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#1 2020-12-23 00:37:20

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

I have always wanted to avoid upgrading chromium from 86 to 87, because this leads to overall slower performance on my system, with more graphical problems, especially after a suspend (using nvidia proprietary drivers). A simple example demonstrating the differences between 86 and 87 I observed on my system (before committing to version 87 due to the issue mentioned below) is suspending with a Kami tab open. On 86, resuming my computer results in no issues in the browser, while on 87, resuming leads to a pause on chromium before all the pages on Kami become blacked out.
I have tried fixes to chromium breaking after suspend such as adding the "use-gl=desktop" flag and enabling ignore-gpu-blocklist and whatnot that all worked fine for 86, but these graphical issues seem to resurface in 87 despite having the same settings enabled.

About a week ago, I was forced to upgrade to version 87 due to this issue related to the re2 package upgrade that same day that made version 86 unusable (I know I could have downgraded re2, but it would have broken eventually because of icu - see below). I decided to give 87 a try this week, but have found the experience to be worse than with 86. For example, tabs would sometimes "become invisible" when I open a new browser window; chromium would freeze and become unresponsive after certain suspends, forcing me to pkill it; and the browser would stutter and lag more frequently, especially when scrolling or playing Youtube videos. After downgrading back to 86 today, I found another issue that prevented me from launching the browser:
"/usr/lib/chromium/chromium: error while loading shared libraries: libicui18n.so.67: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

This new error now seems to be related to an icu package upgrade, which can not be downgraded to accommodate chromium, as that would break a whole bunch of other dependencies.

In short, I was wondering whether 1) There is a way to enjoy chromium 86 on my system without having to revert all my packages to a specific date or 2) Whether there are known changes between 86 and 87 that could have caused the graphical issues I'm seeing and how to deal with them.

This post is rather long-winded, but I hope that now you have a decent understanding of the problem I'm facing. Thanks!

Last edited by GeneralPoxter (2020-12-23 00:39:43)

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#2 2020-12-23 00:43:25

jonno2002
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Registered: 2016-11-21
Posts: 684

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

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#3 2020-12-23 00:55:25

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

How long is the installation supposed to take? It seems to be preparing a lot of cpp files with no end in sight...

Edit: I aborted the installation process because I am somewhat concerned over the reliability of this package (it just came earlier this day and possibly has not undergone the proper review). It seems to be quite a hefty trace (300+ MB cache in my yay directory), even though icu is just 30+ MB in size.

Last edited by GeneralPoxter (2020-12-23 01:02:18)

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#4 2020-12-23 01:00:29

Slithery
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From: Norfolk, UK
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Posts: 5,776

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

GeneralPoxter wrote:

How long is the installation supposed to take?

As long as your computer needs to build the package?

You could have a single core decade old system or a 128 core Epyc specialised build server for all we know.


No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

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#5 2020-12-23 01:03:11

GeneralPoxter
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Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

Yeah I have never seen a package take this long to install before (I have an Intel i7-9700 with 8 cores). It took about 5+ minutes before I became worried over the safety of the package (it just came out today).

Also follow-up question: If I ctrl-C while clang and whatnot were preparing dependencies, will this icu67 package leave any trace on my system besides in my yay cache?

Last edited by GeneralPoxter (2020-12-23 01:04:17)

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#6 2020-12-23 02:22:46

Scimmia
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Registered: 2012-09-01
Posts: 11,466

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

You keep talking about how long installation takes, but it's not. You're *building* a package, which is totally separate and can take a long time for some packages. Multiple hours in some cases.

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#7 2020-12-23 03:28:04

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

Oh oop, sorry about the confusion here. I feel kind of silly now.

However, completely building a package is a bit overwhelming for me though, and probably not worth the hassle, especially given that it might not even work (I remember having problems with re2, so I might have to deal with that as well?)

I figured that the issue with suspending is somewhat manageable now as long as I keep sensitive tabs like Youtube and Kami closed before I suspend. If it gets too unbearable, I can always completely disable hardware acceleration at the cost of speed. Disabling hardware acceleration seems to cure all suspend problems, indicating that it might be a chromium + nvidia suspend issue. I have dealt with this issue before for other applications like VSCode and Anki, but have solved it by preserving video memory after suspend. However, this fix seems to have no effect on chromium.

Since reverting back to Chromium 86 is not too feasible for me personally, does anyone have further suggestions for reducing potential graphics problems on chromium? Am I the only one who suffers from specifically these suspend problems? (many people online seeing artifacts, but mine seem to be specific to certain websites coupled with laggy/unresponsive browser)

Last edited by GeneralPoxter (2020-12-23 03:31:23)

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#8 2020-12-23 03:59:19

jonno2002
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Registered: 2016-11-21
Posts: 684

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

dont use suspend if its causing problems, boot times are almost non-existant nowdays with ssds anyway.

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#9 2020-12-23 09:08:40

seth
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Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,996

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/ … kg.tar.zst

Fish the *.so.67* files out of that package and place them into /usr/lib (do NOT override the libicu*.so files! if you did, restore the symlinks) and look the other side.
nb. that partial updates are unsupported.

@jonno2002, it's usually not about boot time, but leaving the system and finding it as it was and continue your work.
oc. doesn't matter if you abuse the computer as a facebook frontend tongue

Edit: "fecbook": freudian slip, I assume.

Last edited by seth (2020-12-23 09:09:14)

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#10 2020-12-23 15:50:58

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

seth wrote:

@jonno2002, it's usually not about boot time, but leaving the system and finding it as it was and continue your work.

