoying characters within the bash application just disappear.

dist 14.04 kernel 3.16.0-38-generic Hardware: Tp450 Lenovo

[chrisber (chrisber)]

In addition it seams that waking up from Sleep mode initiates the problem .

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

I still see the same problem with 3.16.0-38-generic.
Seems less prevalent but coming back after lunch, and I see the font corrupt as before.

[Ross Grady (0iq-ross)]

@tjaalton Your patch from #100 was working great for us, but like some other folks here, it looks like an update has superceded it and the problem is back. In #105 you mentioned that you would upload a newer version -- has that happened? Or perhaps a better question, how close are we to having the problem resolved within the actual standard distro repos?

Thanks!

[phitastic (robbel)]

I am on 14.04 and the patch in #100 never seems to have been superseded in my usual apt-get update/dist-upgrade sessions. @iq-ross: is that something that only applies to dists > 14.04? Thanks!

[Ross Grady (0iq-ross)]

@robbel -- I haven't had a chance to sit down with one of the affected machines to do a deep dive. In #105 @tjaalton references an update that would have had the effect of reverting the patch but to be honest, when he talks about 4.3.1 vs 4.4. vs 4.5, I'm not 100% clear on what package he's talking about.

All I know right now is that I had machines working for 2 weeks & suddenly they're back to corrupted text when they come out of suspend.

[Ross Grady (0iq-ross)]

OK, having looked at one of the affected machines, I'm stumped. They're still running the xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic_2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.3.1~trusty1_amd64.deb that I downloaded from Timo's page a couple of weeks ago. This is 14.04.2 on a Thinkpad X1 Carbon running 3.16.0-38.

The symptoms have returned -- widespread text corruption when resuming from suspend.

What data, if any, should I collect to assist with this?

[Ross Grady (0iq-ross)]

I was able to sit down with a test machine this morning. Here is a matrix of what I found. My team uses gnome-session-flashback rather than Unity, so the problem we have been seeing was showing up there.

This is all on a machine with Timo's xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic_2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.3.1~trusty1_amd64.deb installed from comment #100

Kernel | Unity | Metacity | Compiz
3.16.0-37 | OK | corruption | OK
3.16.0-37 | OK | corruption | OK

So at this point I'm consistently able to recreate the problem by closing the lid to put the machine into standby, and then reopening the lid, but only using gnome-sesssion-flashback with Metacity.

The problem manifests itself as basically *no* text rendering on screen, either in the unlock dialogue, or once past that, in any windows that had been open, in the menubar, etc.

This seems like it might be a separate issue, so if I need to open a separate ticket, please let me know.

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

I'm still seeing issues on 14.04.
I have the latest kernel - 3.16.0-38-generic

Symptoms are the same as before:
Use sna in the X11 conf.
Attach an external monitor.
Run for a while and you'll see characters start disappearing and title bars corrupted.
Opening google earth seems to make things go bad pretty quick.

uxa is still a work around.
But sna is markedly faster, so I'd still love to be able to use that.

[Tom Carnell (tcarnell)]

I am also getting this problem on a Dell Latitude E7250 - also with i7 5600 + Intel 5500 video, using Ubuntu 14.04.2 - the corrupt text is making software development very hit and miss... a fix would be GREAT!

Can I help?

[Simao (simaomm)]

Hello,

I had the same problem with my hardware (Asus Ux303LA, Intel 5500, i7)

It appears to have been fixed upstream in drm-intel-next,

You can try it using a kernel with the latest drm-intel-next, which you can get from here: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/drm-intel-next/current/

I also use i915.enable_execlists=0 as a kernel parameter and it appears to be stable now.

[Elin (toijer)]

Hey,

I tried to follow the instructions given in post 100 and got he error: breaks existing package n 'intel-gpu-tools' that conflict: 'xserver-xorg-video-intel'.

My computer is a dell latitude E7450 and i have Ubuntu 14.04. Any idea how to solve this problem? I would very much appreciate your help!

