GLX issues in linux kernel 5.10.16-arch1-1

[NimbleClint]

Hello, I'm having issues while using the glx backend on the stable branch of the linux kernel. When I log into my qtile desktop, the qtile bar appears empty and when a terminal (kitty) is launched (which uses transparency and dual-kawase blur), I see a frame indicating that the terminal has focus but the window appears empty. Screenshots of expected and actual behavior can be found below. This issue started occuring around the time I installed the 5.10 kernel, but the issue has never occured while using the Linux-lts kernel - which until yesterday was linux-lts 5.4.xx, but has now been updated to linux-lts 5.10.

This is speculation, but I'm wondering if this may have something to do with my nvidia drivers. I had to manually uninstall and reinstall those around the same time the kernel was updated. However, it seems like my nvidia drivers are currently up to date, so perhaps it's a red herring.

Platform

OS: Arch Linux Kernel: 5.10.16-arch1-1 CPU: i7-4790k

GPU, drivers, and screen setup

GPU: NVidia GTX 970 Display info: Triple-monitor setup. There are two files in my xorg.conf.d, the first is "10-nvidia.conf":

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 460.27.04

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "AUS VG245"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 90.0
    VertRefresh     40.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GTX 970"
EndSection

Section "Screen"

# Removed Option "metamodes" "HDMI-0: nvidia-auto-select +1280+0, DVI-I-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DVI-D-0: nvidia-auto-select +3200+0"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-1"
    Option         "metamodes" "HDMI-0: nvidia-auto-select +1280+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On, ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}, DVI-I-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On, ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}, DVI-D-0: nvidia-auto-select +3200+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On, ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

The second is named "20-monitor.conf":

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "HDMI-0"
    Option "Primary" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "DVI-I-1"
    Option "LeftOf" "HDMI-0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "DVI-D-0"
    Option "RightOf" "HDMI-0"
EndSection

nvidia-smi output:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 460.39       Driver Version: 460.39       CUDA Version: 11.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 970     Off  | 00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   58C    P0    47W / 200W |    114MiB /  4034MiB |      3%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A       496      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                      73MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

glxinfo -B output:

name of display: :0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: Mesa/X.org (0xffffffff)
    Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.1.0, 256 bits) (0xffffffff)
    Version: 20.3.4
    Accelerated: no
    Video memory: 15940MB
    Unified memory: no
    Preferred profile: core (0x1)
    Max core profile version: 4.5
    Max compat profile version: 3.1
    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
    Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa/X.org
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.1.0, 256 bits)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 20.3.4
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL version string: 3.1 Mesa 20.3.4
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.40
OpenGL context flags: (none)

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 20.3.4
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20

Environment

I am using qtile.

picom version

Output of picom --version vgit-d9743

Configuration:

Apologies for the length here, I really oughta go through this and clean up all the commented lines.

#################################
#             Shadows           #
#################################

# Enabled client-side shadows on windows. Note desktop windows
# (windows with '_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DESKTOP') never get shadow,
# unless explicitly requested using the wintypes option.
#
# shadow = false
shadow = false;

# The blur radius for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to 12)
# shadow-radius = 12
shadow-radius = 7;

# The opacity of shadows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0.75)
# shadow-opacity = .75

# The left offset for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to -15)
# shadow-offset-x = -15
shadow-offset-x = -7;

# The top offset for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to -15)
# shadow-offset-y = -15
shadow-offset-y = -7;

# Red color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-red = 0

# Green color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-green = 0

# Blue color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-blue = 0

# Hex string color value of shadow (#000000 - #FFFFFF, defaults to #000000). This option will override options set shadow-(red/green/blue)
# shadow-color = "#000000"

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should have no shadow.
#
# examples:
#   shadow-exclude = "n:e:Notification";
#
# shadow-exclude = []
shadow-exclude = [
  "name = 'Notification'",
  "class_g = 'Conky'",
  "class_g ?= 'Notify-osd'",
  "class_g = 'Cairo-clock'",
  "_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS@:c"
];

# Specify a X geometry that describes the region in which shadow should not
# be painted in, such as a dock window region. Use
#    shadow-exclude-reg = "x10+0+0"
# for example, if the 10 pixels on the bottom of the screen should not have shadows painted on.
#
# shadow-exclude-reg = ""

# Crop shadow of a window fully on a particular Xinerama screen to the screen.
# xinerama-shadow-crop = false

#################################
#           Fading              #
#################################

# Fade windows in/out when opening/closing and when opacity changes,
#  unless no-fading-openclose is used.
# fading = false
fading = true;

