I'm ~x86 using gnome/metacity/nautilus. Ever since a few days ago when I emerged world xscreensaver after running for approximately 15 seconds starts causing some flickering with horizontal lines especially during keyboard input. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. start xscreensaver 2. wait about 15 seconds 3. open some application such as gnome-terminal and hold down some key on the keyboard such as an arrow key. Actual Results: Black Horizontal lines flicker across the screen. After a bit, the screen will blank and then come back. If I kill the xscreensaver process the flickering instantly stops. Expected Results: I expected it to work like it's worked for the last few years. No flickering. Will be more than willing to send you what information I can on request. Though the app works to lock my screen it makes working a pain. My video chipset is a sis chipset. 0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 65x/M650/740 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter I'm using xorg-x11. I'm ~x86 and completely updated. I've found another individual who has had this same problem. http://www.miskatonic.org/freebsd.html
It's card/driver related. You can try the masked xorg-x11 (6.8.99.x or split 7.0 series). Could you supply the standard `emerge --info` and versions of xscreensaver and xorg-x11.
I followed the link you provided and looked at the information source he provided. A quote: ...if you see "flashing lines" on the screen; these are the typical effects of a bandwidth problem and unavoidable - even the Windows driver can't do better. In such cases, reduce the resolution and/or refresh rate and/or color depth, or use one output (CRT1 or CRT2) only. Sorry, can't help it. There is no driver bug involved. This is from http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisvga.shtml . This doesn't necessarily explain the problems, but if it's a bandwidth issue, your window manager might be stressing things a bit much. The new Gnome could be the source of this problem.
*** Bug 117077 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
> The new Gnome could be the source of this problem. But I have the same problem running Gnome 2.10.2 (stable), after upgrade xscreensaver to version 4.23.
Same issue here. Stable tree, Gnome (light) 2.10, xscreensaver 4.23. No problems with xscreensaver-4.22-r4. Also using xorg-x11 with an onboard SiS chip: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760/761 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter emerge info: Portage 2.0.53 (default-linux/x86/2005.1, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 i686 AMD Duron(tm) processor Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 dev-lang/python: 2.3.5, 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: 2.16.1 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=athlon-xp -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /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/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirrors.acm.cs.rpi.edu/gentoo http://distfiles.gentoo.org" LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow 3dnowext X aac acl aim alsa artworkextra audiofile avi bash-completion bitmap-fonts bonobo bzip2 c++ cairo crypt cups curl dbus divx4linux dvd encode esd exif expat fam ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb gif gimpprint glut gnome gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile hal howl icq imagemagick imlib inkjar ipv6 jabber java joystick jpeg kerberos lame latex lcms libwww mikmod mime mmap mmx mmxext mng mozdevelop mozilla mozsvg mp3 mpeg msn ncurses network nptl nptlonly nsplugin ogg oggvorbis opengl oscar pam pcre pdflib perl png ppds python quicktime readline real samba sdl sndfile spell sse ssl svg tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb userlocales vorbis wifi win32codecs wmf xine xml2 xpm xscreensaver xv xvid yahoo zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS
I have an almost identical problem. No issues at all with 4.22-r4, but as soon as I updated to 4.23 my screen started blanking every time I hit a key and also at random intervals of a few seconds. It stays blank for 1-2 seconds and then comes back. Reverting to xscreensaver-4.22-r4 fixes the problem. I'm running almost completely standard x86 (no video-related ~x86 packages), using xfce4-4.2.2 and xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 on an SiS chipset: VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760/761 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter
