Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

steelwing · 2025-12-31 00:58:34

GeForce RTX 4080, amdgpu driver, XFCE.
Ever since patching on 12/29, whatever window is updating flickers. Like I use terminator as my TE, and it actually LAGS updating. If I run something like htop (or nvtop) inside it, the inside of the window frequently blanks entirely. It comes back in about half a second.
Other things just flicker on occasion, depending on what they're doing. If I play a video, it flickers constantly. If I have Steam open, it flickers when it's the active window. My web browser flickers briefly when I make it active, or when I scroll a webpage. Rt-click menus of any kind flicker constantly, as do XFCE panels. The desktop always remains clear, icons highlight if I hover over them.
Any ideas?

steelwing · 2025-12-31 01:21:48

Downgrading to previous version of amdgpu seems to have mitigated it, at least partially. Still getting some flickering but not as much.
New version was linux-firmware-amdgpu-20251125-2.
Downgraded to linux-firmware-amdgpu-20251011-1.
May also need to downgrade mesa components that got updated on 12/29. There were a lot of graphics things in that round of patching.

ajgringo619 · 2025-12-31 02:57:43

I had the same issues with Xfce, but not with anything related to AMD GPUs. Dare I ask why you're using the amdgpu driver???

seth · 2025-12-31 11:06:37

Dare I ask why you're using the amdgpu driver???

Not w/ an nvidia GPU - please post your Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General

x-ref, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=311055

steelwing · 2025-12-31 11:09:49

As I said in the original post, I'm using a RTX 4080, and....oh. Doofus. *smacks own head*
Not sure why I even looked to amdgpu, but the card's not using it. It's using the nvidia driver, which was not patched in this round.
Now I really wanna know why downgrading amdgpu helped the flickering issue at all. My mobo and CPU are AMD.

steelwing · 2025-12-31 11:15:38

[2025-12-29T22:07:25-0500] [ALPM] removed nvidia (580.105.08-4)
[2025-12-29T22:07:27-0500] [ALPM] upgraded nvidia-utils (580.105.08-5 -> 590.48.01-1)
[2025-12-29T22:07:49-0500] [ALPM] upgraded opencl-nvidia (580.105.08-5 -> 590.48.01-1)
[2025-12-29T22:08:30-0500] [ALPM] upgraded lib32-nvidia-utils (580.105.08-1 -> 590.48.01-1)
[2025-12-29T22:08:30-0500] [ALPM] upgraded lib32-opencl-nvidia (580.105.08-1 -> 590.48.01-1)
[2025-12-29T22:08:41-0500] [ALPM] installed nvidia-open (590.48.01-3)
[2025-12-29T22:08:41-0500] [ALPM] upgraded nvidia-settings (580.105.08-1 -> 590.48.01-1)

It *was* patched. So maybe try downgrading those instead.

steelwing · 2025-12-31 23:07:05

Tried downgrading, didn't fix the issue. Tried downgrading linux-firmware-nvidia, didn't fix the issue. Problem seems to be a whole bunch of packages and the way they interact, maybe? Removing linux-firmware-amdgpu entirely seems to mitigate it significantly, though. So, there's that.

seth · 2025-12-31 23:20:01

If you do not have an AMD GPU the presence of the firmware is completely inert.
Have you tried to disable the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xfwm#Composite_manager ?
Since you don't use the dkms package, downgrading the nvidia packages in isolation will leave you with software rendering.

Downgrade to 580.105 and then please post your complete system journal for the boot:

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

and Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General (the entire log, not the random grep examples in that article)

steelwing · 2025-12-31 23:24:31

seth wrote:

If you do not have an AMD GPU the presence of the firmware is completely inert.

Thanks!

seth wrote:

Have you tried to disable the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xfwm#Composite_manager ?

.....I just did, and the flickering is gone. Looks like the main thing it's for is transparency effects.

Last edited by steelwing (2025-12-31 23:26:59)

seth · 2025-12-31 23:40:51

Yes and it's abundantly likely that you're hitting the known nvidia regression, implying that your efforts to downgrade the driver most likely failed.
If you want to sort that out, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dynami … le_Support and https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux_Archive and https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/ … kg.tar.zst and then post journal and xorg log when you think it was successful.

krovisser · 2026-01-05 16:13:05

Having the same, or a similar issue after a system upgrade.

It seems limited to xfce4-terminal, and the xfce4 panel. That is, the terminal input/output is delayed and when updating, it and the xfce4 panel I have flicker. Disabling compositing fixes it.

Here are some of the packages upgraded, hopefully the relevant ones:

linux (6.17.8.arch1-1 -> 6.18.3.arch1-1)
linux-firmware-nvidia (20251111-1 -> 20251125-2)
nvidia-open (580.105.08-3 -> 590.48.01-4)
xfce4-panel (4.20.5-2 -> 4.20.6-1)
xorg-server (21.1.20-1 -> 21.1.21-1)

progandy · 2026-01-05 16:19:41

seth wrote:

If you do not have an AMD GPU the presence of the firmware is completely inert.

If the AMD CPU has an integrated GPU, then maybe there is some bad interaction between the nvidia gpu and the amd igpu with the new firmware. I can't think of a reason why that should happen in case the amd igpu basically sits idle, but in this case it seems the issue was an nvidia regression anyways.

Last edited by progandy (2026-01-05 16:41:34)

seth · 2026-01-05 16:56:42

@krovisser, same situation, same strategy. See the link in #4 and either (preferably) downgrade the nvidia driver (using nvidia-dkms!) or try to disable the compositor.

@steelwing

progandy wrote:

If the AMD CPU has an integrated GPU

Please post the output of

lspci -nn

Arch Linux

#1 2025-12-31 00:58:34

Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#2 2025-12-31 01:21:48

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#3 2025-12-31 02:57:43

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#4 2025-12-31 11:06:37

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#5 2025-12-31 11:09:49

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#6 2025-12-31 11:15:38

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#7 2025-12-31 23:07:05

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#8 2025-12-31 23:20:01

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#9 2025-12-31 23:24:31

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#10 2025-12-31 23:40:51

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#11 2026-01-05 16:13:05

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#12 2026-01-05 16:19:41

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

#13 2026-01-05 16:56:42

Re: Patched on 12/29, and since then, windows flicker as they're updating

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