When I go to vt1 - 6 (with ctrl-alt-Fx) and then switching back (ctrl-alt-F7) then my compiz is frozen. It results in 'the black screen of death'. The only way I recover from this is to: -alt-sysrq R -ctrl-alt-f1 -do as root: /etc/init.d/xdm restart I'm using gnome 2.14 nvidia-drivers 1.0.9625 compiz 0.2.0 metacity 2.14.5 x11-wm/compiz startup script For Beryl, this error was solved by setting sync to vblack to false. However for compiz doing this with nvidia-settings has no effect. Here's my emerge --info: Portage 2.1.2_pre3-r2 (default-linux/x86/2006.1/desktop, gcc-4.1.1, glibc-2.5-r0 , 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.12.5 Last Sync: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 07:30:01 +0000 ccache version 2.4 [enabled] app-admin/eselect-compiler: [Not Present] dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.30 dev-lang/python: 2.4.3-r4 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5 dev-util/ccache: 2.4-r6 dev-util/confcache: [Not Present] sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.60 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2 sys-devel/binutils: 2.17 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.13-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.17-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O3 -mtune=pentium4 -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/java-config/vms / /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/splash /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-O3 -mtune=pentium4 -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/var/tmp/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox s fperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo http://mirro rs.sec.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/gentoo/ http://gentoo.intergenia.de http://ftp .snt.utwente.nl/pub/os/linux/gentoo/ http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.ibib lio.org/gentoo/ http://distfiles.gentoo.org" LANG="nl_BE@euro" LC_ALL="nl_BE@euro" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--sort-common -s" LINGUAS="nl en" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/di stfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/portage/local/layman/portage-xgl" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X a52 aac acpi alsa amr aoss apm asf bash-completion beagle bitmap-font s browserplugin bzip2 cairo cdda cddb cdparanoia cdr clamav cli crypt cups custo m-cflags dbus dga dio directfb divx dlloader dmi dts dvd dvdr dvdread elibc_glib c encode evolution exif fam fat ffmpeg fftw firefox flac font-server fortran ftp gdbm gif gimp glitz gmail gmedia gnome gnome-print gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal h ddtemp httpd icc imagemagick imap imlib input_devices_joystick input_devices_key board input_devices_mouse java joystick jpeg jpeg2k kernel_linux libg++ linguas_ en linguas_nl lm_sensors logrotate lzo lzw mad mdb mikmod mime mjpeg mmap mmx mm xext mng motif mozilla moznocompose moznomail mp3 mpeg mplayer nautilus ncurses network nls no-old-linux noflagstrip nptl nptlonly nsplugin ntfs offensive ogg o penal opengl oss pam pcre pdf perl pic png posix ppds pppd python qt3 qt4 quickt ime rar readline real realmedia reflection reiserfs rtc rtsp sasl sdl seamonkey sensord session skins smtp speex spell spl srt sse sse-filters sse2 ssl stream s ubtitles svg svga tcpd theora threads tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts u dev unicode upnp usb userland_GNU userlocales video_cards_nvidia vidix vorbis wi fi win32codecs wma wmf wmp wxwindows x264 xanim xine xml xmms xorg xosd xprint x screensaver xv xvid xvmc zlib" Unset: CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
small correction: I am using compiz-nvidia startup script
I have the same error on all PCs where I have tested. This includes AMD64 and mostly x86 PCs. Most of them have nVidia cards and using their BETA driver. One of them have an Intel 830 graphic cards and is using Mesa for GLX.
Perhaps it is a XScreensaver problem? If I do a 'killall xscreensaver', the problem doesn't occurs, at least on one of the PCs I refer to in my last post. I will test the others.
Correction: The problems sometimes doesn't occurs. The second test on the same PC lets compiz freeze again. If compiz freezes, you can also kill it and start it again (or metacity for a stable replacement), then you don't loose any unsaved work.
I have same problem with beryl (didn't test disabling sync to vblank yet). This 'blank screen of death' has this behaviour: If I am in this blank screen situation I can **only** do theese things (otherwise my comp will freeze): -Restart X (ctrl+alt+backspace) -Go back to a vt (and as you say, I have to do /etc/init.d/xdm restart) In my case I don't even have xscreensaver emerged.
I have tested disabling sync to VBLANK, and it doesn't hang when reverting from a vt, but the behaviour is very bad. My kicker is completely white, my desktop icons are not usable (it is like if there were an invisible window covering icons), I had to reload superkaramba theme, etc..
problem due to binary nvidia driver. nothing we can do about that (beside hoping for nouveau). it's probably better to complain to nvidia.
