Bug 1408881 - Mate user's guide browser screen blanks intermittently and sometimes causes system freeze
Summary: Mate user's guide browser screen blanks intermittently and sometimes causes s...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: xorg-x11-drv-nouveau
Version: 25
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ben Skeggs
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2016-12-27 23:35 UTC by Don Swaner
Modified: 2017-12-12 10:23 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
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Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-12-12 10:23:37 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


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Description Don Swaner 2016-12-27 23:35:40 UTC
Description of problem:
When browsing the Mate user's guide, sometimes the window body blanks (text not visible), and occasionally, the system freezes (for a minute or so) - only the
mouse is live.  When the window is blanked the text is "still there", you just can't see it - moving the mouse over the window, the mouse shape will change when you are over an invisible button.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
mate-user-guide.noarch  1.16.0-1.fc25

How reproducible:
Fairly - usually within a minute or two of trying to cause the problem, or just trying to browse the user's guide.  Switching to another window, and switching back sometimes seems to trigger it.  The problem has happened from time to time over the last 5 days (when I migrated to F25).

Steps to Reproduce:
1. From Pluma, select help, to view the pluma user's guide
2. Browse the help.  Sometimes just scrolling down (using the mouse and scroll bar) in help seems to trigger it.  I have not discovered any way to consistently force the problem to occur.  Switching to another window, then switching back, seems to cause it.  Switching to pluma, then switching tabs, then switching back may cause it, but not consistently.  It may be that just opening the user's guide, then switching to another screen for a few minutes will trigger it.

Actual results:
Sometimes the help window body blanks out.  You have to close help, and re-open it to see the help text.  If the system freezes (except for the mouse movement), switching to a console doesn't work - or rather it may work, after a minute or so, when the system "comes back".

Expected results:
Browse user's guide without problems.

Additional info:
The blanking of the window body is reminiscent of the current bug with the blank screensaver.  The journal doesn't show any problems.

The following .xsession-errors message is suspicious, but it only occurs once, and this problem has occurred maybe half a dozen times during the last hour:

/usr/share/help/C/creating-marco-themes/index.docbook:4: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/usr/share/help/C/creating-marco-themes/docbookx.dtd"
]>
  ^

Comment 1 Don Swaner 2016-12-28 00:39:52 UTC
Another instance:  I opened the user's guide, and let the machine sit for 5 minutes or so.  Then I went back to check on it.  The user's guide text was still visible.  I had a couple of notifications on the screen, so I moved the mouse to clear the notifications.  As the cusor swept across the window, the text blanked out.

Comment 2 Don Swaner 2016-12-29 14:59:42 UTC
It appears that this may be another problem related to xorg-x11-drv-nouveau.  When I turn off hardware acceleration, it appears to solve this problem.  So, I'm not sure if the bug component should be "mate-users-guide", "xorg-x11-drv-nouveau", or something else in between.

Comment 3 Wolfgang Ulbrich 2016-12-29 22:21:47 UTC
(In reply to Don Swaner from comment #2)
> It appears that this may be another problem related to xorg-x11-drv-nouveau.
> When I turn off hardware acceleration, it appears to solve this problem. 
> So, I'm not sure if the bug component should be "mate-users-guide",
> "xorg-x11-drv-nouveau", or something else in between.
The application itself is the yelp browser which use a context mate-user-guide or gnome-user-guide.
I am happy with using origin nvidia driver, so i don't see all those issues and can't say if it is a yelp or nouveau issue.

Comment 4 Don Swaner 2016-12-29 23:35:59 UTC
I've been using nouveau for many years and never had problems either.  Now I've got 3 issues that seem to be nouveau issues: 1) mediawriter freezing; 2) eom not displaying some images; 3) yelp window blanking and/or freezing.

I'm not sure who should close and/or reassign the 2 mate bugs to nouveau (or open a new nouveau bug), you (the assigned developer) or me (the end user reporting the bug)?

Comment 5 Wolfgang Ulbrich 2016-12-31 07:37:49 UTC
You should be able to reassign a report to another component as reporter.
But i will do that for you and reassign it to nouveau because of your list.

Comment 6 Don Swaner 2016-12-31 13:52:22 UTC
Output of /sbin/lspci | grep -e VGA
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation C51 [GeForce 6150 LE] (rev a2).

When hardware acceleration is turned off, mediawriter, eom, and yelp work without problems.

Comment 7 Don Swaner 2017-01-15 18:16:45 UTC
In a gnome desktop, with "nouveau.noaccel=1" boot parm, eog (Gnome Image Viewer) works fine.  With acceleration on, some images do not display (as per Mate eom).  Also, with acceleration turned on, sometimes gnome-shell aborts while starting up.

Comment 8 Don Swaner 2017-02-14 12:38:38 UTC
With hardware acceleration ON, using eom (Eye of Mate), trying to view image /usr/share/backgrounds/f25/extras/milky-way-over-mangart-mountain.jpg, the image does not display and the following errors are recorded in the journal:

... PROODF25.LINUX2C.home kernel: nouveau 0000:00:05.0: Xorg[770]: fail ttm_validate
... PRODF25.LINUX2C.home kernel: nouveau 0000:00:05.0: Xorg[770]: validating bo list
... PRODF25.LINUX2C.home kernel: nouveau 0000:00:05.0: Xorg[770]: validate: -12

Comment 9 Fedora End Of Life 2017-11-16 19:47:32 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 25 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 25. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
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Comment 10 Fedora End Of Life 2017-12-12 10:23:37 UTC
Fedora 25 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2017-12-12. Fedora 25 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
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