Gnome-Shell Navigation Error
Submitted by Justin Brown
Assigned to Ian Romanick
Description
I've been experiencing this problem for nearly a year and haven't had any luck resolving it. I know this sounds like a Gnome problem, but it only occurs when using Intel graphics.
System:
This occurs exclusively on a HD Graphics 4600 (i7-4770) system. I have tried everything from various single monitor configurations to my usual triple-monitor configuration (1920x1080, 1920x1200, and 2560x1440) and even tried various display connectors. There has not been a discernible difference in the error rate between all of the configurations. Currently, the system has 512MiB of memory assigned to the GPU.
Problem:
When using HD Graphics 4600 (i7-4770) regardless of monitor configuration, I constantly have the following problem in Gnome (3.8-3.12) on Fedora (versions 19 and 20). Every 5-10 minutes, I will lose the ability to click on any item outside of the active window. The mouse cursor moves around fine, but I can't interact with anything else. No overview mode, no ability to click to focus on anything else. The keyboard and mouse continue to work in the active application. Interestingly, I can alt+tab to another program, and use input devices there.
Recovery:
If I switch from Gnome on VT1 to any other VT, even for a fraction of a second, and back again then everything returns to normal 95% of the time. (Very rarely, do I have to do it twice.)
Logs:
There aren't any useful log messages, but the following does appear when this problem occurs.
[2149:2149:0225/193020:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] Gdk: IA__gdk_window_get_events: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193020:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] GLib-GObject: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193020:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] GLib-GObject: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193022:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] Gdk: IA__gdk_window_get_events: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193022:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] GLib-GObject: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193023:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] GLib-GObject: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193023:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] Gdk: IA__gdk_window_get_events: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193023:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] GLib-GObject: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193023:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] GLib-GObject: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193023:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] Gdk: IA__gdk_window_get_events: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193023:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] GLib-GObject: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed [2149:2149:0225/193023:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(234)] GLib-GObject: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed Gjs-Message: JS LOG: pushModal: invocation of begin_modal failed
Upon the VT switch trick, there's no recovery messages.
Testing:
I use a variety of Intel HD Graphics systems and have never experienced this problem. They include a laptop with 4400 (i7-4600U), 4000 (i7-3520M), and 3000 (i5-2500K). Fedora, somewhat mysteriously ships a rather old version of xorg-x11-drv-intel (2.21.15). I added Intel's graphics repository (https://download.01.org/gfx/fedora/20/) for Fedora, which includes (2.99.907), but the problem still occurred at the same frequency.
I've temporary added a Nvidia 210 graphics card using the nouveau driver to this system, and have not experienced the problem in over 6 hours of testing.
Conclusion:
I come away extremely confused. This is such a strange problem to have on one specific GPU.
My gut tells me that it has to be something with Xorg since a switch to a VT immediately fixes it. Unfortunately, Xorg doesn't log any messages when this behavior occurs.
I'd like to submit more information if anyone can think of additional things to test or debugging options to use.
Version: 10.0