Arch Linux

bsmntoid

Member

Registered: 2025-03-15

Posts: 2

[SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Hello!

Just this morning after updating and rebooting, I've started having this issue where my mouse cursor appears duplicated, and the screen will flicker below.
The duplicated cursor appears to the right of the real one, and one pixel higher. Just below it there's a short, one pixel thick line of seemingly random colour.
Just below both cursors, the full width down to the bottom of the screen flickers. Sometimes it is a solid colour, other times a vertically striped pattern. It seems to be based on whatever is under my cursor.
The issue is intermittent -- sometimes nothing will happen, sometimes only the cursor will be duplicated, and sometimes the screen will flicker too. It doesn't seem to be associated with load or thermals.

I usually use Plasma with Wayland, but this issue also occurs for me when testing it with X.org. I haven't tested any other DEs or WMs as of yet.
I have an AMD Radeon RX 7900XT, using the latest versions of mesa and vulkan-radeon, and I'm using the linux-zen kernel instead of the default.

Is anyone else having a similar issue?

Thanks in advance.
bsmntoid

Edit: Nothing appears in screen recordings or screenshots, but I've managed to record it happening with a camera. Video is (removed). (epilepsy warning)
Edit 2: Issue also occurs in other WMs.

Last edited by bsmntoid (2025-06-22 18:53:50)

ActualFyrn

Member

Registered: 2025-06-22

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Hi bsmntoid,

I am also having this exact issue, as you describe it with the duplicated cursor and flickering screen below it. As well as that, my audio is also louder in volume than usual, at least on Discord. Just uninstalled and reinstalled linux-firmware (due to the manual intervention required with recent updates) and this problem started immediately on the next reboot.
I actually registered just because I saw your post here, as I am somewhat at a loss of what to do to fix it. I'm going to at least try reinstalling my graphics driver packages first, maybe a downgrade if that doesn't work. Compositor off also does not help. Interestingly, I found if I turn off my primary monitor the issue then only happens on the 2nd monitor, even when I turn the primary monitor back on.

Currently I am running EndeavourOS (Arch), XFCE and X11, vulkan-radeon. This is occurring for me with an AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX.

Last edited by ActualFyrn (2025-06-22 05:29:50)

Fungyo

Member

Registered: 2009-04-13

Posts: 43

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Same issue here on AMD Radeon RX 7800XT (mesa, vulkan-radeon)

For me, the issue appears to have been caused by the latest linux-firmware package split (20250613.12fe085f-5).
Downgrading the linux-firmware package to (20250508.788aadc8-2) fixes the issue for me.

Other than the firmware downgrade, my system is fully up-to-date.

WM = Hyprland 0.49.0
Standard (follow the wiki) Arch install.

linux-lts, only has the double cursor issue, no flickering, no line under the cursor.

Last edited by Fungyo (2025-06-22 06:08:09)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,873

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … /issues/16

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astroboy

Member

Registered: 2025-06-22

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Downgrading the linux-firmware package to (20250508.788aadc8-2) fixes the issue for me.

Thank you, I downgraded, and it fixed it for me as well. I was a bit worried because didn't know if it was safe to just downgrade linux-firmware, but it was fine. I used this command to downgrade (it's from the official docs https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Downgrading_packages):

sudo pacman -U file:///var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-firmware-20250508.788aadc8-2-any.pkg.tar.zst

but it gave me a whole lot of errors about files, saying something like "exists in filesystem (owned by linux-firmware-other)".

So I had to force it to downgrade, overwriting all existing files using the `--overwrite \*` option:

sudo pacman -U --overwrite \* file:///var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-firmware-20250508.788aadc8-2-any.pkg.tar.zst

Xephon

Member

Registered: 2024-12-22

Posts: 131

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Fixed in 20250613.12fe085f-6

lphrgg

Member

Registered: 2023-05-25

Posts: 40

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Same problem on GNOME:
X11 or Wayland doesn't matter, glitching on both.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 gre

this helps:

So I had to force it to downgrade, overwriting all existing files using the `--overwrite \*` option:

sudo pacman -U --overwrite \* file:///var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-firmware-20250508.788aadc8-2-any.pkg.tar.zst

Last edited by lphrgg (2025-06-22 09:27:46)

Doomguy136

Member

Registered: 2025-01-18

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

I was also having this issue on hyprland as of the firmware split; However, updating to 20250613.12fe085f-6 has completely fixed the issue!

I would recommend updating your system and marking this post as solved!

bsmntoid

Member

Registered: 2025-03-15

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Can confirm, upgrading linux-firmware to 20250613.12fe085f-6 has solved the issue for me.
Thank you everyone!

Raposeiro39

Member

Registered: 2025-06-22

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Even after upgrading to 20250613.12fe085f-6 the issue persists, anyone with the same problem?

hsgg

Member

Registered: 2015-01-14

Posts: 10

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Even after upgrading to 20250613.12fe085f-6 the issue persists, anyone with the same problem?

Yes, for me, too. Seems to trigger especially when doing full-screen operations (e.g. Super+w on KDE) when the cursor is on the left side of the monitor (resolution 3440 x 1440). Moving the mouse stops the issue temporarily. AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT.

Raposeiro39

Member

Registered: 2025-06-22

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Even after upgrading to 20250613.12fe085f-6 the issue persists, anyone with the same problem?

Yes, for me, too. Seems to trigger especially when doing full-screen operations (e.g. Super+w on KDE) when the cursor is on the left side of the monitor (resolution 3440 x 1440). Moving the mouse stops the issue temporarily. AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT.

I had to delete all the new linux-firmware pkgs and downgrade it using downgrade (aur) with these commands:

Remove all linux-firmware pkgs:

sudo pacman -Rdd $(sudo pacman -Qq | grep linux-firmware)

Downgrade linux-firmware:

sudo downgrade linux-firmware

I'll keep an eye out for an update on the situation, here's some info on my system if that's relevant:

CPU: Ryzen 9 7900x
GPU: RX 7600 XT 16gb
RAM: 64gb 5200 MHz
DE: KDE 6.4.0 (wayland)

lphrgg

Member

Registered: 2023-05-25

Posts: 40

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

i have a problem with last linux-firmware update
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=2247757

Last edited by lphrgg (2025-06-23 16:55:11)

ActualFyrn

Member

Registered: 2025-06-22

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Thank you Fungyo, this helped a lot. No more issues. For anyone else trying to solve this, you'll need to -Rdd the new split linux-firmware packages that have associated files that block the downgrade. Get a downgrade package from a safe source like the Arch package archive.

astroboy

Member

Registered: 2025-06-22

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

I updated to 20250613.12fe085f-6 and the flickering is gone, however my monitor refresh rate is now locked to 60 Hz. So they didn't fully fix, but applied some kind of workaround?

hsgg

Member

Registered: 2015-01-14

Posts: 10

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Duplicated cursor and flickering screen?

Definitely NOT solved with 20250613.12fe085f-9. Same occasional flickering when the mouse is in the left half of the screen and big things are happening on screen. (Though the excellent instructions by Raposeiro39 downgrading to 20250508.788aadc8-2 worked like a charm. Thanks!)