Bug 226791 - KWin with fglrx: Compositing is not supported on your system.
Summary: KWin with fglrx: Compositing is not supported on your system.
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: kwin
Classification: Plasma
Component: compositing (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: unspecified Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KWin default assignee
URL:
Keywords:
: 225366 238494 238757 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2010-02-14 12:27 UTC by Djuro Drljaca
Modified: 2012-05-25 08:43 UTC (History)
15 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
My xorg.conf file (4.58 KB, application/octet-stream)
2010-02-14 12:29 UTC, Djuro Drljaca
Details
My Xorg log file (46.29 KB, text/x-log)
2010-02-14 12:31 UTC, Djuro Drljaca
Details
flgrx compositing 1 (303.99 KB, image/png)
2010-02-15 16:06 UTC, Markus Hinkelmann
Details
fglrx compositing settings 2 (52.66 KB, image/png)
2010-02-15 16:07 UTC, Markus Hinkelmann
Details
fglrx compositing settings 3 (68.95 KB, image/png)
2010-02-15 16:08 UTC, Markus Hinkelmann
Details
my xorg.conf (2.05 KB, application/octet-stream)
2010-05-04 12:24 UTC, spamfang1199
Details
glxinfo output (18.75 KB, text/plain)
2010-08-07 15:06 UTC, Fatih Asici
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Djuro Drljaca 2010-02-14 12:27:14 UTC
Version:           unknown (using 4.4.00 (KDE 4.4.0) "release 222", KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop / openSUSE_11.2)
Compiler:          gcc
OS:                Linux (i686) release 2.6.31.12-0.1-default

After I upgraded from KDE 4.3 to KDE 4.4 beta 2 (or RC1, can't remember) KWin no longer supports compositing (it worked with KDE 4.3). I currently have the released version of KDE 4.4 and it still doesn't work. The checkbox "Enable desktop effects" is unchecked and grayed out.

The driver appears to be working correctly and when manually enable compositing with
"kwriteconfig --file kwinrc --group Compositing --key Enabled --type bool true"
and switch from OpenGL to XRender and the back to OpenGL to actualy trigger the OpenGL compositing then it starts to work (XRender also works but is slow).
The checkbox "Enable desktop effects" is now checked and still grayed out.

Is this the problem with detecting capabilities of the graphics card?

I have the latest fglrx driver (v10.1) for my Radeon HD4350 and I have openSUSE 11.2 installed.

What config or log files will you need to diagnose the problem?
Comment 1 Djuro Drljaca 2010-02-14 12:29:23 UTC
Created attachment 40759 [details]
My xorg.conf file
Comment 2 Djuro Drljaca 2010-02-14 12:31:11 UTC
Created attachment 40760 [details]
My Xorg log file
Comment 3 Markus Hinkelmann 2010-02-15 15:51:40 UTC
I can confirm this bug using KDE 4.4.0 on kubuntu on an ATI HD3450. Setting 

[Compositing] 
Enabled=true 

in ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc

actually re-enables compositing and gives  funny systemsettings (see attachment),
i.e. transparency etc. is working, but i can't configure any effect.
Comment 4 Markus Hinkelmann 2010-02-15 16:06:08 UTC
Created attachment 40806 [details]
flgrx compositing 1
Comment 5 Markus Hinkelmann 2010-02-15 16:07:13 UTC
Created attachment 40808 [details]
fglrx compositing settings 2
Comment 6 Markus Hinkelmann 2010-02-15 16:08:00 UTC
Created attachment 40809 [details]
fglrx compositing settings 3
Comment 7 Hugh Tebby 2010-03-04 22:06:41 UTC
I can confirm the exact same bug with an ATI 4650, default fglrx drivers and Kubuntu 9.10 upgraded to kde 4.4.
Comment 8 Bruno Léon 2010-03-05 04:18:50 UTC
I can confirm this in Kubuntu Karmic 4.4.1 using ATI 2400 and ATI proprietary driver installed from ATI ati-driver-installer-10-2-x86.x86_64.run

Markus tip also does work.
Comment 9 Bruno Léon 2010-03-05 04:21:53 UTC
And using kernel 2.6.31-20 if that matters
Comment 10 Daniel Eckl 2010-03-07 12:55:42 UTC
I confirm the same problem with Intel GM965 graphics. Enabling in config file , compositing works, but settings still blocked.

Additionally I can say that with KDE 4.4.0 it started that Texture from Pixmap stopped working and I had to use Fallback method. Just with KDE 4.4.1 the behavior above can be seen. With KDE 4.3.x everything worked fine.

