Linux Mint 12 Screen Flickers and then Freezes

[Coast2Coast]

I've a new installation of Linux Mint 12 on my laptop. Most of the time it's fine but on occasion the screen flickers all of my windows disappear for just about 3 seconds and then return. When this happens my desktop icons disappear as well the task bar at the bottom of the screen and the bar at the top of it.

Usually everything returns to normal and functions as intended. Sometimes when the application windows return the borders look different, kind of like they're not complete, like the theme is being changed. When this happens I have no control over the desktop environment. I can't type, Alt+Tab doesn't work, Alt+F2 doesn't work either, I can move my mouse but clicking does nothing. If a video is playing or the system monitor is open they continue to run I just can't interact with them.

As a last resort I go to the first terminal and restart the machine. When the machine boots back up it functions as expected. I've also noticed aside from the freezes that when I click on a menu from an applications menu bar sometimes the menu looks like the yellow description dialogue box you often get when you hover over an icon except the text is in italics and too large to fit in the box. Sometimes when I hover over icons the description dialogue box with italicized text appears. I'll hover over the same button moments later and the dialogue box looks normal.

I have tried to activate a ATI/AMD FGLRX proprietary driver and a post-release update to it. After doing that the task bar at the top has rainbow stripes through it and the text in menus is often smashed together. Needless to say I've deactivated them. Does anyone else have this issue or any ideas on what I can do to resolve it? I have found a similar post (Mint 12 Freezes by zenben1126) regarding freezes while the mouse still moves but I think my issue sis a little different..

Additional details...

Linux Mint is installed on one of the logical partitions on my second hard drive. I've got Ubuntu 11.10 installed on another partition and so far it hasn't had any issues like this. The remaining space on the hard drive is a Windows NTFS partition I use to share data between 3 OS's. Windows 7 is installed on my first hard drive.

Acer Aspire 8943G-9429
Core i7 1.73 GHz processor
8 GB DDR 3 RAM
ATI Mobile Radeon HD 5852 2 GB DDR3 RAM
OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB SSD (1st HDD)
Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500 GB 5400 RPM Drive (2nd HDD)

[Aethyr]

Sounds like your WM is resetting on it's own. Probably an issue with the graphics card, as usual. GNOME 3 is broken with ATI and of course they never gave any f*cks.

I'm using a Radeon 5000 series too (5650 in fact), I suggest you go and download the latest drivers from ATI (NOT the ones in the repos) and install them manually. The workarounds as far as I know are extremely dirty and there are some issues, but it works about 20 times better than the repo proprietary driver - at least I don't get ridiculous glitches and everything works smoothly for the most part. Gaming might or might not be an issue, it mostly is for me which has forced me to dual boot windoze again, but other than that, it's fine. Good luck.

Or alternatively you could kick GNOME 3 goodbye and use a decent DE

[nitinmartolia]

I also got ati video card... proprietary driver is not well optimized to work with gnome-shell or unity shell ...
Opensource driver is better than proprietary driver as it well optimized to work with shell, but opensource ati driver lacks gaming performance. The display of LM12 will definitely improve but still there will some display issues..like red lines appears when you login... but it happens sometimes ...

also you can download the latest propriety driver from ati and compile it ..see what happens..

also it may be some other problem like the problem of shell extension (if you play with it like disabling or enabling..or changing css files of themes) ..so keep updating you Lmint12

and if your computer freezes or with no display, you don't have to restart... use ctrl+alt+backspace to go directly to login screen ...

this is not an answer of your question but yes there is problem with ati video cards ..even with some nvidia cards too.

[Coast2Coast]

Thank you for your prompt responses. I should have considered a driver issue. Here's what I've done since reading your posts.

I've downloaded and attempted to install the ATI Radeon drivers, The installer reported that "fglrx" is already installed.

I attempted to uninstall it "sudo apt-get remove fglrx". The terminal responded by informing me that it's not installed.

Next I installed fglrx, it seems it just enabled the proprietary driver. After a reboot I had a rainbow bar at the top of the screen.

Being the native windows user that I am I uninstalled fglrx and fglrx-amdcccle. My incorrect assumption was that upon reboot the OS would install drivers for the video card.

Instead the screen changes colors constantly and never continues forward.

I have grub on a USB stick and attempted to add a failsafe entry but it does not show up as an option in grub.

