Black lines flicker on top of desktop since Kernels 5.4.x
System Information
- GPU: PowerColor RX 5700 ITX
- GPU Driver: Mesa 20.1.0-devel (ppa:ernstp/ppa)
- Distro version: 19.3 Tricia (64 bit) (Cinnamon)
Issue: Since Kernels 5.4.x I have been seeing black lines flicker on the top part of the screen, this appears to happen when doing things in certain applications like Firefox or Steam.
How to Reproduce: I can easily provoke the problem to occur with the Steam client, by moving around the pointer quickly over menu or store items the glitch occurs, I included a couple of short videos to demonstrate this:
(To the right you see the steam client, what I do is that I just move the mouse up and down over some items on the store page. Pay attention to the top of the screen and you will see there is a black line that flickers)
- This was recorded using my phone on Kernel 5.4.22. I tried recording it with Kazam but the glitch was curiously not visible on the recording.
- I have seen this problem with all recent Kernel versions, including 5.5.6 and 5.6.0-rc3)
- I have tried Mesa drivers from Padoka Stable, Oibaf and Erstp PPA.
- With exact same drivers there are no visible issues with 5.3 Kernels (currently using 5.3.18)
- With a Vega 56 GPU I did not see this issue with 5.4 and 5.5 Kernels
- I can't ever remember seeing this occur in fullscreen gameplay (admittedly I have not spent enough time in games with these Kernels to be certain).
The problem is not limited to the Steam application, but that is when I see this problem occur most often/easiest to reproduce. Just browsing with Firefox the glitch occurs pretty frequently too.
(Considering I have not seen others mention this issue, I'm thinking maybe this is just only noticeable with certain screen resolutions/aspect ratios. I'm using a 2560x1600 16:10 monitor, which is very uncommon).
Basically I think this is some kind of Mesa or Kernel bug, considering the problem only for me occurs with a RX5700 and not a Vega56, and the problem does not occur with 5.3 Kernels.