Arch Linux

OnlyMinimum

Member

Registered: 2022-02-03

Posts: 13

Random monitor flickering and DRM HOTPLUG events on Arch Linux

Hi.

I am experiencing random monitor flickering / display hotplug issues on Arch Linux with an AMD RX6600.

System:

Kernel: 7.0.9-arch1-1
Desktop: Cinnamon (X11)
CPU: Intel i5-4440
GPU: AMD Radeon RX6600
RAM: 16 GB DDR3
Motherboard chipset: Intel H81

Monitor setup:

- Two identical monitors
- One connected directly through HDMI
- Second connected through DisplayPort -> HDMI adapter/cable
- Monitors only have HDMI and VGA inputs

Symptoms:

- Both monitors randomly flicker
- Cinnamon reorganizes windows
- Windows sometimes move between monitors
- Looks exactly like monitor disconnect/reconnect

The problem happens randomly during normal desktop usage.

Test on other systems
This does NOT happen on Windows 10.

I tested Windows 10 for more than 3 hours with no flickers, no monitor disconnects and no instability at all. So i think this seems Linux-specific.

What I found
Running:

udevadm monitor --kernel --property

shows DRM hotplug events exactly when the flickering occurs:

KERNEL[...] change ... /drm/card1 (drm)
ACTION=change
SUBSYSTEM=drm
HOTPLUG=1

I also ran:

journalctl -b -p warning

and found this warning:

amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: [drm] Failed to setup vendor infoframe on connector HDMI-A-1: -22

Things already tested

- amdgpu.audio=0
- pcie_aspm=off
- removing quiet splash
- different BIOS PEG/PCIe settings
- monitoring:
    journalctl -f
    dmesg -w
    udevadm monitor

I also tried:

amdgpu.dc=0

but my RX6600 kernel panicked during boot, so I reverted it.

Possible causes I am considering:

- problems in newer kernels?
- AMDGPU DP/HDMI issue?
- passive DP->HDMI adapter incompatibility under Linux?
- Cinnamon/X11 hotplug behavior?

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,560

Re: Random monitor flickering and DRM HOTPLUG events on Arch Linux

- Cinnamon reorganizes windows
- Windows sometimes move between monitors
…
DRM hotplug events

The output dis/appear, possibly DPMS triggered. Notably TVs have show to unregister on DPMS but it could also be the adapter.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Displa … figuration
If this is X11 and you cannot override Cinnamons trigger, blocking the module might allow you to test this.

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OnlyMinimum

Member

Registered: 2022-02-03

Posts: 13

Re: Random monitor flickering and DRM HOTPLUG events on Arch Linux

Thanks for the suggestion.

I checked the DPMS state with:

xset q

and got the following output:

Keyboard Control:
auto repeat:  on    key click percent:  0    LED mask:  00000002
XKB indicators:
00: Caps Lock:   off    01: Num Lock:    on     02: Scroll Lock: off
03: Compose:     off    04: Kana:        off    05: Sleep:       off
06: Suspend:     off    07: Mute:        off    08: Misc:        off
09: Mail:        off    10: Charging:    off    11: Shift Lock:  off
12: Group 2:     off    13: Mouse Keys:  off
auto repeat delay:  500    repeat rate:  33
auto repeating keys:  00ffffffdffffbbf
fadfffefffedffff
9fffffffffffffff
fff7ffffffffffff
bell percent:  50    bell pitch:  400    bell duration:  100

Pointer Control:
acceleration:  2/1    threshold:  4

Screen Saver:
prefer blanking:  no    allow exposures:  yes
timeout:  0    cycle:  0

Colors:
default colormap:  0x20    BlackPixel:  0x0    WhitePixel:  0xffffff

Font Path:
/usr/share/fonts/misc,
/usr/share/fonts/TTF,
/usr/share/fonts/OTF,
/usr/share/fonts/100dpi,
/usr/share/fonts/75dpi,
/usr/share/fonts/built-ins

DPMS (Display Power Management Signaling):
Server does not have the DPMS Extension

So it seems the X server is not using the traditional X11 DPMS extension in this setup.

Does that rule out DPMS as the source of the hotplug events, or could Cinnamon / DRM / AMDGPU still be doing some kind of power management outside of X11 DPMS?

I am still consistently getting:

HOTPLUG=1

events from:

udevadm monitor --kernel --property

exactly when the monitors flicker.

Also, recently the behavior became worse: when the flickering happens, one monitor now sometimes completely turns off and Cinnamon crashes, showing a message that it is going to run in fallback mode.