Would any of you mind reviewing my grub config? My though is to install the driver via the terminal.

Thanks a lot for your support,

Coast

Code: Select all

# This grub.cfg file was created by Lance http://www.pendrivelinux.com

# Suggested Entries and the suggestor, if available, will also be noted.



set timeout=10

set default=0



menuentry 'Linux Mint 12 32-bit, 3.0.0-13-generic-pae' --class linuxmint --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {

   set root='(hd1,msdos5)'

   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 6e038d6b-b528-48e6-ab72-06cd9205dfc9

   linux   /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-13-generic-pae root=UUID=6e038d6b-b528-48e6-ab72-06cd9205dfc9 ro   quiet splash vt.handoff=7

   initrd   /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-13-generic-pae

}



menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.0.0-13-generic-pae' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {

   set root='(hd1,msdos6)'

   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root c0e31085-64c6-40cb-bc36-3ad45986e65c

   linux   /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-13-generic-pae root=UUID=c0e31085-64c6-40cb-bc36-3ad45986e65c ro   quiet splash vt.handoff=7

   initrd   /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-13-generic-pae

}



menuentry 'Linux Mint 11, 2.6.38-8-generic (/dev/sda1) -- recovery mode' --class linuxmint --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {

   set root='(hd1,msdos5)'

   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 6e038d6b-b528-48e6-ab72-06cd9205dfc9

   echo   'Loading Linux 3.0.0-13-generic-pae ...

   linux   /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-13-generic-pae root=UUID=6e038d6b-b528-48e6-ab72-06cd9205dfc9 ro   single

   echo   'Loading initial ramdisk ...'

   initrd   /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-13-generic-pae

}



menuentry "Run Ubuntu Live ISO" {

 loopback loop /ubuntu-11.10-desktop-i386.iso

 linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-11.10-desktop-i386.iso splash --

 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz

}



menuentry "Linux Mint 10 Gnome ISO" {

 loopback loop /linuxmint10.iso

 linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz iso-scan/filename=/linuxmint10.iso noeject noprompt splash --

 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz

}



menuentry "DBAN ISO" {

 loopback loop /dban.iso

 linux (loop)/DBAN.BZI nuke="dwipe" iso-scan/filename=/dban.iso silent --

}



menuentry "Tinycore ISO" {

 loopback loop /tinycore.iso

 linux (loop)/boot/bzImage --

 initrd (loop)/boot/tinycore.gz

}



menuentry "Memtest 86+" {

 linux16 /memtest86+.bin

}



menuentry "SystemRescueCd" {

 loopback loop /systemrescuecd.iso

 linux (loop)/isolinux/rescuecd isoloop=/systemrescuecd.iso setkmap=us docache dostartx

 initrd (loop)/isolinux/initram.igz

}

[Coast2Coast]

I figured out the problem with my grub entries.

I can boot to the command prompt and install packages.

It seems like I'm in the same situation.

If I try to install the driver I downloaded from AMD I get an error stating fglrx is already installed.

When I try and uninstall it I get a message stating it's not installed.

Do I have a corrupt driver installation?

[nitinmartolia]

why don't just go to single user mode by selecting recovery mode in your grub menu.. it will boot system to the default VGA console. it will prompt you for password ,just enter the password.. there you have your teminal ...

The -fglrx driver does not always uninstall properly, and leaves bits behind which can cause failures in -ati.

Symptoms:

You had -fglrx installed previously but have switched to -ati, and now are seeing various odd problems including one or more of the following:
Failure to boot, perhaps including an error mentioning MTRRs
Performance issues
Monitor power management stops working
glxgears/glxinfo fails to work
Various crashes, freezes, rendering errors, etc.

Non-Symptoms:

If you've never had -fglrx installed on your system, there is no chance you have this problem





In theory, apt should be able to clean up all the fglrx bits properly, but in practice there are many corner cases where bits get left behind.

Try:

dpkg -l '*fglrx*'

and

locate fglrx

to see if there is still some proprietary bits around causing problems.


Need to purge -fglrx

Typically, the following manual commands will properly uninstall -fglrx:

sudo apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx*
sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri fglrx-modaliases ( if you have install open source ati driver .. this will be in your cache(so you don't need internet connection)
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

if you need to fully remove -fglrx and reinstall -ati from scratch

Here is a more aggressive recipe which removes both -fglrx and -ati, and reinstalls the latter:

sudo /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh # (if it exists)
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx*
sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati
sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg


for complete guide open this link in other computer https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/FglrxInteferesWithRadeonDriver
you problem will definitely solve.

