Visual glitches

[IvanKulagin]

Describe the Bug

No workspace is shown to the left of the current workspace (I guess it renders behind) and other workspaces are clipping through the current one.

cube.mp4

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Get an ultrawide monitor
2. Install this extension
3. Open the desktop overview

Expected Behavior

Nice animations without glitches

System

• Linux distribution: Arch Linux
• Desktop Cube version: Desktop Cube 3
• GNOME Shell version: 41.1

[Schneegans]

Thanks for the report! Two things which come to my mind:

• Do you have a secondary screen?
• Could you please disable all other extensions and see if the glitches persist?

[IvanKulagin]

Yes, I have the second screen and after disabling it the next workspace now renders correctly, but artifacts from other workspaces clipping through are still present even after disabling all extensions and changing resolution to 1920x1080. Also I'm using NVIDIA GPU with X11 if information can help you

[Schneegans]

I do not really have an idea what could be going on here. I cannot reproduce the issue myself (I tested GNOME Shell 40.5 + X11 + NVidia / GNOME Shell 41.1 + X11 in a VM). Maybe you could try disabling the transparency of the cube sides. To do this, open the file

~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/desktop-cube@schneegans.github.com/extension.js

and change the INACTIVE_OPACITY value to 255.
Thereafter, restart GNOME Shell (Alt+F2, r and then Enter) and see if it changes something.

Or maybe go the other way around and make the front face transparent by setting the ACTIVE_OPACITY to a lower value e.g. 200.

Btw, this Second-Screen Issue will be a tough one: The problem is, that GNOME Shell creates one perspective for all screens. Then, the vanishing point for the cube sides are not in the center of the screen, but in the center of all of your screens. Therefore it looks kind of distorted....

[Schneegans]

With the latest update, you can change the opacity in the settings dialog.

[Leleat]

I think I am seeing the same issue with all extensions disabled and GNOME Shell restarted. Some more info:

• It happens when you switch the hover state of a window preview (maybe you didn't notice it because the artifects get obscurred by the window previews?)
• Increasing the opacity to full doesn't help

[Edit]

• I only have 1 monitor (3440x1440).
• happens on Wayland and X1
• I only have a AMD Ryzen 3200u
• this doesn't appear to happen on my laptop, which has an intel cpu, a nvidia gpu and a display of 1920x1200

[SmilerOnline]

The border/outline of the workspace on the left is glitchy, and the artifact in the middle is coming from another workspaces border, so the problem only appears to be related to how the workspace border is handled in the code perhaps?
As the windows stretch beyond the workspace, I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
Though please forgive me, I don't have enough time to thoroughly test it and give any better clarity.

Here's my setup if the details help.

SOFTWARE

• Manjaro (Gnome-Edition).
• DE: GNOME 41.1.
• WM: Mutter.
• Kernel: 5.15.6-2-MANJARO.

HARDWARE

• CPU: Intel i7-9750H (12) @ 2.600GHz.
• RAM: 32GB.

GRAPHICS:

• Nvidia/Intel hybrid graphics.
• Intel GPU: Intel CoffeeLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics 630].
• Nvidia GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile / Max-Q.
• Nvidia proprietary driver version: 495.44.
• X11.
• Single display (though also visible when I used dual display previously - Note** Workspaces on primary display only).
• 2560x1440 resolution (144Hz).

[KyleGospo]

Same exact issue here.

SOFTWARE

Fedora 35 Workstation Edition
DE: GNOME 41.1.
WM: Mutter.
Kernel: 5.15.7-201.fsync.fc35.x86_64

HARDWARE

CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X
RAM: 64GB.

GRAPHICS:

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
Mesa/AMDGPU
Wayland.
Single display 3440x1440 resolution (160Hz).

[Schneegans]

• Increasing the opacity to full doesn't help

Someone on Reddit said that he had to decrease the opacity of the active workspace. Does this help?

[KyleGospo]

No change for me with both opacity sliders set to ~75%.

[Noremacam]

I think it's related to refresh rate somehow. I am able to reproduce the glitch on my 1440p monitor at 144hz. When I changed it to 60hz, the glitching stopped.

What's weird though - after I returned it to 144hz, the glitch didn't come back, until I rebooted.

I'm on Fedora 35, Wayland with a Radeon RX 5700 XT using the open source drivers.

Edit: I also wanted to clarify it's easiest to see the glitch by having multiple windows open and moving my mouse between them while in activities view.

[SmilerOnline]

I think it's related to refresh rate somehow. I am able to reproduce the glitch on my 1440p monitor at 144hz. When I changed it to 60hz, the glitching stopped.

What's weird though - after I returned it to 144hz, the glitch didn't come back, until I rebooted.

I still get the issue on my 2560x1440/144hz display even after lowering the refresh rate to 60hz.

