GCompris Educational Suite - screen flashes, unusable

I’ve just installed GCompris from the Community repo (the gcompris-qt package more precisely) and on attempting to run it the screen flashes terribly, after a while it seems to calm down but then continues flashing whenever the mouse is moved making it unusable.

I have done a full update with sudo pacman -Syyu and restarted the system.

I tried installing the AUR package to see if maybe that would work instead but it gets errors before starting to compile. I can post here but feel it’s best attention is concentrated on the official package…

uname -a
Linux this-one 5.9.1-1-rt19-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT_RT Sat Oct 24 16:27:39 UTC 2020 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Running the XFCE version of Manjaro but using the rt kernel as I do live audio work.

inxi
CPU: Dual Core Intel Core i7-5500U (-MT MCP-) 
speed/min/max: 2394/500/3000 MHz Kernel: 5.9.1-1-rt19-MANJARO x86_64 
Up: 1h 05m Mem: 2151.5/15414.1 MiB (14.0%) Storage: 3.64 TiB (72.3% used) 
Procs: 193 Shell: Bash inxi: 3.1.08 

hello @kazakore :wink:

Just tried it and no issue here. Maybe a gpu issue?

Try run it in a terminal:

gcompris-qt

Maybe there is an issue reported?

My system:

$ inxi -MCGazy
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: F2A55-M LK2 v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter>
  UEFI: American Megatrends v: 6308 date: 11/25/2014
CPU:
  Info: Quad Core model: AMD A8-5600K APU with Radeon HD Graphics bits: 64
  type: MCP arch: Piledriver family: 15 (21) model-id: 10 (16) stepping: 1
  microcode: 6001119 L2 cache: 2048 KiB
  flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
  bogomips: 28957
  Speed: 1403 MHz min/max: 1400/3600 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz):
  1: 1405 2: 1407 3: 1425 4: 1631
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable
  Type: spectre_v1 status: Vulnerable: __user pointer sanitization and
  usercopy barriers only; no swapgs barriers
  Type: spectre_v2 status: Vulnerable, STIBP: disabled
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] vendor: ZOTAC driver: nvidia
  v: 455.45.01 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm bus ID: 01:00.0
  chip ID: 10de:1c82
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: nvidia display ID: :0.0
  screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1200 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x318mm (20.0x12.5")
  s-diag: 599mm (23.6")
  Monitor-1: HDMI-0 res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94 size: 518x324mm (20.4x12.8")
  diag: 611mm (24.1")
  OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 455.45.01
  direct render: Yes

Shouldn’t be a GPU issue as I’m running a laptop with integrated HD Intel graphics, so about the most common there is.

Just tried to open and run one of the programs I’ve been doing with the kids from a barely working Windows machine. Think I was wrong about flashing whenever mouse is moved but lots of flashing each screen load and it completely froze before trying to load the Solar System app and had to be forced closed.

$ gcompris-qt 
exeCount set to:  5
qml: enter main.qml (run #5, ratio=2.076923076923077, fontRatio=2.25, dpi=159, userDataPath=/home/me/.local/share/GCompris)
Downloading resource file "data2/voices-ogg/voices-en_GB.rcc"
qrc:/gcompris/src/activities/menu/Menu.qml:105:5: QML Connections: Implicitly defined onFoo properties in Connections are deprecated. Use this syntax instead: function onFoo(<arguments>) { ... }
qrc:/gcompris/src/core/Bar.qml:326:5: QML Connections: Implicitly defined onFoo properties in Connections are deprecated. Use this syntax instead: function onFoo(<arguments>) { ... }
qrc:/gcompris/src/core/Bar.qml:279:5: QML Connections: Implicitly defined onFoo properties in Connections are deprecated. Use this syntax instead: function onFoo(<arguments>) { ... }
qrc:/gcompris/src/activities/menu/Menu.qml:705:13: QML Connections: Implicitly defined onFoo properties in Connections are deprecated. Use this syntax instead: function onFoo(<arguments>) { ... }
Found box2d in  "/usr/lib/qt/qml"
qt.qpa.xcb: QXcbConnection: XCB error: 5 (BadAtom), sequence: 509, resource id: 0, major code: 20 (GetProperty), minor code: 0
Local resource is up-to-date: "voices-en_GB.rcc"
Successfully registered resource "/home/me/.cache/KDE/gcompris-qt/data2/voices-ogg/voices-en_GB.rcc"
qrc:/gcompris/src/core/Bonus.qml:86:5: QML Connections: Implicitly defined onFoo properties in Connections are deprecated. Use this syntax instead: function onFoo(<arguments>) { ... }
qrc:/gcompris/src/core/Bar.qml:326:5: QML Connections: Implicitly defined onFoo properties in Connections are deprecated. Use this syntax instead: function onFoo(<arguments>) { ... }
qrc:/gcompris/src/core/Bar.qml:279:5: QML Connections: Implicitly defined onFoo properties in Connections are deprecated. Use this syntax instead: function onFoo(<arguments>) { ... }
load configuration for: "solar_system"
Killed

Found box2d in "/usr/lib/qt/qml" flashes on the same line within the terminal as it is loading up, which is something I’ve never seen before (lines disappearing in terminal in any way, shape or form apart from a full clear.

inxi -MCGazy
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP EliteBook 840 G2 
  v: A3009D410303 serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 2216 v: KBC Version 96.5B serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: Hewlett-Packard v: M71 Ver. 01.27 date: 07/12/2018 
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i7-5500U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Broadwell family: 6 model-id: 3D (61) stepping: 4 microcode: 2F 
  L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 19161 
  Speed: 2394 MHz min/max: 500/3000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2394 2: 2395 
  3: 2395 4: 2395 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 5500 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard ZBook 15u G2 Mobile Workstation driver: i915 
  v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:1616 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: intel display ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
  s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
  Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 157 size: 310x170mm (12.2x6.7") 
  diag: 354mm (13.9") 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 5500 (BDW GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.3 
  direct render: Yes 

We have different OpenGL renderers, is there a way to force the software to load with a software renderer to test or something?

For note: I use Mixxx (and build it myself) which is also based on both QT and OpenGL and it works flawlessly so not an overall issue with either QT or OpenGL (but could it be version conflict?)

EDIT (solution; kinda) gcompris-qt --software-renderer and this appears to work. No screen flashes. So definitely something about it that doesn’t like my/MESA OpenGL. This is workable for me, even if I haven’t quite learned the root of the issue…

AND : Science > Solar System still freezes the program when I try and open it. Other apps load though.