Screen tearing after some recent updates

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1

After last(Or one before last) update, I see strange behavior in my screen.

I considered that KWin is unable to render transparent windows correctly.

A sample situation is as below:

  • I located Cairo-Duck on right side of my screen. NOTE: I think Cairo-Duck uses OpenGL but I’m not sure.
  • I use a transparent background for Konsole which is my typical terminal.
  • When Cairo-Duck appears, it causes screen to tear on left side.

To make it more clear, I recorded a sample video from this problem:

A recorded GIF of problem
A recorded MKV video of problem

As you can see, when Cairo-Duck is hide, everything is good but when it appears the color of terminal on left side changes frequently. If you need a better Video-Record from problem, feel free to tell me.

It’s really annoying me and any help or suggestion is appreciated :sob:

NOTE1: This problem is not limited to Cairo-Duck. Some other applications such as xsnow, oneko and … causes this problem too and that’s why it’s annoying to me!
Also when I right click in Visual Studio Code, I see this problem again exactly around opened window or pop-up.
But this problem just happens in case of transparent windows and borders

NOTE2: I didn’t have this problem before! This problem is caused by last update or one before last update… I’m not sure which one caused this.

My Suggestion:
I think this problem is related to OpenGL but backend rendering option is missed in system settings and I can’t make sure if this problem is related to OpenGL or not:

Screenshot_20220404_160729
Screenshot_20220404_1607291366×768 89.2 KB

Tried Solutions:

  1. Clearing the Plasma Cache didn’t help

System Information

$ uname -a
Linux milad-pc 5.4.184-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Mar 11 13:59:07 UTC 2022 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ screenfetch
 ██████████████████  ████████     milad@milad-pc
 ██████████████████  ████████     OS: Manjaro 21.2.5 Qonos
 ██████████████████  ████████     Kernel: x86_64 Linux 5.4.184-1-MANJARO
 ██████████████████  ████████     Uptime: 1h 20m
 ████████           ████████     Packages: 2356
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Shell: zsh 5.8.1
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Resolution: 1366x768
 ████████  ████████  ████████     DE: KDE 5.91.0 / Plasma 5.24.3
 ████████  ████████  ████████     WM: KWin
 ████████  ████████  ████████     WM Theme: Kvantum
 ████████  ████████  ████████     GTK Theme:  [GTK2/3]
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Icon Theme: breath
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Disk: 61G / 73G (88%)
 ████████  ████████  ████████     CPU: Intel Core i5-5200U @ 4x 2.7GHz [56.0°C]
                                  GPU: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 5500 (rev 09)
                                  RAM: 3400MiB / 7879MiB
2

Do you have the same issues with default KDE Plasma settings on a new account? How about if you use a different LTS kernel?

3

There was a KDE bug report lately with some fixes in 5.24.4. Not sure if it solves all of it.

KWin’s blur effect no longer sometimes results in flickering for windows that use blurred backgrounds (Mathias Tillman, Plasma 5.24.4)

2 Likes
4

Yesss! I now tested it and you was right the problem is considered with blur effect and not transparency.

So I should just wait for them to fix it, right? Or should I do anything else?

5

I have the same and I just wait. Functionality > Look for me.
5.24.4 is in testing branch, should probably arrive in stable in less than 2 weeks. You can switch to testing branch if it bothers you too much.

6

Thank you for your suggestion, It helped me a lot to find out the source of problem!

Result:
I didn’t try a different LTS kernel but I tried a new account and I found out that the problem is associated with Blur effect not Transparency. As @raguse mentioned, this is a reported bug to kde.

Detail:
I created a new account and tried to simulate the situations as follow:

  1. Activated Cairo-Dock.
  2. Open Terminal and go to Settings>Edit current Profile>Appearance.
  3. Select Breathe theme and click on edit.
  4. If you check Blur the problem occurs.
7

Is a GTK3 application … Somehow is normal to give some trouble when comes to effects in KDE Plasma, but yeah, Blur effect got fixed with 5.24.4 as mentioned by @raguse

8

I still have some minor flickering in the blurred translucent background of Konsole with 5.24.4.

9

Oops! Sad to hear it :confused: Hope they make it better afterward.

10

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