Arch Linux

Deleted202103151

Banned

Registered: 2018-02-12

Posts: 3

[Solved] [xfce4] Black screen with grey box after logging in

Hello!

I have followed the guide on avoiding screen tearing located at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NV … en_tearing.
(I'm using the proprietary driver)

Here's what my config looks like:

# Located at /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    Option         "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On, ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}"
    Option         "AllowIndirectGLXProtocol" "off"
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "on"
    DefaultDepth   24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

After logging in with my main user account, I get a really small grey box at the top-left corner and everything else is black.
I can still see my mouse cursor, and I am still able to click stuff, such as the Whisker Menu and launchers.
But in order to see what I'm actually doing, I have to switch to another tty and then back to tty7.

After doing that, everything displays properly.

If I comment the line which forces the composition pipeline to be enabled, everything works like it should, but of course, I get screen tearing.

This does not happen on my secondary user account, which has the default xfce4 config (the one with the topbar and the dock).

DM: LightDM (lightdm-gtk-greeter)
Theme: arc-gtk-theme

This is a minor annoyance, but I would like to fix it. Thanks!

Last edited by Deleted202103151 (2020-04-24 13:43:41)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,678

Re: [Solved] [xfce4] Black screen with grey box after logging in

If what you pasted is literally your file, you accidentally have a $ where a ) should be in your metamodes line.

There are some issues with the composition pipeline and the current driver, see: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=234241

In general it might be better to rely  on a dedicated compositor, xfwm should have one, do you have that enabled? Although iirc it might  not be the most solid implementation.

As for the discrepancy between user accounts and/or tty switching: The composition pipeline as defined will only apply to the mentioned metamode, are you sure that that is nvidia-autoselect after the tty switch/on your other user account? If you ever used e.g. the display settings of xfce4 it might default to a standard metamode that doesn't see the compositing pipeline applied.

Deleted202103151

Banned

Registered: 2018-02-12

Posts: 3

Re: [Solved] [xfce4] Black screen with grey box after logging in

No, that wasn't actually in my file, I have edited the original post.

EDIT: 2020-04-24:
I forgot to edit this, but it was due to an xrandr command being executed on startup.

Last edited by Deleted202103151 (2020-04-24 13:42:59)