Same problem here. I update xscreensaver yesterday from 4.22-r4 to 4.23. Xscreensaver run with gnome-light 2.10. No problem on pentium4 with nvidia drivers. Xorg.0.log : Chipset SIS660/661FX/M661FX/M661MX/741/741GX/M741/760/M760 found $ emerge --info Portage 2.0.53 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.13-gentoo-r5 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.13-gentoo-r5 i686 AMD Sempron(tm) 2200+ Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 ccache version 2.3 [enabled] 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: 2.16.1 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=athlon-xp -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /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 /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig buildpkg buildsyspkg ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LANG="fr_FR.UTF-8" LC_ALL="fr_FR.UTF-8" LINGUAS="fr fr_FR" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://192.168.2.78/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow X alsa apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cjk crypt cups dbus eds emboss encode esd exif expat fam foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif glut gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal imlib ipv6 java jpeg kde lcms ldap libg++ libwww mad mhash mikmod mmx mng motif mozilla mp3 mpeg ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcre pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline sdl spell sqlite sse ssl tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode userlocales vorbis xml2 xmms xv zlib linguas_fr linguas_fr_FR userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LDFLAGS
(In reply to comment #1) > It's card/driver related. You can try the masked xorg-x11 (6.8.99.x or split > 7.0 series). > > Could you supply the standard `emerge --info` and versions of xscreensaver and > xorg-x11. > Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I JUST upgraded to xorg-x11-7.0 and still have the same problem. I'm presently running: xorg-x11-7.0 xscreensaver-4.23 emerge --info Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre12 Portage 2.1_pre3-r1 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.5-r3, 2.6.14-gentoo-r2 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.14-gentoo-r2 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz dev-lang/python: 2.3.5, 2.4.2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.17 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r7 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: 2.16.1-r1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.4.19-r1, 2.6.11-r3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=pentium4 -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/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/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/splash /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium4 -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LINGUAS="en" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/usr/portage-tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X acl acpi alsa apache2 apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bonobo bzip2 cdr crypt cups curl dba directfb eds emboss encode esd ethereal exif expat fam fbcon ffmpeg firefox flac flash foomaticdb fortran gd gdbm gif glut gmp gnome gnutls gpm gps gstreamer gtk gtk2 guile idn imagemagick imlib innodb ipv6 java jpeg junit kde lcms libg++ libwww mad mbox mhash mikmod ming mmx mng motif mp3 mpeg mysql ncurses nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcmcia pcre pdflib perl png pnp python qt quicktime readline recode samba sdl simplexml slang snmp soap speex spell sqlite sse ssl svga tcpd tetex tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev usb videos vorbis wmf xine xml xml2 xmlrpc xmms xv xvid zlib elibc_glibc kernel_linux linguas_en userland_GNU video_cards_sis" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, MAKEOPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
I just tried downgrading to xscreensaver-4.22_r4 and same as Ryan Hendrickson said, my problem completely went away. Perhaps this info will help?
I also noticed the same problem after upgrading from xscreensaver-4.22-r4 to xscreensaver-4.23 . Like the other people here, the "thin black flickery lines while typing" no longer appear after I downgrade to xscreensaver-4.22-r4 . I have noticed another symptom, however, that's much easier to test for than looking for weird little black horizontal lines while typing: When /usr/bin/xscreensaver from xscreensaver-4.23 is running and I issue "xset dpms force off" to turn off the monitor, the monitor goes blank (without powering off) and then returns to normal operation about five seconds later. When /usr/bin/xscreensaver from xscreensaver-4.22-4 is running, however, and I issue "xset dpms force off" to turn off the monitor, the monitor really does power off immediately. This is the correct behavior, and this is what's always happen prior to merging and running xscreensaver-4.23 . The black-flickering-lines problem and the xset-doesn't-poweroff problem only happen when xscreensaver-4.23 is running. If I kill the xscreensaver process or revert to xscreensaver-4.22-4 and run this instead, then both of the problems vanish instantly without having to restart the X server. For what it's worth, I've done this test using xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 with the "nv" driver in /etc/X11/XF86Config . According to "lspci", my video card is "01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440] (rev