[Noremacam]

I still get the issue on my 2560x1440/144hz display even after lowering the refresh rate to 60hz.

I tried again, but using X11 instead of Wayland, and with X11, going to 60hz doesn't prevent the error, so perhaps Wayland only.

[SmilerOnline]

Noremacam

To clarify, I'm using x11 and as I'm using an Nvidia GPU with proprietary drivers I haven't tried the extension on Wayland, so I can't confirm if this bug goes away on Wayland when changing the refresh rate.

[Schneegans]

I still cannot reproduce this 😞. I tested it on 1080p, 60 Hz, GNOME 40 (and 41 in a VM), Wayland / X11 and NVidia / Intel...

[Noremacam]

I'm even more certain high refresh rate is related. I tried to record a video of it at 60 fps using OBS and I couldn't see the glitches in the video, even though I saw them on my desktop...

[KyleGospo]

I'm afraid refresh rate is a red herring. This also occurs on my 60hz laptop on both Wayland and X.

[SmilerOnline]

I've modified my settings to try and force it to permanently display as a 3D cube rather than changing shapes based on factors such as workspace count (i.e. 3 workspaces creates a more triangular shape rather than a cube like 4 workspaces does) and in Gnome Tweaks I set the workspace count to 4 (fixed not dynamic).

Whilst tinkering with the extension settings to get it to display as a cube, I noticed that the artifacts stopped.
I'm not completely sure which settings fixed it so here is a screenshot for those that have the time to test more thoroughly and work out the specific settings adjustments that solves the issue (if it does solve the problem for you too of course).

[Leleat]

SmilerOnline

You've set the opacity of the inactive workspaces to 0. That just looks like it 'hides' the issue of the workspaces bleeding through :P If you switch workspaces you can still see the windows bleeding through the background though.

[SmilerOnline]

SmilerOnline

You've set the opacity of the inactive workspaces to 0. That just looks like it 'hides' the issue of the workspaces bleeding through :P If you switch workspaces you can still see the windows bleeding through the background though.

Fair point.
For now I'm happy just using it like this until the bugs are fixed, although I probably won't be changing too much later once all is fixed to be honest.

[famellad]

Can confirm this issue happens on my machine

Endeavour OS 
GNOME 42.beta
xorg 21.1.3-6
5.16.11-xanmod1-linux-xanmod-edge
Nvidia GeForce 3060 running on 510.54-3, with the nvlax patches

I use a 2K 165Hz monitor, but the problem persists at 60Hz

[fgbreel]

Hi, I had these glitches too, but after upgrading my kernel to 5.17-rc8 (from debian experimental) the glitches are gone :)

[Schneegans]

Good to know. I'm on 5.13.0 and never had those issues. But maybe the update will fix it for some others as well!

[KyleGospo]

Same issue on 5.17 I'm afraid.

[Aryan20]

I'm also facing this issue
OS: Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS
DE: GNOME 42
AMD iGPU
Kernel: 5.17.5

[ro1y]

Same issue here

[fgbreel]

Hi, it's me again :)

I'm having the glitches on a lucky basis (some times I have it, some times I don't) and assuming the shaders are all good (thank you! 🙏), perhaps it might be something on mesa, kernel drivers or gnome itself IDK. Considering that these glitches are not a life critical, I think with a bit of patience and time things will settle down and be solved by itself.

Thanks for the extensions!

[Nora-Jae]

Okay, I am also having this problem, there is alot of V-Fighting, and im only using one monitor. Odly though it dosent apear on any screen recordings. It may be that two objects are in the same exact spot and are clipping through eachother.

[Nora-Jae]

Okay so it has something to do with inactive workspace placement or something becasue if you put the "inactive workspace opacity" to 0 it stops, the error still happens but it's invisable. I am become death, destroyer of bugs

[ariktaurendil]

I didn't experiencing this glitches anymore in v14 and Gnome 44beta, in Arch Linux. It's the first release that has no glitches.

[Schneegans]

The funny thing is that I recently had to use X11 for a couple of hours - and you know what? I observed the glitches for the very first time! So maybe I can fix this at last...

[SmilerOnline]

It's been over a year since I last commented, but I'm still having the issue on my system with the latest update.

Specs changed since last posted above:

• Kernel: 6.1.12-1-MANJARO;
• DE: GNOME 43.3;
• Nvidia Proprietary Driver Version: 525.89.02;

And natural Manjaro system updates.

[SO5005]

I have the same problem and I think it has something to do with the top panel since the glitches show the part of the background image that is normally hidden under it. If the Cube is created in desktop mode the part that is normally hidden behind the top panel is shown and the glitches do not appear. The same happens if the top panels height is, programmatically, set to zero.
Main.panel.height = 0;

[Schneegans]

@SO5005 Thanks for this hint. That is indeed a great finding, maybe it can help finding a workaround...