[Carlos (carlos-alos-ferrer)]

I am running Ubuntu 14.04 on a Thinkpad X250. I still have this issue (corrupted fonts, flacky graphics interface) running the latest kernel. Besides, I have the exact same problem reported in post 130 when trying to apply the fix in post 100.

The problem is exacerbated when using an external monitor, which in my case is 90% of the time. I also confirm that running google maps essentially corrupts everything (I have to reboot), although the LITE version works.

Help would be very much appreciated.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

I've finally uploaded a new intel driver to utopic and lts-utopic backport to trusty that fix the font corruption issue on GT3... they'll get built and pushed to -proposed once accepted

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Hello seth, or anyone else affected,

Accepted into utopic-proposed. The package will build now and be available in a few hours in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Hello seth, or anyone else affected,

Accepted xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic into trusty-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic/2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Débora (setton-debora)]

Hi, I am also affected by this issue and would like to test the fixed package,
but I'm running Ubuntu 15.04 (vivid).

Will this fix be available in vivid repositories too?

Thanks!

[Pablo Gambetta (gambeita)]

Same problem here,

Ubuntu 14.04
Inspiron 15 3000 Series (Intel(R)) - 3543
Intel® Core™ i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz × 4
Intel® HD Graphics 5500 (Broadwell GT2)

[Erik-Jan Blanksma (erikjan-6)]

I've upgraded from the proposed repository and it does ideed seem to fix the issue for me. package version: 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1

Using XPS 13 9343.
Thx a lot!

[Carlos (carlos-alos-ferrer)]

I have upgraded from the trusty-proposed repository on a Thinkpad X250 and after testing it for a day, it seems to fix the problem for me. No font corruption anymore, even google maps seems to work.

Comment: Might be related or not, but yesterday after the upgrade the minimize/maximize/switch off buttons were gone in the non-maximized windows in the external monitor, today they are back. Go figure.

Many thanks!

[stephen (ste-moorhouse)]

setting update software updater to install pre-released updates fixed the graphics issues

although it killed my trackpad

this was fixed using
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

[Mark A. Hershberger (hexmode)]

I think I fixed my vivid system by downgrading 2:2.99.917~exp1ubuntu2.2 to 2:2.99.917~exp1ubuntu2build1. I also tried exp1ubuntu3 and it didn't work.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

too much noise here, if you have issues with vivid file a new bug

marking verified since the utopic upload seems to work

[Luke Darnell (q-luke)]

I can confirm that this bug is fixed with 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1 of xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic

[Michel-Ekimia (michel.ekimia)]

Works great with proposed package.

We cannot sell those broadwell laptops and desktops because of this bug right now.

We can we expect the fix to be in main ?

[David (abbasi-david)]

I was affected by this bug as well, but it was not too annoying to me as it rarely happened, so I did not pay much attention if it were solver or not. In the other hand the resume after suspend used to work well until a software update:

Start-Date: 2015-07-01 01:24:16
Commandline: aptdaemon role='role-commit-packages' sender=':1.83'
Upgrade: xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic:amd64
(2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.2~trusty1, 2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.3~trusty1),
unattended-upgrades:amd64 (0.82.1ubuntu2.2, 0.82.1ubuntu2.3)
End-Date: 2015-07-01 01:24:19

Since then, resume after suspend does not work well and the windows are not drawn properly (the same as bug #1452318 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/1452318 ). I post here because the bugs seems to be related.

I tried the proposed 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1 , but the resume after suspend problem persists. The only workaround for the moment is to switch the SNA to UXA as commented in #28, but a lack of performance is noticable as happen to #111.

I attach screenshots of the problem with versions 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.3~trusty1 and 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1

[David (abbasi-david)]

By the way, I can confirm that the missing letters problem is solved with the proposed 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1 .

Laptop ThinkPad T550
i5-5200U
Intel HD Graphics 5500 (Broadwell GT2)
Ubuntu 14.04

Thank you very much!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package xserver-xorg-video-intel - 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5

---------------
xserver-xorg-video-intel (2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5) utopic; urgency=medium

  [ Timo Aaltonen ]
  * sna-gen8-clear-instancing-enabled-bit-between-batches.diff: Fix
    corruptions and missing letters on 2nd head. (LP: #1432194)

  [ Robert Hooker ]
  * sna-clear-cursor-image-after-rotation.patch: Fix a double cursor problem after
    rotating the screen (LP: #1376760) (LP: #1443345) backport from
    a88795c641 upstream.

