Frozen screen when alt-tabbing between windows on multiple monitors

[JustinSpedding]

 * Cinnamon version: 4.4.6
 * Distribution: Linux Mint 19.3
 * Graphics: GTX 1080 with proprietary drivers 435.21 and/or 440.44
 * 32 or 64 bit: 64 bit

Issue

I have 2 monitors. Sometimes, when I have a game fullscreen on one monitor and alt-tab between that and a window on the second monitor, the second monitor gets frozen. I think this is a problem with the alt-tab program. I am using the Coverflow 3D alt-tab effect style.

Steps to reproduce

This is exactly what I did, but I am not sure which parts are strictly necessary:

1) Have a 2-monitor setup 2) Enable the Coverflow 3D alt-tab effect 3) Load a fullscreen app on the first monitor (For me, it always happened with videogames. I play a lot of proton games and feral ports via steam. I do not know if it needs to be a Vulkan-based game, but I have not seen it with other apps due to not doing this with other apps.) 4) Load a second non-fullscreen app on the other monitor (I always have either Chrome or Firefox maximized. idk if it needs to be a web browser or not.) 5) Alt-tab between the two apps 6) Most of the time, this works fine. But sometimes, when alt-tabbing from my browser on the second monitor to the fullscreen game on the first monitor, the second monitor stops updating. So, whatever the last frame was gets stuck there. However, I can still interact with it. I can drag my cursor over to the second monitor and drag the browser window out and over to the first monitor. But, I am basically doing it blind because I cannot see what I am doing with my cursor or anything that is happening on the second monitor. It stays like this until I restart cinnamon by using the ctrl+alt+backspace shortcut.

Expected behaviour

The second monitor should not get frozen

Other information

Here are the xsession errors: xsession-errors.txt

I think this is an issue with the alt-tabbing functionality in cinnamon and not a driver/kernel issue because, when I restart cinnamon after this happens, the frozen screen becomes unfrozen for a split second as my apps are terminating before the login screen shows up. Also, this happened in kernel 5.0, 5.3, and 5.4 as well as multiple video driver versions.

I have a 144hz monitor with vsync disabled. idk if that matters.

The next time this happens, I will take a video of it.

[JustinSpedding]

Here is a video of it happening: https://photos.app.goo.gl/wE827EdnrGaa2BWH6

It show the frozen right screen, as well as me hitting ctrl+alt+backspace to fall back to the login screen.

[sniperlucian]

I have this with latest update too. With additional observations:

• First Monitor doesn't need to be Fullscreen. In my case windows LOL on wine caused this too.

• The last Image from secondary monitor freeze. However, windows can still moved under this frozen image.

• Programs keep running behind this frozen image. You can see this if you Alt/Tab with preview thumbnails.

• Alt/Tab with carousel is working on secondary screen, as soon as you select a program the monitor freezes to the last image with the carousel.

• I got it fixed without logout by the "Display" settings dialog. Reapply recovers the secondary monitor. Don't know if this is temporary, but sinced than it didnt happen again so far.

Manjaro Cinnamon 4.4.8 GTX 1060 Nvidia driver 440.59 Kernel: Linux manq12 5.4.17-1-MANJARO

[diaraujo13]

I face same problem. After alter ALT+TAB style alternance to Coverflow 3D, second monitor freezes.

