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#1 2011-01-23 20:58:19

daperson
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 13

Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

I've developed an interesting problem - A few months back there existed some fault with kde's treatment of the xf86-video-ati drivers which meant that, if you had compositing enabled, it would randomly segfault and die. This was slightly irritating.

So, recently, In an act of pure, stupid, and uninformed optimism, I decided to see what would happen if I just asked pacman to upgrade me to the latest version of kde (In case the problem from before has been fixed - for comedic effect).
This went predictably badly, although the fault in question does appear to have been fixed. However, as part of it's dependencies the new kde brought in new ATI drivers, and somewhere along the way an entirely new and exciting fault that causes my secondary monitor's image to flash to black for about 1 second in 7 has been picked up.

From my own investigating/googling so far, I've determined this is something to do with KMS and my display drivers. The flashing persists even in text mode, but only affects the secondary screen (The other one works fine). If I add nomodeset to my grub kernel boot line then the flashing ceases in text mode, but Xorg segfaults when I try and start it.
Has anyone else encountered this particular fault? Any advice on how to fix it?

Thanks!

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#2 2011-01-24 09:34:26

snazza
Member
Registered: 2011-01-24
Posts: 11

Re: Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

Same problem here, with Intel drivers ad Gnome...
Since friday all was ok, I think the problem is due to some update occurred in the last two days... I'm investigating on it!

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#3 2011-01-24 16:47:50

daperson
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 13

Re: Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

Awesome, thanks. I've tried googling around but have not found anything useful thus far.

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#4 2011-01-25 14:19:31

Sayo
Member
Registered: 2008-10-05
Posts: 4

Re: Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

The same happened to me after yesterday's update (24/01). The update before that was on the 20th. I'm with Intel drivers and Gnome as well.

pacman.log: http://pastebin.com/sZKnwB5F

Only happened today probably because it was the first time I booted after the update.

Just in case, here's the update of 20/01, although it worked after it: http://pastebin.com/E8UzG2Ss

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#5 2011-01-25 14:55:28

Sayo
Member
Registered: 2008-10-05
Posts: 4

Re: Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

Ok, apparently the package that's causing the problem is upower. I downgraded it to version 0.9.7-2 and it all works fine now. I don't know if the problem is actually from the package or in any configuration I have around here.

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#6 2011-01-25 15:02:36

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

Yes, there is another thread discussing the same thing. Before downgrading, maybe you should take the log files and other related config files and file a bug report upstream. The only way its gonna get fixed is by reporting it and helping the devs out as well.


Forum Rules

There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#7 2011-01-25 17:56:33

daperson
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 13

Re: Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

Okay, but I don't have upower installed? That's weird.

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#8 2011-01-25 19:49:43

snazza
Member
Registered: 2011-01-24
Posts: 11

Re: Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

Sayo wrote:

Ok, apparently the package that's causing the problem is upower. I downgraded it to version 0.9.7-2 and it all works fine now. I don't know if the problem is actually from the package or in any configuration I have around here.

Sayo, you're a true hero... ^_^
Saved me from some major headache.... upower downgraded=problem disappeared!

Thanks!

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#9 2011-01-25 20:42:26

daperson
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 13

Re: Intermittent screen flash in dual monitor mode?

Thanks for working that out, but I'm still horribly confused. I've been tinkering with things today to improve my boot speed (new kernel, messing with module loading and so on), and the problem seems to have gone away by itself. I have at no stage had anything to do with upower (it hasn't been installed).
How perplexing.

Anyway, problem solved, thanks everyone, and well done Sayo for working out the problem! (Even if it appears that MY problem was unrelated tongue)

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