# Opacity change between steps while fading in. (0.01 - 1.0, defaults to 0.028)
# fade-in-step = 0.028
fade-in-step = 0.03;

# Opacity change between steps while fading out. (0.01 - 1.0, defaults to 0.03)
# fade-out-step = 0.03
fade-out-step = 0.03;

# The time between steps in fade step, in milliseconds. (> 0, defaults to 10)
# fade-delta = 10

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should not be faded.
# fade-exclude = []

# Do not fade on window open/close.
# no-fading-openclose = false

# Do not fade destroyed ARGB windows with WM frame. Workaround of bugs in Openbox, Fluxbox, etc.
# no-fading-destroyed-argb = false

#################################
#   Transparency / Opacity      #
#################################

# Opacity of inactive windows. (0.1 - 1.0, defaults to 1.0)
# inactive-opacity = 1
inactive-opacity = 0.8;

# Opacity of window titlebars and borders. (0.1 - 1.0, disabled by default)
# frame-opacity = 1.0
frame-opacity = 0.7;

# Let inactive opacity set by -i override the '_NET_WM_OPACITY' values of windows.
# inactive-opacity-override = true
inactive-opacity-override = false;

# Default opacity for active windows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 1.0)
# active-opacity = 1.0

# Dim inactive windows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0.0)
# inactive-dim = 0.0

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should always be considered focused.
# focus-exclude = []
focus-exclude = [ "class_g = 'Cairo-clock'" ];

# Use fixed inactive dim value, instead of adjusting according to window opacity.
# inactive-dim-fixed = 1.0

# Specify a list of opacity rules, in the format `PERCENT:PATTERN`,
# like `50:name *= "Firefox"`. picom-trans is recommended over this.
# Note we don't make any guarantee about possible conflicts with other
# programs that set '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' on frame or client windows.
# example:
#    opacity-rule = [ "80:class_g = 'URxvt'" ];
#
# opacity-rule = []

#################################
#           Corners             #
#################################

# Sets the radius of rounded window corners. When > 0, the compositor will
# round the corners of windows. Does not interact well with
# `transparent-clipping`.
corner-radius = 0

# Exclude conditions for rounded corners.
rounded-corners-exclude = [
  "window_type = 'dock'",
  "window_type = 'desktop'"
];

#################################
#     Background-Blurring       #
#################################

# Parameters for background blurring, see the *BLUR* section for more information.
# blur-method =
# blur-size = 12
#
# blur-deviation = false
#
# blur-strength = 5

# Blur background of semi-transparent / ARGB windows.
# Bad in performance, with driver-dependent behavior.
# The name of the switch may change without prior notifications.
#
# blur-background = false

# Blur background of windows when the window frame is not opaque.
# Implies:
#    blur-background
# Bad in performance, with driver-dependent behavior. The name may change.
#
# blur-background-frame = false

# Use fixed blur strength rather than adjusting according to window opacity.
# blur-background-fixed = false

# Specify the blur convolution kernel, with the following format:
# example:
#   blur-kern = "5,5,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1";
#
# blur-kern = ""
blur-kern = "3x3box";

blur:
{
method = "dual_kawase";
strength = 15;
};

# Exclude conditions for background blur.
# blur-background-exclude = []
blur-background-exclude = [
  "window_type = 'dock'",
  "window_type = 'desktop'",
  "_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS@:c"
];

#################################
#       General Settings        #
#################################

# Daemonize process. Fork to background after initialization. Causes issues with certain (badly-written) drivers.
# daemon = false

# Specify the backend to use: `xrender`, `glx`, or `xr_glx_hybrid`.
# `xrender` is the default one.
#
# backend = "glx"
backend = "glx";

# Enable/disable VSync.
# vsync = false
vsync = false;

# Enable remote control via D-Bus. See the *D-BUS API* section below for more details.
# dbus = false

# Try to detect WM windows (a non-override-redirect window with no
# child that has 'WM_STATE') and mark them as active.
#
# mark-wmwin-focused = false
mark-wmwin-focused = true;

# Mark override-redirect windows that doesn't have a child window with 'WM_STATE' focused.
# mark-ovredir-focused = false
mark-ovredir-focused = true;

# Try to detect windows with rounded corners and don't consider them
# shaped windows. The accuracy is not very high, unfortunately.
#
# detect-rounded-corners = false
detect-rounded-corners = true;

# Detect '_NET_WM_OPACITY' on client windows, useful for window managers
# not passing '_NET_WM_OPACITY' of client windows to frame windows.
#
# detect-client-opacity = false
detect-client-opacity = true;