System:
  Host: Aspire-F5-573 Kernel: 5.3.0-40-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
  v: 7.4.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.4.8 Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia 
  base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Aspire F5-573 v: V1.12 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Acer model: Captain_SK v: V1.12 serial: <filter> UEFI [Legacy]: Insyde 
  v: 1.12 date: 08/02/2016 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 14.8 Wh condition: 14.8/41.4 Wh (36%) 
  model: PANASONIC AS16A5K status: Full 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-6200U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Skylake rev: 3 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19200 
  Speed: 2648 MHz min/max: 400/2800 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2700 2: 2696 
  3: 2685 4: 2699 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.5 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 520 (Skylake GT2) 
  v: 4.5 Mesa 19.2.8 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.3.0-40-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter 
  vendor: Lite-On driver: ath9k v: kernel port: 4040 bus ID: 02:00.0 
  IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 
  bus ID: 03:00.1 
  IF: enp3s0f1 state: down mac: <filter> 
  IF-ID-1: docker0 state: up speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: <filter> 
  IF-ID-2: vboxnet0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  IF-ID-3: vboxnet1 state: up speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
  IF-ID-4: veth2a4d672 state: up speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 223.57 GiB used: 113.03 GiB (50.6%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: SanDisk model: SDSSDA240G size: 223.57 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 74.56 GiB used: 23.12 GiB (31.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6 
  ID-2: /home size: 144.46 GiB used: 89.91 GiB (62.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda7 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 62.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 273 Uptime: 1d 7h 35m Memory: 15.52 GiB used: 7.22 GiB (46.5%) 
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.4.0 Shell: zsh v: 5.4.2 
  inxi: 3.0.32 

[ChristianSilvermoon]

I've been experiencing basically exactly this for years on different hardware, different versions of cinnamon, and different releases of Linux Mint and am surprised this is still a problem ಠ_ಠ

My experiences have been consistent with @sniperlucian

[JustinSpedding]

Can confirm this still affects me in Linux Mint 20

[dimd13]

Have a same problem with Coverflow 3D, second monitor freezes. Restarting cinnamon helps but only for a while.

[youlyst]

Can confirm same issue with latest Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon, Cinnamon version 5.0.5

[dimd13]

Issue is still exists

[JustinSpedding]

Considering how this happens across many versions of Mint/Cinnamon and specifically occurs when enabling Coverflow 3D, it is probably a bug within the Coverflow 3D code. I am not sure where that code is located.

[mtwebster]

Hi, can I get you guys to try something..

# grab the coverflow file
cp /usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/appSwitcher/coverflowSwitcher.js ~

# make a backup
cp ~/coverflowSwitcher.js ~/coverflowSwitcher.js.bak

Now edit ~/coverflowSwitcher.js:

--- a/js/ui/appSwitcher/coverflowSwitcher.js
+++ b/js/ui/appSwitcher/coverflowSwitcher.js
@@ -30,6 +30,9 @@ CoverflowSwitcher.prototype = {
         this._xOffsetLeft = monitor.width * 0.1;
         this._xOffsetRight = monitor.width - this._xOffsetLeft;
         this._xOffsetCenter = monitor.width / 2;
+
+        this._looping = false;
+        this._requiresUpdate = false;
     },

Basically you're just adding those two lines just after line 32

Now copy the edited file back into the system:

sudo cp ~/coverflowSwitcher.js /usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/appSwitcher/

Then restart cinnamon (alt-f2, r, enter)

I can't actually reproduce this behavior, but this should handle a warning I noticed in the OP's log, which may be related. Thanks

[JustinSpedding]

@mtwebster I just tried adding those 2 lines, and the problem persists.

[privat3dancer]

I don't think this has to do with alt-tabbing. I can repro this second monitor freeze without alt-tabbing.

(Mesa amdgpu here, but I've seen it with proprietary drivers too and OP is using Nvidia drivers. So this happens across drivers and manufacturers. Also this doesn't happen on a second monitor if I use a different desktop environment, like KDE. It's a cinnamon-specific bug with multimonitor setups that has been around for years.)

[amytimed]

This is incredibly frustrating and happens to me all the time.

What is the command that is ran when you apply Display settings? I'd love to create a keyboard shortcut to avoid needing to open settings every few minutes because my monitor is frozen and essentially unusable

[dimd13]

Issue is still exists Linux Mint 21, Cinnamon 5.4.11

[Levizor]

And again it still exists. Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon 6.0.4

[netizen-a]

Still exists. Linux Mint 22, Cinnamon 6.2.9