Bug 1270532

Description of problem:

This problem is only reproducible when using the proprietary NVIDIA drivers and OpenGL rendering. It is especially apparent when using Firefox and other accelerated applications.

The problem is resolved by applying the following patches, in order as they appear, to mutter and bumping the release. I successfully did this with the RHEL 7.2 beta. 

https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/patch/src/compositor?id=47cb21b36c7f28c76c7f68b9a5c1d31daae2a0cb
https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/patch/src/compositor?id=662d50460bea2410cb278ab9e89356fb6263e4e2
https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/patch/src/compositor?id=9b1d436854bd353668565b921248f7e22671ea8d
https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/patch/src/compositor?id=461f193c006a96bc442e236b7ba932711efe861c

These commits landed in the mutter 3.14 branch on 2015-08-13 in response to a severe issue with rendering discussed here:

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/729908/linux/-gt-334-21-redrawing-problems-in-gnome-3-10-3-12-gtx-580/7/

The issue essentially causes redraws to only complete partially. From what I saw this was due to a race condition caused by using proprietary drivers where XSync is not sufficient enough. The proprietary drivers are necessary when using Quadro graphics cards or CUDA.

The only workaround is to force clutter into continuous redrawing which is far from ideal.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

3.14.4-10

How reproducible:

Always.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install recent version of the NVIDIA graphics drivers for Linux.
2. Reboot.
3. Open a decent amount of tabs in Firefox and browse casually.

Actual results:

Partial redraws causing flashes and other graphical artifacts.

Expected results:

Properly redrawn graphics.

Additional info:

https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/log/src/compositor?h=gnome-3-14
https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/commit/?h=gnome-3-14&id=47cb21b36c7f28c76c7f68b9a5c1d31daae2a0cb
https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/commit/?h=gnome-3-14&id=662d50460bea2410cb278ab9e89356fb6263e4e2
https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/commit/?h=gnome-3-14&id=9b1d436854bd353668565b921248f7e22671ea8d
https://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/commit/?h=gnome-3-14&id=461f193c006a96bc442e236b7ba932711efe861c