Compiz works fine, too.
Comment 11 Thomas Lübking 2010-03-07 16:10:20 UTC
does this
kreadconfig --file kwinrc --group Compositing --key OpenGLIsUnsafe

happen to return "true" for you?

@Daniel:
describe "Texture from Pixmap stopped working" - more like "composition activation crashes kwin" or "i cannot select it in the first place"
Comment 12 Djuro Drljaca 2010-03-07 17:05:02 UTC
The command:
kreadconfig --file kwinrc --group Compositing --key OpenGLIsUnsafe

returns just an empty line - no text.

But your comment helped me to play with the "Compositing" settings. When I change the config "CheckIsSafe" from false to true the compositing starts to work!

So this might be a problem with the "Check if safe function"?
Comment 13 Daniel Eckl 2010-03-07 17:10:13 UTC
You are absolutely right, I'm sorry. It means that with KDE 4.4.0 I could not activate compositing with TFP mode. When applying, it was denied and a popup said, that with my settings compositing was not possible (just telling by memories, sorry) without stating what exactly was missing.

Switching to Fallback mode it could be activated.

When setting TFP mode in config file and disable checks and restarting kwin, the screen turned black with just a mouse cursor.

In KDE 4.3.x I used TFP mode successfully.

Hope that helps somewhat.
Comment 14 Thomas Lübking 2010-03-07 17:30:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #12)
> So this might be a problem with the "Check if safe function"?

It's set in case the kcm "unexpectedly exits" (aka crashes) around opengl queries (but in the screenedges dialog, the compositing dialog should -meanwhile- use "OpenGLIsUnsafe" for the same function) due to driver bugs (to prevent the dialog from crashing over and over again, the check is then bypassed and opengl is skipped)

as you mentioned you had the RC and are now using the stable release you should check that you don't have old plugins flying around that shadow the up-to-date ones (e.g. a local user installation vs. a system one)
you're looking for "kcm_kwincompositing.so"
Comment 15 Thomas Lübking 2010-03-07 17:36:53 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> When setting TFP mode in config file and disable checks and restarting kwin,
> the screen turned black with just a mouse cursor.
Sounds like a buggy driver and therefore "black"listed ;-)
This is maybe because the forced uxa (no more exa) mode for intel chips.

You should try the shared memory mode, it's probably faster than TFP and failsafe on that chip anyway...

Do you suffer from similar CheckIsSafe settings (iirc a bug in an intel driver initially caused this implementation)
Comment 16 Daniel Eckl 2010-03-07 17:43:53 UTC
Oh SHM mode always gave me white screen, even before updating to 4.4. And it did not allow me to activate compositing either.

Now I can't tell about other check fails, because like the others above, the whole settings panel is disabled for me.
Comment 17 Daniel Eckl 2010-03-07 18:03:21 UTC
hmpf... that sounded stupid. Better description: SHM mode did not allow me to activate compositing. If I forced it in config file, it gave me white screen.
Comment 18 Djuro Drljaca 2010-03-07 18:43:06 UTC
(In reply to comment #14)
> as you mentioned you had the RC and are now using the stable release you should
> check that you don't have old plugins flying around that shadow the up-to-date
> ones (e.g. a local user installation vs. a system one)
> you're looking for "kcm_kwincompositing.so"

Could you explain what should I do? I found only one "kcm_kwincompositing.so" in path "/usr/lib/kde4/". Should I delete this?

From what I see in YAST it is provided only by the latest package "kwin" (v4.4.1), so this should be OK, unless the openSUSE packagers made a mistake with this package...

Just to make this clear, I only install packages from the openSUSE repositories and not from sources (at least for KDE).
Comment 19 Thomas Lübking 2010-03-07 19:17:24 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)
> Could you explain what should I do? I found only one "kcm_kwincompositing.so"
> in path "/usr/lib/kde4/". Should I delete this?

NOO! - this sounds very much like the system lib, so DO NOT DELETE IT!

In case that wasn't clear: DO NOT DELETE IT! Exclamation mark! ;-)

> unless the openSUSE packagers made a mistake with this package...
They could have patched it regarding this value... (the two _could_ be redundant) ... but that's hardly a problem (unless you've this value stuck)

> Just to make this clear, I only install packages from the openSUSE repositories
> and not from sources (at least for KDE).
ok, then you'll UNlikely have conflicting libs flying around (this usually happens if you compile yourself and into different pathes to run the dev version and a stable one at the same time)
Comment 20 Danny Tamez 2010-03-22 17:18:34 UTC
Adding my name to the list.  Worked in kde 4.3, 4.4 but fails in 4.4.1.
Kubuntu Karmic 9.10 64 bit
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650
ati-driver-installer-10-2-x86.x86_64.run

changing kwinrc with enabled=true stops plasma desktop from loading (regardless of settings for CheckIsSafe and/or DisableChecks

