1.10.1 Flickers Every 5-10 Seconds

[ghost]

Running 1.10.1 I noticed it flickers every few seconds, like maybe every 5-10 seconds.

1.9.0 runs great, ever since the 1.10x versions came out, nothing but trouble for me, I'd really like to figure out what is going on here?

These are some of system specs;

Slackware 14.1 x86_64
Openbox 3.6.1
compton
xorg-server-1.14.3
nvidia-driver-352.41

I'm not sure what would be casuing this, here is what my config looks like;

conky.config = {
override_utf8_locale = false,
background = true,
use_xft = true,
font = 'aller:size=9',
xftalpha = 0.8,
out_to_console = false,
update_interval = 3.0,
total_run_times = 0,
draw_shades = false,

own_window = true,
own_window_class = 'Conky',
own_window_type = 'desktop', -- normal /override /desktop /dock
own_window_transparent = true,
own_window_hints = 'undecorated,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager,below',

-- Prevent Conky refresh over itslef in tile wms
-- true - true transparency with compton
-- false - pseudo-transparency without compton
own_window_argb_visual = true,

minimum_size = 1920,
maximum_width = 1920,

double_buffer = true,
default_color = 'e3412c',
color1 = 'e0cdc3',

alignment = 'top_middle',
gap_y = 5, --vertical
-- gap_x = 0, --horizontal
no_buffers = true
}

conky.text = [[
${alignc}${color}CPU1: ${color1}${cpu cpu0}%
${color}CPU2: ${color1}${cpu cpu1}%
${color}CPU3: ${color1}${cpu cpu2}%
${color}CPU4: ${color1}${cpu cpu3}% - ${freq}MHz - ${hwmon 0 temp 1} °C
${color}GPU: ${color1}${execi 100 nvidia-settings -q gpucoretemp -t | head -1} °C
${color}RAM: ${color1}${mem} - $memperc%
${color}SSD: ${color1}${fs_free /} free
${color}LAN: ${color1}${addr eth0} - ${downspeed eth0} kb/s down - ${upspeed eth0} kb/s up
${color}POWER: ${color1}${acpiacadapter AC0} - ${color}BATTERY: ${color1}${battery_percent BAT0}% ${battery_time BAT0} ${color}UP: ${color1}$uptime_short
${execi 70 ~/.conky/scripts/battery_notify.sh}
]]

[plikhari]

Try adding text_buffer_size = 512, - the rest of the lines look fine.

[ghost]

I'll give it a try when I have time and report back.

By the way, I forgot, but some of lines I put single quotes around some things. Are these actually needed?

Thanks

[plikhari]

Yes the quotes are required - unless they are digits or reserved words like true etc - basically following lua conventions for a lua script/program

[ghost]

Ok can't say I know much about lua conventions...

Well it's still flickering and I changed it to 256, and 1024 and still the same.

Also I noticed at the CLI; conky: Unknown setting 'minimum_size' so what would I change these two lines to now, or I just use only the max width one?

minimum_size = 1920,
maximum_width = 1920,

thanks

[ghost]

AHHH I changed the config to;

minimum_width = 1920,
maximum_width = 1920,

And it's not flickering anymore LOL...

Looks like the problem was the minimum_size = :)

To be honest, not sure why I made these the same numbers, hmm which doesn't seem correct, but it's a look that sits in the top middle of the screen centered, and I noticed if I make the minimum_width = a smaller size it flickers again, hmm odd...

[plikhari]

You would change it the new format

maximum_width = 1920,
minimum_width = 1920, minimum_height = 1080,

The best way to convert your older format to newer 1.10x format of rc files is to use the utility 'convert.lua'. This is located in the conky folder under /usr/share/doc/conky
You can perhaps copy to a folder in your $HOME location - make it executable sudo chmod +x convert.lua and then start of and see the new file and compare the changes.

OK appears you solved it - but convert comment and other stuff should help you on your way forward ;-)
cheers

[ghost]

Why minimum_height = 1080? That seems like to fill up the entire screen?