I also uploaded the relevant journalctl output of:

journalctl -b | grep -Ei "muffin|cinnamon|amdgpu|drm"

right here:
https://paste.c-net.org/SentenceBride

Thanks again for the help and suggestions so far. I really appreciate the troubleshooting guidance. I will continue testing and report back if I find anything new or if one of these tests changes the behavior.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,560

Re: Random monitor flickering and DRM HOTPLUG events on Arch Linux

and got the following output:

Sure this isn't cinnamon on wayland?

xrandr --verbose

May 25 22:12:44 arch-mkVII systemd-coredump[4500]: Process 1690 (cinnamon) of user 1000 terminated abnormally with signal 11/SEGV, processing...
May 25 22:12:49 arch-mkVII systemd-coredump[4501]: Process 1690 (cinnamon) of user 1000 dumped core.
                                                   #9  0x00007f8406938c92 n/a (libmuffin-cogl-0.so.0 + 0x5dc92)
                                                   #10 0x00007f840692e8d7 cogl_onscreen_swap_buffers_with_damage (libmuffin-cogl-0.so.0 + 0x538d7)
                                                   #11 0x00007f84072e145b n/a (libmuffin-clutter-0.so.0 + 0xc245b)
                                                   #12 0x00007f84072e55aa n/a (libmuffin-clutter-0.so.0 + 0xc65aa)
                                                   #13 0x00007f84072e618a n/a (libmuffin-clutter-0.so.0 + 0xc718a)
                                                   #14 0x00007f84072a24b8 n/a (libmuffin-clutter-0.so.0 + 0x834b8)
                                                   #18 0x00007f8406fb284a meta_run (libmuffin.so.0 + 0xa484a)
                                                   #19 0x000055722499e4c9 n/a (/usr/bin/cinnamon + 0x24c9)
                                                   #22 0x000055722499e695 n/a (/usr/bin/cinnamon + 0x2695)
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII NetworkManager[577]: <info>  [1779758028.3980] agent-manager: agent[d56bba18c0f87cad,:1.64/org.cinnamon.NetworkAgent/1000]: agent registered
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII systemd[1011]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.cinnamon.CalendarServer@1.service.
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII cinnamon-calendar-server[4866]: Traceback (most recent call last):
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII cinnamon-calendar-server[4866]:   File "/usr/lib/cinnamon/cinnamon-calendar-server.py", line 16, in <module>
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII cinnamon-calendar-server[4866]:     gi.require_version('ICal', '3.0')
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII cinnamon-calendar-server[4866]:     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII cinnamon-calendar-server[4866]:   File "/usr/lib/python3.14/site-packages/gi/__init__.py", line 153, in require_version
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII cinnamon-calendar-server[4866]:     raise ValueError(f"Namespace {namespace} not available for version {version}")
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII cinnamon-calendar-server[4866]: ValueError: Namespace ICal not available for version 3.0
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII systemd[1011]: dbus-:1.2-org.cinnamon.CalendarServer@1.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
May 25 22:13:48 arch-mkVII systemd[1011]: dbus-:1.2-org.cinnamon.CalendarServer@1.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 25 22:14:04 arch-mkVII systemd-coredump[5021]: Process 4684 (cinnamon) of user 1000 terminated abnormally with signal 11/SEGV, processing...
May 25 22:14:09 arch-mkVII systemd-coredump[5022]: Process 4684 (cinnamon) of user 1000 dumped core.
                                                   #9  0x00007ff23649ac92 n/a (libmuffin-cogl-0.so.0 + 0x5dc92)
                                                   #10 0x00007ff2364908d7 cogl_onscreen_swap_buffers_with_damage (libmuffin-cogl-0.so.0 + 0x538d7)
                                                   #11 0x00007ff23691e45b n/a (libmuffin-clutter-0.so.0 + 0xc245b)
                                                   #12 0x00007ff2369225aa n/a (libmuffin-clutter-0.so.0 + 0xc65aa)
                                                   #13 0x00007ff23692318a n/a (libmuffin-clutter-0.so.0 + 0xc718a)
                                                   #14 0x00007ff2368df4b8 n/a (libmuffin-clutter-0.so.0 + 0x834b8)
                                                   #18 0x00007ff2365ef84a meta_run (libmuffin.so.0 + 0xa484a)
                                                   #19 0x000055da3a5114c9 n/a (/usr/bin/cinnamon + 0x24c9)
                                                   #22 0x000055da3a511695 n/a (/usr/bin/cinnamon + 0x2695)

cinnamon crashed twice in 90s, important parts of the backtrace are missing due to the random grep pattern.
Do those crashes coincide w/ the flicker?

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OnlyMinimum

Member

Registered: 2022-02-03

Posts: 13

Re: Random monitor flickering and DRM HOTPLUG events on Arch Linux

No, I am not using Wayland. I am using Cinnamon on X11.

I checked with:

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

and the output is:

x11

Here is the output of:

xrandr --verbose

https://paste.c-net.org/AirstripPacey

And yes, the Cinnamon crashes do coincide with the monitor flickers.

In fact, the behavior recently became worse.

When the flicker happens now:

* the secondary monitor (the one connected through DP->HDMI) sometimes turns off completely
* Cinnamon crashes and enters fallback mode
* the whole desktop becomes practically unusable
  

At that point, I am forced to physically disconnect the DP->HDMI cable from the secondary monitor to recover the system.

If I leave the cable connected:

* the Cinnamon fallback warning remains on screen
* the primary monitor stays on
* but the desktop becomes frozen/unresponsive
* I cannot properly interact with the system anymore
  

So the crashes definitely seem correlated with the hotplug/flicker events.

Also, I will upload the complete:

journalctl -b

https://paste.c-net.org/TargetsFluid

output without grep filtering, since the previous logs may have hidden important parts of the backtrace.