 -- Timo Aaltonen <email address hidden> Fri, 26 Jun 2015 14:22:42 +0300

[Adam Conrad (adconrad)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for xserver-xorg-video-intel has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic - 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1

---------------
xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-utopic (2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1) trusty; urgency=medium

  * Backport utopic package for lts-utopic stack.

 -- Timo Aaltonen <email address hidden> Mon, 11 May 2015 14:35:11 +0300

[julien (jrmlhermitte)]

The issue is not fixed for vivid (15.04). What is the status on this? Here is what I see. I use FVWM and the results are even worse. This occurs every time I suspend and resume into fvwm. If I log out of FVWM and log back in, the glitches go away.

[David (abbasi-david)]

@Julien, this bug is about the missing letters. The resume after suspend bug seems to be related as well with the xorg-video-intel, and is filed as the bug #1452318 . So please, go there and include yourself in the list of affected users.

[zlatko (zlatko23)]

I can report issue is NOT fixed with 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1 Using Lenovo X1 Carbon 3rd Gen - just got corrupted UI menus after suspend-resume. Should be reopened.

[zlatko (zlatko23)]

Adding to my above report - after the update to 2:2.99.914-1~exp1ubuntu4.5~trusty1 screen started to go blank(black) constantly. In intervals from seconds to minutes. System is till running OK, I am able to start the screen by Ctrl-Alt-F1 and then Ctrl-Alt-F7. I do not know if this is really connected to driver.

[julien (jrmlhermitte)]

thank you for the information, i will go there :-)

[David (abbasi-david)]

Zlatko, as said before, the resume after suspend bug seems to be related with the xorg-video-intel, and is filed as the bug #1452318 . So please, go there and include yourself in the list of affected users. Report there your bug.

[julien (jrmlhermitte)]

I tried:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade xserver-xorg-video-intel

It did upgrade the driver.

However, I still see the issue with my graphics in FVWM.

Any recommendations on what to do for the layman if I'm not doing something right? Thanks :-)

I have ubuntu 15.04

[Andreas Schildbach (schildbach)]

I've got exactly this issue (missing characters, sometimes funny colored artifacts replacing characters in fonts) on the Lenovo T410s (Ubuntu 15.04, xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917-1~exp1ubuntu2.2). Will this fix be ported to Vivid?

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

vivid issues after resume from suspend is a different bug, should be fixed by
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/vivid/+source/linux/+bug/1483320

(the "migrate bdw to i915_bpo" part)

tracked also on bug 1452318

[Neil Myrick (neil-myrick)]

I don't really see a fix in all of the notes. I see a 'workaround', but it isn't a very good option, as it affects performance.

[Stefano Dall'Agata (essedia1960)]

Same problem for me
Modifying anti-aliasing improves with Ubuntu Tweak, but only disappears leaving the session. Reappears random.
Lenovo g50-30
GPU Intel 4000
kernel 3.16.0-60-generic

[Patrick Gillespie (vermontpoet)]

This bug also affects me:

Kernel: 4.4.0-16-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.5.4
           Distro: Ubuntu 16.04 xenial

It also affects all of the HP Streams my family uses. They are currently running Ubuntu 15.10.

[vik (askvictor)]

I've experienced this sort of bug twice today on 16.04. I've submitted a new bug with logs at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1578043

[chrisber (chrisber)]

Affects:
- Thinkpad T550:
- Linux lpt 4.4.0-22-generic #39-Ubuntu SMP Thu May 5 16:53:32 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
- Ubuntu 16.04

[kris van der Merwe (krisvdm)]

Serious bug

Lost my second screen via HDMI on kernel update to vmlinuz-4.4.0-37-generic

Host bridge: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Host Bridge -OPI (rev 09)
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics (rev 09)

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

kris: don't hijack old bugs, file a new one