[Ehecatl1138]

I have the same issue with an HD4250. Even downloaded the driver from ATI site but the problem remains. If the screen doesn't freezes there are missing letters and icons.

[spikexp]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/889706
try to post here. Seem like the same bug.

[Coast2Coast]

I had run into some challenges booting into Mint fail safe. I was finally able to get that back up and running. I ran the commands listed below.

Code: Select all

sudo /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh # (if it exists)
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx*
sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati

I was not able to to reinstall "lingl1"

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core

I ended up installing the ATI drivers "Catalyst Control Center" with the force option.

I still have the initial problem with gnome-shell flickering.

Is there a way to confirm which version of the video driver I'm using or if conflicting files are install.

spikexp, I followed the link you provided and it looks like this was an issue with the release candidate that was never resolved. Is that correct?

[hatool]

Thank you for this thread, I am experiencing the exact same issues as described by coast2coast, and already opend a thread about it.
After reading the comments here, and also there, I am starting to realize what some of you have already written: that there is a problem with the ATI drivers on LM12, on a Gnome desktop. I was kinda happy to learn that this is not only my problem

Now, I am running the 32bit version, but before that I had the 64bit versio, which I uninstalled for some unrelated issues (about 2 weeks ago)
I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I was running the 64 bit v, I managed to install the ATI drivers. I didnt do anything special, I just installed them...
So I am considering to either change to the KDE desktop, or to upgrade to 64bit. If I will reinstall with the 64 bit version I'll update

[javajeff]

The 64 bit version does not fix anything. I have tried both Mint 12 and Fedora 16, and the issue seems to be with Gnome 3 and ATI. A move to KDE could be the only fix at the moment. I actually stuck with Windows on my "fusion" laptop since the flickering is so bad.

[joggingjon]

I too have the same problem with the Radeon 5770 with this driver installed http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.42. It's a shame, because I really like linux mint and cinnamon. I can deal with the random wm restarts every now and then, but after awhile it's annoying. I hate to go to KDE.

[AARyuzakiKK]

I have the same problem (HD 6870, linux mint 12 64bit and last drivers installed from amd site).

[luis84]

I am not in this same situation.

Really disappointing LM12 is great but out of 5 machines I own they ALL have ATI and they all react poorly with LM 12 installed (Gnome 3 - Unity).

[DonPolo883]

I am suddenly, within the last 3 days, having exactly the same issues with Mint 11.
I tracked it back to the audio streamer.
I had used Banshee for years but migrated to Clementine recently.
Now I have uninstalled Clementine.
I reverted to Banshee but still have the occasional mouse issue, flickering then screen freeze.
Today I have not started Banshee but am streaming live from the website.
I did try radiotray, which is a really nice app, but had the same effect.
It must be a kernel issue, but I cannot seem to isolate it.

Any further info or updates will be appreciated.

[moskito]

I had the same issue, the freezing of the menu and the flickering, with my compaq Presario CQ56. And i think its related with the audio. Cos when I use Rhythembox or Banshee the freezing happens more often, otherwise its just occasionally. This was anoying but it was kinda working...

However, now i'm having a new problem. Now I don't have any menu bar at all anymore. And nothing, no rebooting, no crtl+alt+backslash (which worked fine before) seems to work to bring it back. I can only see the desktop picture and with write click it opens the normal options. If I open a application, ie. calculater, it pops up, however it has no Windowframe and doesnt work properly.
I'm logged in on Gnome classic now which works just fine.
Can anybody help me or does anyone has a similar issue?
Thanks!
Cheers

[appaphys]

For the record, I was having a similar issue to what is posted here. My laptop screen operated fine, but when I attached a second monitor through Display Port, and set up multi-monitors instead of mirrored monitors, my external monitor would go on and off continually. I installed the open source drive from ATI, and everthing works fine now. Also, I had previously tried installing the driver from the "Additional Drivers" utility; but those didn't work.

Here are my relavent specs:
system: Dell studio xps 16
graphics card: ATI Mobility Radeon 3670
OS: Linux Mint 12

Oh and an aside, Gnome 3 pretty sweet.