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Bug#1014625: xterm: screen corruption of scrollback buffer
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Tim Connors
Jul 9, 2022, 12:50:03 AM7/9/22
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Package: xterm
Version: 372-1
Severity: normal
I'm getting screen corruption (scattered blocks of blackness) over
text in the xterm display when scrolling back. The blocks move with
the contents of the scrollback when scrolling. When that text is
eventually scrolled off the screen, scrolling back may induce a
different corruption pattern. Forcing a redisplay of the contents of
the terminal by going to a different virtual desktop and back will get
rid of the corruption.
This has happened ever since I changed my hardware -- mostly updating
my video card to a radeon RX570 -- necessitating new versions of some
drivers and kernel. While I would happily accept that the video card
might have some dodgy memory (note to self: find a GPU memory stress
tester), this corruption has not affected any other program other than
xterm's scrollback buffer, so I wonder if it's a bug instead.
Screengrabs of the symptom:
https://rather.puzzling.org/~tconnors/tmp/screengrab-xterm-scrollback-corruption.png
https://rather.puzzling.org/~tconnors/tmp/screengrab-xterm-scrollback-corruption2.png
radeon amdgpu drivers and firmware are the latest version allowed by
otherwise being on debian stable - ie,
firmware-amd-graphics/unstable=20210818-1
xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu/stable=19.1.0-2 (backporting requires upgrading libc)
kernel is bullseye-backports = 5.18.2-1~bpo11+1
Both xterm/stable and a backported xterm/unstable exhibit the same symptoms.
Video card is:
02:00.0 0300: 1002:67df (rev ef) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (rev ef) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590]
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 11.3
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable'), (5, 'testing'), (2, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 5.16.0-0.bpo.4-amd64 (SMP w/20 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
Versions of packages xterm depends on:
ii libc6 2.31-13+deb11u3
ii libfontconfig1 2.13.1-4.2
ii libfreetype6 2.10.4+dfsg-1
ii libice6 2:1.0.10-1
ii libtinfo6 6.2+20201114-2
ii libutempter0 1.2.1-2
ii libx11-6 2:1.7.2-1
ii libxaw7 2:1.0.13-1.1
ii libxext6 2:1.3.3-1.1
ii libxft2 2.3.2-2
ii libxinerama1 2:1.1.4-2
ii libxmu6 2:1.1.2-2+b3
ii libxpm4 1:3.5.12-1
ii libxt6 1:1.2.0-1
ii xbitmaps 1.1.1-2.1
Versions of packages xterm recommends:
ii x11-utils 7.7+5
Versions of packages xterm suggests:
pn xfonts-cyrillic <none>
-- no debconf information
Version: 372-1
Severity: normal
I'm getting screen corruption (scattered blocks of blackness) over
text in the xterm display when scrolling back. The blocks move with
the contents of the scrollback when scrolling. When that text is
eventually scrolled off the screen, scrolling back may induce a
different corruption pattern. Forcing a redisplay of the contents of
the terminal by going to a different virtual desktop and back will get
rid of the corruption.
This has happened ever since I changed my hardware -- mostly updating
my video card to a radeon RX570 -- necessitating new versions of some
drivers and kernel. While I would happily accept that the video card
might have some dodgy memory (note to self: find a GPU memory stress
tester), this corruption has not affected any other program other than
xterm's scrollback buffer, so I wonder if it's a bug instead.
Screengrabs of the symptom:
https://rather.puzzling.org/~tconnors/tmp/screengrab-xterm-scrollback-corruption.png
https://rather.puzzling.org/~tconnors/tmp/screengrab-xterm-scrollback-corruption2.png
radeon amdgpu drivers and firmware are the latest version allowed by
otherwise being on debian stable - ie,
firmware-amd-graphics/unstable=20210818-1
xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu/stable=19.1.0-2 (backporting requires upgrading libc)
kernel is bullseye-backports = 5.18.2-1~bpo11+1
Both xterm/stable and a backported xterm/unstable exhibit the same symptoms.