What changed in 4.4.1?
Comment 21 Martin Flöser 2010-03-22 17:22:26 UTC
(In reply to comment #20)
> What changed in 4.4.1?
nothing was changed. The problem is more likely that you installed the driver manually. This causes problems in Kubuntu.
Comment 22 Danny Tamez 2010-03-24 05:54:37 UTC
OK - made some progress here.  I don't think the manual install was the problem because I had that before I ever got to 4.4.1 and it worked then. Nevertheless I went ahead and removed that.  I then tried to install drivers via jockey-kde but was never able to activate a driver (no matter how long I waited).  Finally out of total frustration I installed the (please forgive me) gnome version of jockey. And voila - it installed the driver on the first try.  

After rebooting I saw that I could still not enable effects so I enabled them via ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc .  My effects are working and enabled BUT I can not tweak them because the desktop applet in System Settings still tells me that compositing is not supported on my system. At the same time it tells me that compositing is active.  When I go to the "All Effects" tab none of the settings are available.

So as I said - some progress but still problems.
Comment 23 Thomas Lübking 2010-03-24 18:51:57 UTC
did you try to disable the checks in kwinrc?
Comment 24 Danny Tamez 2010-03-24 21:52:15 UTC
Thomas, yes I did. Without that it doesn't work at all. Thanks anyway!
Comment 25 arbitrabbit 2010-03-27 16:45:19 UTC
Okay, try one thing. In your kwinrc, under compositing section

set 
CheckIsSafe=true
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true

See if that helps
Comment 26 Bruno Léon 2010-03-27 17:02:28 UTC
Swiching 

CheckIsSafe=false
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true

to 

CheckIsSafe=true
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true

allows mange effects indeed !

Thanks.
Comment 27 Daniel Eckl 2010-03-27 18:07:23 UTC
I confirm this combination works for me, too.
Comment 28 NiKO 2010-03-29 05:57:49 UTC
Same here. The above changes resolve correct this issue.
Comment 29 spamfang1199 2010-05-04 12:24:38 UTC
Created attachment 43223 [details]
my xorg.conf

Perhaps i need other settings?
Comment 30 spamfang1199 2010-05-04 12:25:49 UTC
I have a radeon 9600XT with the Debian-stable proprietary binary. Compositing DID WORK till 4.3.4. Yesterday i upgraded to 4.4.3-1 and compositing stopped working. I tried your suggestions in my kwinrc:

CheckIsSafe=true
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true

But this led only to a white screen at login, which turns black after a few seconds. If i right click on the desktop, i can see the menu shape pop up. Therefore i can tell, my session isn't locked.


I can use your suggestion only with this modification (which still wont bring compiz back):

CheckIsSafe=true
DisableChecks=FALSE
Enabled=true

I am using linux-2.6.26 (Debian-stable).
Comment 31 spamfang1199 2010-05-04 12:28:31 UTC
Oh, BTW: I installed Ubuntu 10.04 and used the free drivers (which were installed by default), and compo worked fine there.
Comment 32 arbitrabbit 2010-05-04 15:17:16 UTC
What happens if you set

CheckIsSafe=FALSE
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true
Comment 33 spamfang1199 2010-05-05 19:18:23 UTC
CheckIsSafe=FALSE
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true

Seemed to work normally at first (but without compo). Then i made a reboot and got only the black screen i described above.
Comment 34 spamfang1199 2010-05-05 19:21:43 UTC
CheckIsSafe=FALSE
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true

Seemed to work normally at first (but without compo). Then i made a reboot and got only the black screen i described above. Now i switched to:

CheckIsSafe=false
DisableChecks=false
Enabled=true

But do not get any compositing at all.
Comment 35 spamfang1199 2010-05-05 19:22:43 UTC
CheckIsSafe=FALSE
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true

Seemed to work normally at first (but without compo). Then i made a reboot and got only the black screen i described above. Now i switched to:

CheckIsSafe=false
DisableChecks=false
Enabled=true

But do not get any compositing at all.
Comment 36 Thomas Lübking 2010-05-05 21:49:34 UTC
1) Don't set "CheckIsSafe=FALSE" yourself - this says "the driver segfaults on simple glQuery calls" and you won't be able to setup compositing at all (the dialog will refuse to even test whether compositing might work)

2) the black screen you describe sounds like compositing is active, but
 a) your resolution superseeds the GL capabilities of the driver/GPU
 b) the driver is broken
-> this is probably the reason why the checks fail.