Seth correctly guessed my intentions for suspending.

Also, @seth thanks for the suggestions, and I will consider them if the 87 becomes too unbearable, but I found it to be rather manageable as long as I'm careful before suspending.

What I'm more interested in now is whether anyone knows of any changes made between 86 and 87 that could be causing these graphical issues? That might help with other users who may be facing similar issues.

Last edited by GeneralPoxter (2020-12-23 15:51:49)

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#11 2020-12-23 15:57:55

V1del
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Registered: 2012-10-16
Posts: 21,427

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

My guesstimate would be further adjustments on the ANGLE engine, but from what I know switching to --use-gl=desktop should change that back to what was used beforehand.

FWIW I can't say I've noticed any of these issues on a Nvidia Titan X here so I wonder whether this is somehow isolated to your system. Though I also don't tend to suspend my desktop often, it's usually doing "something" so it's either off or just DPMS that's active.

Last edited by V1del (2020-12-23 16:00:23)

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#12 2020-12-23 16:08:10

seth
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Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,996

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

especially after a suspend (using nvidia proprietary drivers) … suspending with a Kami tab open … resuming leads to a pause on chromium before all the pages on Kami become blacked out.

https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Lin … ement.html ?

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#13 2020-12-23 19:10:59

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

@seth, I have tried looking at the page before and implementing the steps. If I have read the steps correctly, I have set NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1 and enabled nvidia-suspend, nvidia-hibernate, and nvidia-resume services, but when running sudo systemctl suspend, Kami still blacks out on resume.

I have used these steps at the recommendation of V1del in an earlier thread to fix my suspend issues for VSCode and Anki (and it worked), but it does not seem to have any effect on chromium.

Last edited by GeneralPoxter (2020-12-23 19:15:30)

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#14 2020-12-23 20:21:29

latalante1
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Registered: 2018-08-30
Posts: 110

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

curl -JOL https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/r/re2/re2-1:20201001-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
curl -JOL https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/i/icu/icu-67.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

mkdir ~/.local/oldlib

tar xf re2-1\:20201001-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst -C~/.local/oldlib --wildcards usr/lib/libre2.so*
tar xf icu-67.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst -C~/.local/oldlib --wildcards usr/lib/libicuuc.so* usr/lib/libicui18n.so* usr/lib/libicudata.so*

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/.local/oldlib/usr/lib /usr/bin/chromium

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#15 2020-12-23 20:45:22

seth
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Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,996

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

Is the graphical problem limited to kami (and is kami this?) or are other tabs also affected.
Is the tab "restored" when simply resizing the browser?

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#16 2020-12-23 20:59:28

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

@seth That is the Kami I am referring to (though I use web.kami, not the extension)

The blacked out pages do not restore when I resize the browser, a page refresh is necessary to get rid of the artifacts:
https://i.ibb.co/kmsjz1p/Screenshot-fro … -55-11.png
(note that the white parts I blurred out are not part of the issue; I edited the photo for privacy reasons)

And kami doesn't seem to be the only tab affected by suspends. YouTube videos also blank out if I suspend with the tab open. I get a monochrome magenta screen where the video should be, which is fixed if I resume the video or refresh the page:
https://i.ibb.co/XbbhkXg/Screenshot-fro … -49-34.png

Mod Edit - Replaced oversized images with links.
Please read CoC - Pasting pictures and code
.

Last edited by Slithery (2020-12-23 21:16:22)

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#17 2020-12-23 21:41:57

seth
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Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,996

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

Does it also happen if you minimize chromium before the S3?
The pink stuff is the overlay indicator (tells the GPU where to draw the video) and I'm not overly suprised by that.
As for kami, from the looks I'm close to say that it's on their service - does the same happen if you eg. open a pdf in google docs?

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#18 2020-12-23 21:56:27

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

The problem does not occur for pdfs left open in Google Drive before a suspend.
However, if I minimize chromium before suspending, the black pages problem still occurs on Kami.

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#19 2020-12-23 22:32:20

seth
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Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,996

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

I'm close to say that it's on their service

What happens when you zoom (the black page)?

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#20 2020-12-23 22:51:21

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

When I zoom, the black pages disappear and are replaced by the original pages.

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#21 2020-12-24 22:15:25

seth
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Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,996

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

How does it behave in firefox?
(I'm rather inclined to say it's a problem in kami, but don't really know a good way to test for that)

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#22 2020-12-25 22:12:46

GeneralPoxter
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Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

I don't have Firefox installed, but I tried it on GNOME Web, and Kami doesn't black out after a suspend there.
It's likely not a Kami issue since earlier this month, I tried upgrading to 87 in which Kami had suspend problems, but downgrading back to 86 fixed them.

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#23 2020-12-26 08:27:39

seth
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Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,996

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

So it looks like a rather isolated texture loss
You could compare about:gpu in both chromium versions to see whether there's a different feature.
Did you btw. try to avoind ANGLE? - https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 5#p1945235

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#24 2020-12-26 17:16:31

GeneralPoxter
Member
Registered: 2020-09-25
Posts: 60

Re: Downgrading chromium from 87 to 86 on Arch

I can no longer compare about:gpu for both versions since I can not downgrade back to 86, which I probably will not risk doing given the amount of dependencies I have to rebuild.

I have also been using 'use-gl=desktop' ever since version 86 to avoid different suspend problems related to completely black browser window after suspend.

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