Video card is:
02:00.0 0300: 1002:67df (rev ef) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (rev ef) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590]
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 11.3
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable'), (5, 'testing'), (2, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 5.16.0-0.bpo.4-amd64 (SMP w/20 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
Versions of packages xterm depends on:
ii libc6 2.31-13+deb11u3
ii libfontconfig1 2.13.1-4.2
ii libfreetype6 2.10.4+dfsg-1
ii libice6 2:1.0.10-1
ii libtinfo6 6.2+20201114-2
ii libutempter0 1.2.1-2
ii libx11-6 2:1.7.2-1
ii libxaw7 2:1.0.13-1.1
ii libxext6 2:1.3.3-1.1
ii libxft2 2.3.2-2
ii libxinerama1 2:1.1.4-2
ii libxmu6 2:1.1.2-2+b3
ii libxpm4 1:3.5.12-1
ii libxt6 1:1.2.0-1
ii xbitmaps 1.1.1-2.1
Versions of packages xterm recommends:
ii x11-utils 7.7+5
Versions of packages xterm suggests:
pn xfonts-cyrillic <none>
-- no debconf information
Thomas Dickey
Jul 9, 2022, 2:40:04 PM7/9/22
to
On Sat, Jul 09, 2022 at 02:39:41PM +1000, Tim Connors wrote:
> Package: xterm
> Version: 372-1
> Severity: normal
>
> I'm getting screen corruption (scattered blocks of blackness) over
> text in the xterm display when scrolling back. The blocks move with
> the contents of the scrollback when scrolling. When that text is
> eventually scrolled off the screen, scrolling back may induce a
> different corruption pattern. Forcing a redisplay of the contents of
> the terminal by going to a different virtual desktop and back will get
> rid of the corruption.
also, menu "Main Options", "Redraw Window" can help.
> Package: xterm
> Version: 372-1
> Severity: normal
>
> I'm getting screen corruption (scattered blocks of blackness) over
> text in the xterm display when scrolling back. The blocks move with
> the contents of the scrollback when scrolling. When that text is
> eventually scrolled off the screen, scrolling back may induce a
> different corruption pattern. Forcing a redisplay of the contents of
> the terminal by going to a different virtual desktop and back will get
> rid of the corruption.
> This has happened ever since I changed my hardware -- mostly updating
> my video card to a radeon RX570 -- necessitating new versions of some
> drivers and kernel. While I would happily accept that the video card
> might have some dodgy memory (note to self: find a GPU memory stress
> tester), this corruption has not affected any other program other than
> xterm's scrollback buffer, so I wonder if it's a bug instead.
>
> Screengrabs of the symptom:
>
> https://rather.puzzling.org/~tconnors/tmp/screengrab-xterm-scrollback-corruption.png
> https://rather.puzzling.org/~tconnors/tmp/screengrab-xterm-scrollback-corruption2.png
>
> radeon amdgpu drivers and firmware are the latest version allowed by
> otherwise being on debian stable - ie,
That could be defective implementation of XCopyArea, for instance.
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=110214
--
Thomas E. Dickey <dic...@invisible-island.net>
https://invisible-island.net
ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net
Tim Connors
Feb 16, 2024, 1:10:07 AM2/16/24
to
simply to downgrade back to (old)stable's kernels, but alas that is no
longer a solution for debian bookworm - the framebuffer bug is still there
in 6.1 and 6.5 kernels.
However, one of those bugs somewhere hinted about using xcompmgr. Running
that in fvwm has solved my problem (as well as solving excessive CPU
usage in mozilla related to it wanting to continually update windows that
aren't actually in view). No apparent sideeffects at all, which seems
rather strange for something coming out of the shiny new world.
I have no idea how xcompmgr fixes this, but it fixes the screen artefacts
in xterm nevertheless!
--
Tim Connors
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