# Specify refresh rate of the screen. If not specified or 0, picom will
# try detecting this with X RandR extension.
#
# refresh-rate = 60
refresh-rate = 0;

# Use EWMH '_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW' to determine currently focused window,
# rather than listening to 'FocusIn'/'FocusOut' event. Might have more accuracy,
# provided that the WM supports it.
#
# use-ewmh-active-win = false

# Unredirect all windows if a full-screen opaque window is detected,
# to maximize performance for full-screen windows. Known to cause flickering
# when redirecting/unredirecting windows.
#
# unredir-if-possible = false

# Delay before unredirecting the window, in milliseconds. Defaults to 0.
# unredir-if-possible-delay = 0

# Conditions of windows that shouldn't be considered full-screen for unredirecting screen.
# unredir-if-possible-exclude = []

# Use 'WM_TRANSIENT_FOR' to group windows, and consider windows
# in the same group focused at the same time.
#
# detect-transient = false
detect-transient = true;

# Use 'WM_CLIENT_LEADER' to group windows, and consider windows in the same
# group focused at the same time. 'WM_TRANSIENT_FOR' has higher priority if
# detect-transient is enabled, too.
#
# detect-client-leader = false
detect-client-leader = true;

# Resize damaged region by a specific number of pixels.
# A positive value enlarges it while a negative one shrinks it.
# If the value is positive, those additional pixels will not be actually painted
# to screen, only used in blur calculation, and such. (Due to technical limitations,
# with use-damage, those pixels will still be incorrectly painted to screen.)
# Primarily used to fix the line corruption issues of blur,
# in which case you should use the blur radius value here
# (e.g. with a 3x3 kernel, you should use `--resize-damage 1`,
# with a 5x5 one you use `--resize-damage 2`, and so on).
# May or may not work with *--glx-no-stencil*. Shrinking doesn't function correctly.
#
# resize-damage = 1

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should be painted with inverted color.
# Resource-hogging, and is not well tested.
#
# invert-color-include = []

# GLX backend: Avoid using stencil buffer, useful if you don't have a stencil buffer.
# Might cause incorrect opacity when rendering transparent content (but never
# practically happened) and may not work with blur-background.
# My tests show a 15% performance boost. Recommended.
#
# glx-no-stencil = false

# GLX backend: Avoid rebinding pixmap on window damage.
# Probably could improve performance on rapid window content changes,
# but is known to break things on some drivers (LLVMpipe, xf86-video-intel, etc.).
# Recommended if it works.
#
# glx-no-rebind-pixmap = false

# Disable the use of damage information.
# This cause the whole screen to be redrawn everytime, instead of the part of the screen
# has actually changed. Potentially degrades the performance, but might fix some artifacts.
# The opposing option is use-damage
#
# no-use-damage = false
use-damage = true;

# Use X Sync fence to sync clients' draw calls, to make sure all draw
# calls are finished before picom starts drawing. Needed on nvidia-drivers
# with GLX backend for some users.
#
# xrender-sync-fence = false

# GLX backend: Use specified GLSL fragment shader for rendering window contents.
# See `compton-default-fshader-win.glsl` and `compton-fake-transparency-fshader-win.glsl`
# in the source tree for examples.
#
# glx-fshader-win = ""

# Force all windows to be painted with blending. Useful if you
# have a glx-fshader-win that could turn opaque pixels transparent.
#
# force-win-blend = false

# Do not use EWMH to detect fullscreen windows.
# Reverts to checking if a window is fullscreen based only on its size and coordinates.
#
# no-ewmh-fullscreen = false

# Dimming bright windows so their brightness doesn't exceed this set value.
# Brightness of a window is estimated by averaging all pixels in the window,
# so this could comes with a performance hit.
# Setting this to 1.0 disables this behaviour. Requires --use-damage to be disabled. (default: 1.0)
#
# max-brightness = 1.0

# Make transparent windows clip other windows like non-transparent windows do,
# instead of blending on top of them.
#
# transparent-clipping = false

# Set the log level. Possible values are:
#  "trace", "debug", "info", "warn", "error"
# in increasing level of importance. Case doesn't matter.
# If using the "TRACE" log level, it's better to log into a file
# using *--log-file*, since it can generate a huge stream of logs.
#
# log-level = "debug"
log-level = "warn";

# Set the log file.
# If *--log-file* is never specified, logs will be written to stderr.
# Otherwise, logs will to written to the given file, though some of the early
# logs might still be written to the stderr.
# When setting this option from the config file, it is recommended to use an absolute path.
#
# log-file = "/path/to/your/log/file"

