The problem is a little hard to explain because it's so strange. But basically, GTK programs like Gaim, Eclipse, RealPlayer, Porthole, etc. (except Firefox, apparently) will have all of their icons without black pixels. They look washed out/grayed out, but they are simply lacking any black pixels (including a black border). This is really a nuissance, but it's a big one. I've included a screenshot to show exactly the problem I am having. What's also interesting is that it happens randomly. Sometimes when I start a GTK program, it works fine, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes restarting the program immediately fixes the problem, and some times even after 4 or 5 restarts, the problem is still there. Screenshot: http://www.unc.edu/~feiner/gtk-problem.png I have another computer running Gentoo that also has this problem, but it manifests itself differently. Instead of having the icons not working everywhere in the program, the icons will randomly have the black pixels back. Sometimes moving the mouse over the icons causes them to change, and sometimes it doesn't. On that computer, GTK programs do this consistently. There have been no cases since this problem appeared where the programs worked fine from beginning to end. I cannot seem to identify any particular action on my part that triggered this behavior (such as upgrading GTK). I even tried downgrading GTK and GTK theme engines to see if that would help, but it made no difference. Below is the emerge information for every GTK related package that I have installed (result of doing emerge -pv): [ebuild R ] x11-libs/gtk+-2.6.8 -doc +jpeg -static +tiff 11,393 kB [ebuild R ] x11-themes/gtk-engines-qt-0.6-r2 +arts -debug 425 kB [ebuild R ] x11-themes/gtk-engines-2.6.5 -accessibility -debug -static 466 kB [ebuild R ] x11-themes/gtk-theme-switch-2.0.0_rc2-r2 13 kB [ebuild R ] dev-python/pygtk-2.6.1 -doc +gnome +opengl 712 kB [ebuild NS ] x11-libs/wxGTK-2.6.1 -debug -doc +gnome +gtk2 -joystick -odbc +opengl +sdl +unicode -wxgtk1 12,353 kB I think that's all of the relevant ones, but I can provide others if there are some that Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. Open a GTK app 2. Notice that sometimes the icons are washed out/don't have black pixels 3. ...and sometimes they do (no rhyme or reason that I can tell) Actual Results: Icons without black pixels. Pictures, such as the XFCE startup screen, are also affected. Expected Results: Icons to look "normal" without black pixels turned off. emerge --info: Portage 2.0.53_rc6 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.3.6, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.14-gentoo i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.14-gentoo i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r10 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.20 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3.4/env /usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/splash /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo http://gentoo.osuosl.org ftp://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/ http://mirror.espri.arizona.edu/gentoo/" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.us.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X aac aalib alsa apm arts avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cjk crypt cups curl directfb dvd dvdread eds emboss encode esd fam fbcon foomaticdb fortran gd gdbm ggi gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal imagemagick imlib ipv6 java jpeg kde kdexdeltas libcaca libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mozilla mp3 mpeg ncurses nls nptl nptlonly offensive ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline real rtc samba sdl slang spell sse ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd tetex theora tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode vorbis wifi win32codecs xine xml2 xmms xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
Woah, looks strange. I assume you've tried different themes and engines? also, what version of Xorg are you using?
I'm using xorg-x11-6.8.2-r4 (but I had it also with -r3 and maybe -r2, I can't quite remember when it started). I have tried different themes. I would say that some themes are less likely to have this problem than others, but that may just be an artifact of the essentially random nature of this problem. Regardless, with every theme I have tried (and it's quite a large number of themes, including XFCE ones), I have had this problem at least once.
This is a known bug in <=xorg-x11-6.8.2-r4. Try upgrading to 6.8.2-r5
I upgraded to -r6 and the problem is still there. Although it's possible -r5 doesn't have the bug, I would be upgrading to -r6 eventually anyways. Should I pass this up to the X developers?
The problem actually seems worse with -r6. Sometimes I have to restart a program 6 or more times before I get the icons to look normal. Is this just a Gentoo issue or is this something I can bug the GTK or X devs about?
The problem with <-r5 was a patch backported from head by gentoo, for building on gcc 4. That's gone now, so any other problems are likely to be from upstream.
xorg 7 is stable by now. Any updates regarding this bug ?
no response from reporter