a3)". Finally, if I run "diff -Naur" against the xscreensaver-4.22 and xscreensaver-4.23 tarballs, I see only two changes that mention DPMS. I'm not qualified to interpret the diffs (I'm afraid), but I thought I'd throw it out there since there appear to be a few changes that might have something to do with this. The changes are limited to prefs.c and timers.c: diff -Naur xscreensaver-4.22/driver/prefs.c xscreensaver-4.23/driver/prefs.c --- xscreensaver-4.22/driver/prefs.c 2005-04-17 21:05:10.000000000 -0400 +++ xscreensaver-4.23/driver/prefs.c 2005-08-24 22:08:04.000000000 -0400 @@ -86,7 +86,14 @@ # ifdef HAVE_REALPATH if (file) { - char buf [2048]; +# ifndef PATH_MAX +# ifdef MAXPATHLEN +# define PATH_MAX MAXPATHLEN +# else +# define PATH_MAX 2048 +# endif +# endif + char buf[PATH_MAX]; if (realpath (file, buf)) return strdup (buf); @@ -1576,11 +1583,15 @@ p->dpms_off < 10 * 1000) p->dpms_off = 4 * 60 * 60 * 1000; /* 4 hours */ - /* standby may not be greater than suspend. - suspend may not be greater than off. + /* suspend may not be greater than off, unless off is 0. + standby may not be greater than suspend, unless suspend is 0. */ - if (p->dpms_standby > p->dpms_suspend) p->dpms_standby = p->dpms_suspend; - if (p->dpms_suspend > p->dpms_off) p->dpms_suspend = p->dpms_off; + if (p->dpms_off != 0 && + p->dpms_suspend > p->dpms_off) + p->dpms_suspend = p->dpms_off; + if (p->dpms_suspend != 0 && + p->dpms_standby > p->dpms_suspend) + p->dpms_standby = p->dpms_suspend; if (p->dpms_standby == 0 && /* if *all* are 0, then DPMS is disabled */ @@ -1589,6 +1600,9 @@ p->dpms_enabled_p = False; + /* Set watchdog timeout to about half of the cycle timeout, but + don't let it be faster than 1/2 minute or slower than 1 minute. + */ p->watchdog_timeout = p->cycle * 0.6; if (p->watchdog_timeout < 27000) p->watchdog_timeout = 27000; /* 27 secs */ if (p->watchdog_timeout > 57000) p->watchdog_timeout = 57000; /* 57 secs */ diff -Naur xscreensaver-4.22/driver/timers.c xscreensaver-4.23/driver/timers.c --- xscreensaver-4.22/driver/timers.c 2005-04-17 19:54:57.000000000 -0400 +++ xscreensaver-4.23/driver/timers.c 2005-08-15 15:10:55.000000000 -0400 @@ -331,6 +331,16 @@ if (si->cycle_id) abort (); /* no cycle timer when inactive */ si->last_activity_time = time ((time_t *) 0); + + /* This will (hopefully, supposedly) tell the server to re-set its + DPMS timer. Without this, the -deactivate clientmessage would + prevent xscreensaver from blanking, but would not prevent the + monitor from powering down. */ + XForceScreenSaver (si->dpy, ScreenSaverReset); + + /* And if the monitor is already powered off, turn it on. + You'd think the above would do that, but apparently not? */ + monitor_power_on (si); }
This also happens on my system with XScreensaver-4.23. It happens from time to time (approx every 30 seconds to 1 minute) with regular Internet browsing and mouse usage. As soon as the keyboard is used, the flickering becomes absolutely outrageous to the point of being so distracting that the computer is non-usable. Reverting to XScreensaver-4.22-r4 fixes the problem. I run the generic "nv" driver that comes with xorg on my stystem (in order for swsusp2 to work). [ ddicks@laptoplinux01 ~ ] $ emerge info Portage 2.0.54 (default-linux/x86/2005.1, gcc-3.3.6, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.15-suspend2-r3 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.15-suspend2-r3 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ Gentoo Base System version 1.6.14 ccache version 2.3 [enabled] 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: 2.16.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/splash /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LANG="en_CA.UTF-8" LC_ALL="en_CA.UTF-8" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/local/gentopia" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow 3dnowext X aac alsa apm audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cdb cddb cdr codecs crypt cups curl dbus dvd dvdread eds emboss encode exif expat fbsplash ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb fortran fpx gdbm gif gimp gimpprint glitz glut gmp gnome gpm gstreamer gstreamer-xmms gtk gtk2 gtkhtml hal idn imagemagick imap imlib ipv6 jabber java jpeg junit lcms libg++ libwww mad mhash mikmod mng mono motif mozilla mp3 mpeg msn ncurses nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcre pda pdflib perl png python quicktime readline samba sdl spell sqlite ssl suspend2 svga tcltk tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1 type1-fonts udev unicode usb vorbis xine xml xml2 xmms xv xvid zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS
(In reply to comment #10) > Finally, if I run "diff -Naur" against the xscreensaver-4.22 and > xscreensaver-4.23 tarballs, I see only two changes that mention DPMS. I'm not > qualified to interpret the diffs (I'm afraid), but I thought I'd throw it out > there since there appear to be a few changes that might have something to do > with this. The changes are limited to prefs.c and timers.c: Does reverting those changes help?
