Media key OSD becomes distorted after changing Fractional Scaling and User Interface Scale (Hi-DPI) settings

[Flexible Cookie]

When using the Fractional scaling and User interface scale (Hi-DPI) settings on the Display system setting, the volume meter / OSD icon gets distorted. I have a 27" BENQ monitor attached to my main Thinkpad T14s monitor ("14), both with native 1920 x 1080p resolutions. Here is how to reproduce the problem:

• Set "Fractional scaling" to 150% and "User interface scale" to Double (Hi-DPI) on the T14s laptop monitor.
• External 27" BENQ monitor kept on 100% (default) fractional scaling and Double (Hi-DPI) user interface scale (automatically).
• This basically makes everything in the small 14" monitor look the same size as in the external monitor, ie. scaled resolution 1280 x 720, so I don't need a microscope to use it.
• When using the keyboard volume up / down / mute / mic toggle buttons, the on-screen OSD icon becomes heavily distorted, as if you tugged the jpg around in MSPaint.
• To slightly fix it, go to notification settings, and under "Media keys OSD size", set to Small, then back to Medium. The OSD icon should look perfect on the big 27" screen now, but on the small screen the percentage % number appears outside the OSD box. Much better than the distortion, but still bugged.

Reproducible every time. Not a huge deal and not a critical bug, but it makes the OS look amateurish. If there is an actual fix anyone knows I'd be thankful, but I'm also wondering where and if to post this bug report somewhere other than these forums.

default scaling


150% scaling / hi-DPI messed up OSD


small OSD size fix


normal OSD size fixed

Code: Select all

mario@T14s-Linux:~$ inxi -Fxxxrz
System:
  Kernel: 5.8.0-44-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 wm: muffin 4.8.1 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20UHCTO1WW v: ThinkPad T14s Gen 1 
  serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 20UHCTO1WW serial: <filter> UEFI: LENOVO 
  v: R1CET61W(1.30 ) date: 12/21/2020 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 45.7 Wh condition: 57.5/57.0 Wh (101%) volts: 12.3/11.5 
  model: SMP 5B10W139 type: Li-poly serial: <filter> status: Unknown 
  cycles: 1 
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 
  serial: <filter> charge: 55% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes 
  status: Discharging 
  Device-2: hidpp_battery_1 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse B330/M330/M331 
  serial: <filter> charge: 55% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes 
  status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U with Radeon Graphics 
  bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen rev: 1 L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm 
  bogomips: 54299 
  Speed: 1397 MHz min/max: 1400/1700 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 
  1: 1397 2: 1398 3: 1399 4: 1396 5: 1397 6: 1397 7: 1397 8: 1396 9: 1397 
  10: 1397 11: 1397 12: 1397 13: 1397 14: 1396 15: 1399 16: 1397 
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Renoir vendor: Lenovo driver: amdgpu v: kernel 
  bus ID: 07:00.0 chip ID: 1002:1636 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: amdgpu,ati 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa 
  resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.38.0 5.8.0-44-generic LLVM 11.0.0) 
  v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 07:00.1 chip ID: 1002:1637 
  Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor 
  vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_rn_pci_acp3x v: kernel bus ID: 07:00.5 
  chip ID: 1022:15e2 
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel 
  v: kernel bus ID: 07:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.8.0-44-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Lenovo driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 2400 bus ID: 02:00.0 
  chip ID: 10ec:8168 
  IF: enp2s0f0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 2000 
  bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 8086:2723 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: N/A used: 13.81 GiB 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: WDBRPG0010BNC-WRSN 
  size: 931.51 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: 102000WD 
  scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 72.83 GiB used: 11.76 GiB (16.1%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
  ID-2: /home size: 805.70 GiB used: 2.05 GiB (0.3%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 64.5 C mobo: 0.0 C gpu: amdgpu temp: 50 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 3000 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/linrunner-tlp-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/linrunner/tlp/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/oem-sutton.newell-adalbrechta-meta.list 
  1: deb http://lenovo.archive.canonical.com/ focal sutton
  2: deb http://lenovo.archive.canonical.com/ focal sutton.newell
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa main upstream import backport
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/papirus-papirus-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/papirus/papirus/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/slack.list 
  1: deb https://packagecloud.io/slacktechnologies/slack/debian/ jessie main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64,arm64,armhf] http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/code stable main
Info:
  Processes: 373 Uptime: 21h 15m Memory: 30.66 GiB used: 6.57 GiB (21.4%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38 
mario@T14s-Linux:~$ 

[spamegg]

You have a perfectly written, detailed report of a reproducible bug! You should post the same thing here:
https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/issues
Fractional Scaling is a new-ish feature, so it looks like there are some bugs.
Technically speaking, Mint is amateur. We don't pay for it, and the devs only get by with donations (and their day jobs).
We can help the devs by donating and reporting bugs!

[JosephM]

Does the problem persist once you restart after changing the settings? It's a known issue that sometimes things don't properly update after changing those settings until a restart happens.