# Show all X errors (for debugging)
# show-all-xerrors = false

# Write process ID to a file.
# write-pid-path = "/path/to/your/log/file"

# Window type settings
#
# 'WINDOW_TYPE' is one of the 15 window types defined in EWMH standard:
#     "unknown", "desktop", "dock", "toolbar", "menu", "utility",
#     "splash", "dialog", "normal", "dropdown_menu", "popup_menu",
#     "tooltip", "notification", "combo", and "dnd".
#
# Following per window-type options are available: ::
#
#   fade, shadow:::
#     Controls window-type-specific shadow and fade settings.
#
#   opacity:::
#     Controls default opacity of the window type.
#
#   focus:::
#     Controls whether the window of this type is to be always considered focused.
#     (By default, all window types except "normal" and "dialog" has this on.)
#
#   full-shadow:::
#     Controls whether shadow is drawn under the parts of the window that you
#     normally won't be able to see. Useful when the window has parts of it
#     transparent, and you want shadows in those areas.
#
#   redir-ignore:::
#     Controls whether this type of windows should cause screen to become
#     redirected again after been unredirected. If you have unredir-if-possible
#     set, and doesn't want certain window to cause unnecessary screen redirection,
#     you can set this to `true`.
#
wintypes:
{
  tooltip = { fade = true; shadow = true; opacity = 0.75; focus = true; full-shadow = false; };
  dock = { shadow = false; }
  dnd = { shadow = false; }
  popup_menu = { opacity = 0.8; }
  dropdown_menu = { opacity = 0.8; }
};

Steps of reproduction

The issue occurs almost every time I log into my qtile desktop while using the linux kernel listed above. Occasionally, the issue does not occur, but I'm not sure why.

However, when I log into the linux-lts kernel, the issue does not occur.

I've identified that the issue only occurs while using the GLX backend. If I change the backend to xrender, the issue goes away - but of course, that means I loose that nice dual-kawase blur.

I'm not sure what else to say about steps of reproduction. However, if it helps, I can direct you to my current repository of dotfiles.

Expected behavior

This screenshot shows how my desktop is expected to look.

It currently works fine using Linux-lts kernel 5.10.17-1-lts. Here is the output of nvidia-smi on the working kernel:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 460.39       Driver Version: 460.39       CUDA Version: 11.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 970     Off  | 00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   57C    P0    48W / 200W |    383MiB /  4034MiB |      5%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A       513      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                     187MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A       818      G   picom                              40MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A       908      G   /usr/lib/firefox/firefox          105MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      1328      G   kitty                               3MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Current Behavior

Here is the bugged desktop. A terminal (kitty) is currently open, but not visible. However you can see the frame indicating that is has focus. Additionally, you can see that the qtile bar at the bottom is empty.

The terminal still receives inputs. If I enter "kill picom," the qtile bar comes back and the terminal becomes visible, albeit without transparency. This is somewhat peculiar as kitty's transparency is configured in a kitty .conf file, not in picom.

[podiki]

Does this happen with other programs or at other random times? It might be similar to the issue I'm having, where randomly the desktop will stop updating. I can still blindly open a terminal and kill picom for everything to come back. Then I'll restart picom and it will work for some time. This is with Intel drivers and current kernel, not sure when it started (at least a few kernel versions ago). On a computer with nvidia drivers it is similar but with black window for Firefox for instance.

[NimbleClint]

Does this happen with other programs

@podiki Yes, it happened with all my programs.

or at other random times?

Hard to say, I didn't spend much time in the broken version. Since I have linux-lts installed, and picom was working fine in that kernel, I just used that.

Otherwise, your issue sounds pretty similar to what I was experiencing. However, since the 5.11 kernel dropped the other day, the issue has gone away for me. I was actually about to close the issue since I can't replicate it anymore, though maybe I won't now.

So it looks like the kernel update did the trick for me. Are you still having the issue on 5.11?

[podiki]

@NimbleClint so far on the 5.11 kernel it seems better yes (no problems so far). I do have some black windows on Firefox with Nvidia drivers occasionally, but that could be a Firefox thing (or a separate fork I'm using on that computer). I'll report back if I still have the issue, but so far looks good.

[NimbleClint]

@podiki Alright. In that case, I'm going to close the issue then.

[podiki]

Of course as soon as you close it, it happens (on my laptop with Intel graphics). I don't know if this has anything to do with the kernel version as I can't confirm when it started happening for me. And likely this is more of an issue with Intel drivers. Anyway, I don't have much to go on, so you can keep this closed and I'll open an issue once I have something useful to report.