(In reply to comment #13) > Does reverting those changes help? Yes, reverting the changes in the diff does seem to help with the "black horizontal flickering lines" problem. But I'm not 100% certain that my testing is accurate: whenever I compile xscreensaver myself from either tarball, I'm not able to duplicate the second problem in which the monitor turns itself on after using "xset dpms force off"; I would have expected both problems to disappear at the same time. If there are other people with this same problem watching this thread, then maybe we should ask them to try the same thing? Here's what I did. The important change is in test #3. Test #1 - xscreensaver-4.22 straight from the tarball: - xscreensaver-command -exit (just in case xscreensaver is already running) - extract the xscreensaver-4.22.tar.gz tarball - ./configure && make - ./drivers/xscreensaver & - start typing fast and watch the screen - the black horizontal flickering lines do not appear - "xset dpms force off" works correctly-- the monitor stays off - ./drivers/xscreensaver-command -exit Test #2 - xscreensaver-4.23 with no changes from tarball: - xscreensaver-command -exit (just in case xscreensaver is already running) - extract the xscreensaver-4.23tar.gz tarball - make no changes to the files at all - ./configure && make - ./drivers/xscreensaver & - start typing fast and watch the screen - the black horizontal flickering lines *do* appear on the screen - "xset dpms force off" works correctly-- the monitor stays off - ./drivers/xscreensaver-command -exit Test #3 - xscreensaver-4.23 with the changes to the tarball: - xscreensaver-command -exit (just in case xscreensaver is already running) - extract the xscreensaver-4.23.tar.gz tarball - edit driver/prefs.c and driver/timers.c to remove changes introduced between 4.22-r4 and 4.23 - ./configure && make - ./drivers/xscreensaver & - start typing fast and watch the screen - the black horizontal flickering lines do not appear - "xset dpms force off" works correctly-- the monitor stays off - ./drivers/xscreensaver-command -exit
I've commited xscreensaver-4.23-r2 which includes the patch to revert the changes made to DPMS code, it's keyworded -* untill it gets some testing. Could you test it and confirm it helps?
(In reply to comment #15) > I've commited xscreensaver-4.23-r2 which includes the patch to revert the > changes made to DPMS code, it's keyworded -* untill it gets some testing. Could > you test it and confirm it helps? Yes! I tried the new xscreensaver-4.23-r2 and I can confirm that the flickering lines problem no longer appears. Anyone else care to give it a try? Here is exactly what I did: 1. emerged xscreensaver-4.23-r1 (for comparison) 2. xscreensaver-command -exit && xscreensaver & 3. did the typing test looking for flickering lines. result: the flickering lines still appear 4. did the "xset dpms force off" test. result: the monitor stays off! (This is not at all what I expected. The reason why I looked for changes re: dpms in the first place was because I noticed that "xset dpms force off" had stopped working in xscreensaver-4.23-r1. Here it is working, and I can't explain why.) 5. unemerged xscreensaver-4.23-r1 6. echo "x11-misc/xscreensaver -*" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords 7. emerge xscreensaver-4.23-r2 8. xscreensaver-command -exit && xscreensaver & 9. did the typing test looking for flickering lines. result: the flickering lines do not appear 10. did the "xset dpms force off" test. result: the montior stays off (like it's supposed to) after "xset dpms force off"
Great. -r2 unmasked, ~arch keyworded.