All Windows Losing Opacity in 18.1 Cinnamon 64-bit

[KoHoSo]

I installed Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64-bit four days ago. On the evening I am writing this, I have not made any changes, adjustments, or installations including from the Update Manager (in fact, I don't think I've seen anything new from the Update Manager since the night I installed "Serena").

I was doing my normal things at one point and went to bring up a window from the task bar. I could barely see it. I minimized the other windows I had open and was basically at the Desktop. I could see the window was up but it had lost so much opacity that it was useless to me. Bringing up the others again gave the same unreadable result. I should note that the desktop wallpaper and icons along with the task bar and main menu looked fine. It was only the things in a window that lost opacity. The items I had open were two browsers, Thunderbird, PasswordSafe, and some location in my Home folder.

I thought I might have hit an odd button on my keyboard that might have caused this. I squinted to find the Reboot button in the pop-up window. Once back up, everything was OK.

A few hours later, I was again in my normal routine. Suddenly, the same thing happened. I could bring up a window but it was as if it had been turned down to 10% opacity. This time, I was certain I had not hit anything on my keyboard or performed any other action out of the ordinary. Another reboot got things back to normal but for how long?

So...could this be a bug? I have never seen anything like this before in my many years of using a computer under any operating system. I used "Sarah" with Cinnamon 64-bit since just after it came out and never saw this happen.

I will be glad to provide any information on my system or answer any questions to help solve this issue.

[Cosmo.]

There is in the Windows configuration of the system -> title bar an option to set the mouse wheel to change the opacity, if the mouse pointer is placed above the title bar. Do you have perhaps selected this option and did you possibly scroll the wheel above the title bar?

[KoHoSo]

Cosmo...I just checked that setting under Windows>Titlebar. "Action on title bar with mouse scroll" is set to Nothing. I just tried it to see if that setting might not be working but checking after both doing a scroll up and down on my mouse wheel while the cursor was on the titlebar failed to get this issue to repeat itself.

I thank you for the suggestion even though it did not solve the problem.

[Cosmo.]

Create a fresh new user account and see if you can reproduce the issue there. With this method the culprit can reduced to the account or the system.

[Oldbwl]

Cosmo...I just checked that setting under Windows>Titlebar. "Action on title bar with mouse scroll" is set to Nothing. I just tried it to see if that setting might not be working but checking after both doing a scroll up and down on my mouse wheel while the cursor was on the titlebar failed to get this issue to repeat itself.

I thank you for the suggestion even though it did not solve the problem.

Try this, change the setting to "Adjust Opacity". Then mouse scroll over the title bar of any open File Manager window (not the windows setting page). When you have the opacity at full. Go back to the setting and change it back to "Nothing".

I hope that works for you.

[KoHoSo]

Cosmo and Oldbwl...I thank you both for your suggestions. I used my computer for most of this long weekend and, after reporting the problem here, I could not get this issue to repeat itself. I also had another thing going on I had never seen before where Nemo was telling me there was something wrong with my thumbnails that had to be corrected. It too never appeared again after heavy use of the system...and all that came up as an update was for the screensaver. If the opacity problem comes back, I will return to this thread and try the possible fixes.

[KoHoSo]

After six more days of heavy use, boom, back came the problem tonight. I'm still not certain if I did anything to trigger it as, after this long, I thought this had gone away and was not paying close attention.

I have just tried Oldbwl's suggestion of changing the opacity setting and then putting it back. If the problem returns again, I will move on to Cosmo's suggestion of creating a new user account.

My new question is, since it took over six days to see this happen again, what's a proper amount of time to say that one of these suggestions worked and we can call this solved?

[Cosmo.]

My new question is, since it took over six days to see this happen again, what's a proper amount of time to say that one of these suggestions worked and we can call this solved?

This is impossible to answer with a precise value. Anything must have triggered the reappearance, even if it is unclear, what. You might try to do some guesses, what of the actions you did could have been the trigger. Possibly it is a combination of some factors, which work as the trigger.

[Big B 43]

I had this happen to me shortly after installing 18.1. I was customizing my panel when it happened. Since i am new to Linux I figured I had clicked on the wrong option or something. I was able to restore it back to normal by right clicking on the panel bar and selecting Trouble Shoot, Restart Cinnamon.

[KoHoSo]

I just had this happen again and, this time, I am 100% certain I did not hit any extra key or mouse button/wheel to trigger it. All I did was click on a jpeg file to open it. It came up with low opacity and everything I had open changed to the same condition.

The next time it happens I will try Big B 43's solution of restarting Cinnamon before trying the new user account suggestion. Am I correct that, now that we have a second report and that if it requires a Cinnamon restart that we officially have a bug?

[KoHoSo]

Wow...it happened immediately again after I made my previous post when opening another jpeg (FYI, the very first time this happened, I was opening an mp3 file). Big B 43's solution to restart Cinnamon works but is certainly not a permanent fix.

My hardware is just over a year old. I had no problem like this during the six or so months I used 18.0 Cinnamon 64-bit. If there is anything I can post to be of further help in seeing if this is a hardware conflict or a new bug, I will be glad to do it.

[Cosmo.]

You might try to disable all visual effects in the effect settings of the system. Possibly it helps.