Other workspaces windows viewable on empty workspaces

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Visit empty workspace, open a program, like a web browser.
2. Visit another empty workspace (mod+<1/2/3/etc.>)

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I expect to see an empty workspace, with my background image. Instead, I see 
the program I opened on the other workspace. I can't do anything to it, it just 
appears to be there. This is a bit disorienting.

If I open a window on every workspace, this bug is not a problem. Workspaces 
and window management work as expected.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

Debian GNU/Linux, unstable branch. Installed through apt. I recently did a 
large amount of package upgrades, and this bug was introduced. Oddly, I did the 
same updates on another machine, running an almost identical stack with xmonad, 
and the bug does not exist.

Here's the xmonad package info (on both machines):

-------------------------------------------
steve@euwe:~$ apt-cache show xmonad
Package: xmonad
Source: xmonad (0.11-7)
Version: 0.11-7+b1
Installed-Size: 2666
Maintainer: Debian Haskell Group 
<pkg-haskell-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Replaces: xmonad-rebuild
Provides: x-window-manager
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14), libffi6 (>= 3.0.4), libgmp10, libx11-6, libxext6, 
libxinerama1, libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.99.3), x11-utils
Recommends: libghc-xmonad-dev, libghc-xmonad-doc, xfonts-base
Suggests: dmenu
Conflicts: xmonad-rebuild
Description-en: Lightweight X11 window manager written in Haskell
 Xmonad is a minimalist tiling window manager for X, written in
 Haskell.  Windows are managed using automatic layout algorithms,
 which can be dynamically reconfigured. At any time windows are
 arranged so as to maximise the use of screen real estate. All
 features of the window manager are accessible purely from the
 keyboard: a mouse is entirely optional.  Xmonad is configured in
 Haskell, and custom layout algorithms may be implemented by the user
 in config files. A principle of Xmonad is predictability: the user
 should know in advance precisely the window arrangement that will
 result from any action.
 .
 This package comes pre-configured with the default configuration. If
 you want to build your custom-configured version, make sure that
 libghc-xmonad-dev is installed and put your configuration in
 ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs
Description-md5: a827bdbc621fa78a6624eb347265b935
Homepage: http://xmonad.org/
Tag: implemented-in::haskell, interface::x11, role::program, uitoolkit::xlib,
 x11::window-manager
Section: x11
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/x/xmonad/xmonad_0.11-7+b1_amd64.deb
Size: 430140
MD5sum: 46df4852f126117d3980856504ce5278
SHA1: 10203968a65d0a51ad989cda49c5225c4d5ef224
SHA256: 39073c319cc4eb1b8995dbabfe14b2ce2c268edab07275bb8f472c7faaffd314

-------------------------------------------

Are you using an xmonad.hs?  Please attach it and the output of "xmonad
--recompile".

I am, but this bug exists when I don't use it. "xmonad --recompile" produces no 
output.

My xmonad.hs can be seen here:
https://github.com/steventlamb/xmonad-config/blob/53340a37a6daf5f814f0fe79db0e4d
1b8ed8272d/xmonad.hs

Please provide any additional information below.

I'm mostly looking for some direction for how to go forward. Has anyone seen 
this? Is there a term used to describe this bug/behavior? Something like 
"Sticky windows".

Original issue reported on code.google.com by sl...@azavea.com on 18 May 2014 at 8:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This is typically a bug in the xorg video driver; xmonad handles window 
placement policy, this is redraws not happening which is between the X server 
and whatever client is not redrawing (or the server itself if there is no 
backdrop window).

While things like this often happen with NVidia driver regressions and the only 
known workarounds involve running a compositing manager, apparently a recent 
Intel video driver update introduced this in the case where the root window is 
left at the default black; `xsetroot -grey` is a workaround in this case.

Original comment by allber...@gmail.com on 18 May 2014 at 9:12

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks so much! The workaround works great. In my case, I added:

`spawn "xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr -solid black"`

to the main do block in my xmonad.hs file.

Original comment by sl...@azavea.com on 18 May 2014 at 9:33