Screen 'burning' issue

Support & Help Requests
#1

I have a bit of a strange issue.

I have a dual monitor setup (not sure if relevant).

Sometimes when I am switching workspaces, I am left with an image of the previous workspace’s window on one of the monitors (or sometimes just a white screen). The only way to get rid of the image is to move the mouse around the screen, which seems to ‘colour it in’, i.e. it removes the previous image to replace it with the one that should be there. It does this with a large square shape (like you would get with a paintbrush in MS Paint).

I tried to take a video of the issue using Kazam, but even though I encountered the issue while recording, it did not show up in the video.

Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS.

Any help greatly appreciated, this is very frustrating and making my machine almost unusable. I want to use MATE!

#2

I know what you mean - It’s like the physical monitor output hasn’t been updated to remove the “remains” from what was seen previously.

I’m afraid I do not know a fix, but these should pin-point which program is responsible:

  • Which window manager? - Marco, Compiz or Compton? Is the behaviour different? *
  • Which graphics card? Are proprietary drivers in use? - Can cause these type if problems sometimes.

I think it’s likely to be due to having a dual monitor setup.

* 14.04 may not have these window managers in MATE Tweak.

#3

Seen this many times, caused by nouveau driver** version present in 14.04 (fixed in newer nouveau driver present in 16.04)

Thankfully, this is easy to fix by installing a proprietary NVIDIA driver.
Open Control Centre, in the Hardware category look for Additional Drivers.

Select the latest NVIDIA version suitable for your graphics card (usually best to use the default version without “(updates)” at the end).

After installation, restart your system, then the issue should be gone.

** nouveau is the open source driver for NVIDIA GPUs

#4

lah7:

Window manager:

I was using Marco, just switched to Compiz and haven’t had the issue yet, although I dislike Compiz and can’t turn off all the effects I want in the config. Compiz also seems to make my machine very laggy, especially when typing in the terminal despite my machine being powerful.

Graphics card:

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107GLM [Quadro K1100M]

DaveB:

I’m already using:

NVIDIA binary driver - version 352.63 from nvidia-352 (proprietary, tested)

#5

Since it’s just affecting Marco, I would recommend trying Ubuntu MATE 16.04 when it’s released next month, since the bug may have disappeared in newer versions (with a bit of luck! :ok_hand:)

The other option is to try more up-to-date (but less tested) NVIDIA Proprietary drivers, in case it’s a bug on NVIDIA’s end. Currently I’m on 358.16.

#6

If you have not tried it, CCSM is a graphical way of changing compiz. It comes with a warning for good reason though. Its available through standard download with whatever package manager you use.

http://wiki.compiz.org/CCSM

Compiz should not slow down a fast computer, I’m thinking like lah7, try the latest driver.

1 Like
#7

Ah okay, in which case (since you’re using 14.04) could it be due to this issue (now fixed)?
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNOME-3.18-Mutter-NVIDIA

Possibly try 16.04 as a live session to check if you still experience the same problem?