It's rather unlikey that compositing broke on the KDE update (aside whether the driver is detecteds as working or not) but maybe the GPU driver and/or X11/mesa got updated as well?

You should try
a) whether the XRender backend works
b) whether the free radeon/hd driver works

To apply settings you'll have to either reconfigure kwin through a dbus call or restart it (eg. in krunner "kwin --replace")

Sidenote:
This has nothing to do with Compiz. Compiz is not a generic term, but another windowmanager and would not be affected by any of those settings.
Comment 37 spamfang1199 2010-05-11 22:28:51 UTC
I now changed kwinrc to this:

[Compositing]
AnimationSpeed=3
Backend=XRender
CheckIsSafe=false
DisableChecks=false
Enabled=true
GLDirect=true
GLMode=TFP
GLTextureFilter=1
GLVSync=true
HiddenPreviews=5
XRenderSmoothScale=false

Now it works, but only with Xrender.

What I tried so far:

1. debian stable kernel (2.6.26) + debian fglrx-binary driver -> composite works, but only with Xrender  

2. debian stable kernel (2.6.26) + debian stable xorg/radeon driver -> no composite at all

3. debian squeeze kernel (2.6.32) + debian squeeze xorg/radeon driver -> no composite at all

By the way: Compositing used to work with OpenGL until upgrade to 4.4.3-1.
Comment 38 Thomas Lübking 2010-05-22 15:35:16 UTC
*** Bug 238494 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 39 Ralf Jung 2010-05-22 15:46:41 UTC
I am using Kubuntu and have the issue described above. However I never installed anything manually (this is an almost brand-new installation, actually). Originally, it used the open-source driver and compositing worked just fine. Then I used the hardware settings application of Kubuntu to install the frglx driver, and everything still worked fine, some simple games (like neverball) run perfectly. Compositing never made the slightest issue, and the shortcut I set for temporarily halting it continued to work. It was more than a week later that I wanted to configure the effects and noticed that for some reason, KDE thinks they don't work, while at the same time, KWin uses the effects and they work all right...

This is with an AMD Radeon HD 3200, Kubuntu 10.04, KDE 4.4.2.
Comment 40 Thomas Lübking 2010-05-25 13:45:16 UTC
*** Bug 238757 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 41 spamfang1199 2010-05-26 20:20:49 UTC
SOLVED:

I removed the old debian-fglrx-binary-pakage and the complete xserver including config-files. Then i updated Kernel to 2.6.32-3 and also updated xorg. Using synaptic it looked like the following:

The following STABLE packages were purged:

      fglrx-atieventsd
      fglrx-driver
      fglrx-glx
      fglrx-modules-2.6.26-2-686
      xserver-xorg
      xserver-xorg-core
      xserver-xorg-input-evdev
      xserver-xorg-input-kbd
      xserver-xorg-input-mouse
      xserver-xorg-video-ati
      xserver-xorg-video-mach64
      xserver-xorg-video-r128
      xserver-xorg-video-radeon


The following SID packages were installed:

      The following packages were updated:
      libdrm2 (2.3.1-2) to 2.4.18-5
      libgl1-mesa-dri (7.0.3-7) to 7.7.1-2
      libgl1-mesa-glx (7.0.3-7) to 7.7.1-2

      The following packages were installed:
      libdrm-intel1 (2.4.18-5)
      libdrm-radeon1 (2.4.18-5)
      xserver-common (2:1.7.7-1)
      xserver-xorg (1:7.5+6)
      xserver-xorg-core (2:1.7.7-1)
      xserver-xorg-input-evdev (1:2.3.2-6)
      xserver-xorg-video-radeon (1:6.13.0-2)

After a reboot everything works fine with the radeon driver.
Comment 42 spamfang1199 2010-05-26 20:22:20 UTC
SOLVED:

I removed the old debian-fglrx-binary-pakage and the complete xserver including config-files. Then i updated Kernel to 2.6.32-3 and also updated xorg. Using synaptic it looked like the following:

The following STABLE packages were purged:

      fglrx-atieventsd
      fglrx-driver
      fglrx-glx
      fglrx-modules-2.6.26-2-686
      xserver-xorg
      xserver-xorg-core
      xserver-xorg-input-evdev
      xserver-xorg-input-kbd
      xserver-xorg-input-mouse
      xserver-xorg-video-ati
      xserver-xorg-video-mach64
      xserver-xorg-video-r128
      xserver-xorg-video-radeon


The following SID packages were installed:

      The following packages were updated:
      libdrm2 (2.3.1-2) to 2.4.18-5
      libgl1-mesa-dri (7.0.3-7) to 7.7.1-2
      libgl1-mesa-glx (7.0.3-7) to 7.7.1-2

      The following packages were installed:
      libdrm-intel1 (2.4.18-5)
      libdrm-radeon1 (2.4.18-5)
      xserver-common (2:1.7.7-1)
      xserver-xorg (1:7.5+6)
      xserver-xorg-core (2:1.7.7-1)
      xserver-xorg-input-evdev (1:2.3.2-6)
      xserver-xorg-video-radeon (1:6.13.0-2)

After a reboot everything works fine with the radeon driver.
Comment 43 Ralf Jung 2010-05-26 20:29:40 UTC
Did you re-install the binary drivers? Because, if I use the open-source drivers, everything works fine on Kubuntu 10.04.
Comment 44 spamfang1199 2010-05-28 18:52:45 UTC
Please have a look at the list of installed/deinstalled packages i posted above.
Comment 45 Ralf Jung 2010-05-28 20:47:45 UTC
According to that list and your comment below it, you don't use the frglx driver anymore, but the radeon driver. To get it working for radeon, you would not have to install any testing packets, at least in current Kubuntu - it works out of the box with the open-source radeon driver. This bug is about frglx.
Comment 46 spamfang1199 2010-05-31 13:54:47 UTC
Yes, I just wanted to make it clear, that switching to the open-source radeon driver fixed my issues.
Comment 47 Adam Porter 2010-07-03 20:58:01 UTC
I'm using Debian testing/unstable with KDE 4.4.4.  I have a Radeon HD 4770, and installed fglrx 10.6.  I'm having this same problem.  But I also have Kubuntu Lucid installed, which has 4.4.2, and using fglrx 10.6 on it, I don't have this problem.

I put these lines in kwinrc and it is working fine:

CheckIsSafe=true
DisableChecks=true
Enabled=true

Clearly there is something wrong with kwin here, because the same fglrx binary works on Kubuntu but not Debian.

Could we please get this bug off UNCONFIRMED?
Comment 48 Martin Flöser 2010-07-04 08:31:16 UTC
> Could we please get this bug off UNCONFIRMED?
And what would that help? We would know that we have a bug and nobody could 
fix it because no KWin developer uses the fglrx driver. Please use the free 
mesa drivers which are nowadays better than the proprietary one. Especially if 
you run Debian ;-)

Btw the driver version is not the only important factor. There is also the 
Kernel and X which have a great influence on working compositing or not.
Comment 49 Ralf Jung 2010-07-04 09:34:32 UTC
> Please use the free 
> mesa drivers which are nowadays better than the proprietary one. Especially if 
> you run Debian ;-)
No, they are not. Even old games from 2003, running with wine, don't work with the open-source driver, but they do work with the proprietary one. Not to mention games like Portal or Trackmania. So, unfortunately, if I don't want to install Windows (which I definitely don't want), the open-source drivers as shipped with Kubuntu 10.04 are not an alternative.
Comment 50 Fatih Asici 2010-08-07 15:06:14 UTC
Created attachment 49902 [details]
glxinfo output

I am not sure if this is related to this bug. I am using KDE 4.4.5. Effects are not enabled at startup. Pressing Shift+Alt+F12 twice enables efects. It is also possible to enable effects from kcm module. Somehow, self-check fails at startup. The only workaround is to disable functionality tests. Attached file includes the output of glxinfo.
Comment 51 Martin Flöser 2010-08-26 21:12:12 UTC
*** Bug 248706 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 52 Martin Flöser 2010-08-26 21:20:56 UTC
*** Bug 225366 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 53 Ralf Jung 2010-10-18 18:11:48 UTC
Looks like it is fixed in KDE 4.5 - at least, after upgrading to Kubuntu 10.10, I can now configure effects even though I use binary ATI driver.
Comment 54 Martin Flöser 2011-01-16 10:45:24 UTC
given comment #53 it seems to be fixed.
Comment 55 Johannes K. 2012-05-25 08:38:46 UTC
Hi Guys

The only way for me to get kwin properly working with the fglrx driver was to export the following environment variable:

export KWIN_DIRECT_GL=1

I've got a self compiled kde next to my kde installed by the archlinux packages and I created a "startkde-wrapper" which exports and overwrites some environment variables including KWIN_DIRECT_GL and eventually runs startkde.

I hope that helps
Comment 56 Johannes K. 2012-05-25 08:43:08 UTC
Hi...forgot to mention that If you want to test if setting this variable will work for you just do this:

KWIN_DIRECT_GL=1 kwin --replace