Well this is what my config looks like now, do you think I really need to use convert.lua?

conky.config = {
override_utf8_locale = false,
background = true,
use_xft = true,
font = 'aller:size=9.5',
xftalpha = 0.8,
out_to_console = false,
out_to_stderr = false,
update_interval = 3.0,
total_run_times = 0,
draw_shades = false,

own_window = true,
own_window_class = 'Conky',
own_window_type = 'desktop',
own_window_transparent = true,
own_window_hints = 'undecorated,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager,below',

own_window_argb_visual = true,

minimum_width = 1920,
maximum_width = 1920,

double_buffer = true,
default_color = 'e3412c',
color1 = 'e0cdc3',

alignment = 'top_middle',
gap_y = 5,
no_buffers = true
}

conky.text = [[
${alignc}${color}CPU1: ${color1}${cpu cpu0}%
${color}CPU2: ${color1}${cpu cpu1}%
${color}CPU3: ${color1}${cpu cpu2}%
${color}CPU4: ${color1}${cpu cpu3}% - ${freq}MHz - ${hwmon 0 temp 1} °C
${color}GPU: ${color1}${execi 100 nvidia-settings -q gpucoretemp -t | head -1} °C
${color}RAM: ${color1}${mem} - $memperc%
${color}SSD: ${color1}${fs_free /} free
${color}LAN: ${color1}${addr eth0} - ${downspeed eth0} kb/s down - ${upspeed eth0} kb/s up
${color}POWER: ${color1}${acpiacadapter AC0} - ${color}BATTERY: ${color1}${battery_percent BAT0}% ${battery_time BAT0} ${color}UP: ${color1}$uptime_short
${execi 70 ~/.conky/scripts/battery_notify.sh}
]]

thanks

[ghost]

By the way in the doc folder for the conky.conf what does the $hr stand for?

thanks

[ghost]

I forgot to mention if I run conky from the CLI I get no errors, so my config must be good?

conky: desktop window (289) is root window
conky: window type - desktop
conky: drawing to created window (0x2400002)
conky: drawing to double buffer
conky: forked to background, pid is 7921

[ghost]

One last thing for now, I noticed in the variables and new config there doesn't seem to be this option anymore...

total_run_times = is this still being used?

thanks

[plikhari]

That 1080 was an example :)
Yes - if you are not getting errors and it is working fine - no worries
total_run_times is being used and there are some recent issues being reported - I have it set to zero and it is working fine.

[plikhari]

$hr is horizontal line

[ghost]

Ok I'll leave the total_run_times = 0 and thanks for every thing, it runs great now!

Cheers

[plikhari]

Can you please close this issue as it stands resolved - cheers

[lasers]

Resolved. Nice work, mister. Closing.

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

Just installed 1.10 because 1.9 is no longer available in Ubuntu and notice conky screen flickering frequently with skylake processor. Also pre-exec command no longer supported and must resort to exec instead. Although converting 1.9 scripts to 1.10 is an option it should not be necessary for users. That said earlier versions of 1.10 couldn't run my 1.9 conkyrc at all so I had to pin / mark hold an earlier version.

[lasers]

Just installed 1.10 because 1.9 is no longer available in Ubuntu and notice conky screen flickering frequently with skylake processor

If you receive conky screen flickering frequently on 1.10, but not 1.9, then you should try and git bisect this... so you can find the bad commit. You would have to compile conky between commits tho.

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

My luck with compiling grub for UEFI left a bad taste in my mouth. Compiling for i386-pc was ok... Anyway changing maximum_width 400 to maximum_width 1920 and adding a new line maximum_height 1080 made the flicker go away. The opaqueness (right word?) got darker though but I can adjust that later. Thanks for quick response :)

[lasers]

Just installed 1.10 because 1.9 is no longer available

1.10.0? I would like for you to tell me if this is still happening on 1.10.9_pre (git). We're using cmake now since 1.10.8 or so... Compiling conky should be relatively painless now.

Depending on what variables/object you have in your conky.conf, you may have to enable some flags first (eg cmake -DBUILD_JOURNAL ../) to use {journal}. NVIDIA variables does not work right now.

You could start pointing out some other issues with conky that we don't know anything about. :-)

[lasers]

I tried the configs posted by ghost. No flickering here.
I tried minimal_width = 100 too to see if it would flicker. Nothing.

If you're having this problem on 1.10.9 or above (git), comment here with the config.
The older versions are not trustworthy due to too many changes that can be hard to track.