OSD notifications sometimes flicker when fading in

I can confirm this bug. On mouseover the content flicker and dissapear. On mouseout the content back again.

maybe a non-default compiz plugins? try to use the "Normal" setting in System->Preferences->Appearence->Visual Effects.

No. I managed to reproduce it in the following way:
- create a new user (II created it with the administrator permissions)
- login as the new user
- notify-send "hello"

If you execute notify-send repetitively the flicker goes away. But it
might come back again

David says this is due to wrong compiz default settings:

  https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/notify-osd/+faq/386

I don't know... Why it happens only *sometimes*?

For the record, Mirco said that he's unable to reproduce this, but he'll try harder after the sprint next week.

This is strange... I will test if booting the alpha 6 cd has the flicker.

I'm from the alpha 6 cd now, and it flickers again.
Does Mirco need a screen recording?

Nicolò, I just cannot see the flicker when a bubble opens or closes. Can you please try to describe as precise as possible what you do when you encounter this? Thanks in advance!

If you get the flicker, could you please give us a dump of the gconf tree? ("gconftool --dump /apps/compiz > /tmp/gconf-dump.xml" and attach the gconf-dump.xml ?

The only thing I can think of is that you might be running with an enabled fade-plugin (for compiz). That does not yet include an exception match-rule for notify-osd. Could you check that with the command:

gconftool-2 -g /apps/compiz/general/allscreens/options/active_plugins | grep -nHR --color=auto fade

If fade is actually activated on you system you'll see it being highlighted in the output of grep. If not, nothing will be outputted by that command.

Mirco: the flicker happens *only* when the bubble opens. I can
describe it as some flashes before the bubble appears.

the fade plugin is activated. Now I will deactivate it to see what happens.

PS: since I have this problem also with alpha 6 without any further
modification, can you please see if the fade plugin is disabled by
default?

While this is not really directly a bug of notify-osd I kept the filed bug valid and handed needed fixes for compiz and compiz-fusion-plugins-main to mvo, who maintains compiz and plugins in the ubuntu repository. So within a few hours (or days) fixes for compiz and compiz-fusion-plugins-main will come with the usual updates. The plugins in question are animation (the open- and close-effects) and fade. Both now have an extended default match-rule to _not_ touch windows with the title "notify-osd". For the curious among you the match-rule to add looks like this:

& !(title=notify-osd)

I'm courious: why does the plugins not work? HAve you hardcoded the
fade in notify-osd? wasn't it better to use compiz animations?

The fade-in/out animations of the notification-bubbles rendered by notify-osd are indeed explicitly controlled by notify-osd. This way it works under compiz and metacity in the same way, is predictable for the user (from a user-interaction point-of-view) and can be fine-tuned to match all possible corner-cases (from the designers point-of-view). Another fact to note is that some people might have the animation-pluing disabled. What should we do in that case? Relying on external components, apart from desktop-compositing, is not a good idea. This would make implementing the notification spec even harder.

Ok, I understand your points, but I would have preferred the other way because:
- no code duplication
- the notification are better integrated into the compositing
animations (so they follow the configuration of animations)
If a user chooses metacity instead of compiz, this means (maybe?) that
he wants less animations. And so is if he disables the compiz
animation plugin.
This is my point of view.

Thank you!

I believe this was fixed recently:

compiz (1:0.8.2-0ubuntu5) jaunty; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/029_default_options:
    - fade.xml.in - make sure to subpress fade for notify-osd
      (thanks to MacSlow)

 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:01:09 +0100

Please reopen if you still have problems.

I still see this behavior with the latest compiz version and the notify-osd exception for the fade plugin. It even happens if I disable all fading-related options for the fade plugin. The only way to get rid of the flicker is to disable the fade plugin completely.

I know of two people who ran into this now. Still I've not been able to reproduce this myself. Thus we need to gather more information and a method to deterministically reproduce this flickering.

also for me the exception in the fade plugin does not fix this problem

This happens to me as well, fairly consistently.

What information do you need to not incomplete it? The method to
reproduce is send notifications, and some of them randomly flicker :)
I seem to be able to reproduce this about 25% of the time when
increasing the volume to a non-full state.

@mrooney:
I suspect this is driver dependant, I do not see this here with my nvidia system. What driver do you use?

For the record, no flicker on -intel driver here.

Taking off the release critical radar. Still a target of opportunity, of course.

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 3:12 AM, Michael Vogt wrote:

> @mrooney:
> I suspect this is driver dependant, I do not see this here with my nvidia
> system. What driver do you use?
>

I am using nvidia-glx-180, 180.37-0ubuntu2. It is still reproducible with
notify-osd 0.9.7-0ubuntu1.

Is it possible to disable this "fade" plugin by default, so we can
close this bug? I can't understand what are the features offered by
it. The windows are already handled by the 'animations' plugin

Easy work around, no data loss. Should be fixed, but not Importance=High

I had this flicker problem when the bubble faded OUT, never in. As suggested, I checked my Jaunty RC Compiz fade settings and noticed that an exception for notify-osd was in the Open category for the Compiz Animations plugin, but not for the Close category, so I copied and pasted the exclusion and now bubbles fade out without flicker, but now they flicker when fading in!!

I removed the addition to the Close category and the fade out now flickers again, but the fade in is still flickering. Not sure what's happened...

In my opinion, the exception does not work at all. because if you
remove the fade plugin, notify-osd behaves in a different way!

I can solve this issue only deactivating Animations plugin, I have flickering only when the notify fade out.

I can reproduce this problem too. Things you need

 * Nvidia graphics card
 * Proprietary nvidia driver version 180.44-0ubuntu1 or even 185.18.14

The best way to see the flicker is to watch a movies inside totem in full screen and tune up/down the volume with media keys on a keyboard. The flicker occours when the notifications fades in and when it fades out again.

I have notify-osd exception rules in the open- and close-sections for the animation-plugin. Furthermore I have the same exception also in the fade-plugin. With both plugins enabled only occasionally I see the flicker on fading-in.

It makes sense that you'll see some flickering becaue both plugins "fight" for doing something to the bubble window. The solution is to disable fade completely by default. The feature of the fade-plugin is provided by the more powerful animation-plugin anyway. With only the animation-plugin enabled (and the notify-osd exception rules) I don't get any flickering at all.

The solution to disable the fade plugin should be adopted by the
default configuration. Is it happening?

It is on our radar for the default compiz-settings in karmic.

The fade plugin is responsible for smoothly showing changes to opacity, brightness, and saturation. I'm not sure if disabling it would be a good idea. There was work being done to make fade and animation not interfere with each other, I wonder what ever happened to that.

From a discussion with mvo:
- the config that ensures that fade keeps away from notification bubbles is in (should not impact n-osd notification bubbles in general)
- but, after a series of upgrades the changes may result in the fade not being suppressed in all situations for n-osd notifications
- besides the fade plugin is used by other plugins and if we disable it, some stuff may not work anymore.

Note: the animation plugin "supersedes" the fade one, as it has more features, including the fade effect.

I suggest to test if disabling the fade plugin impacts other plugins (disables them too). But If that impacts other plugins, consider this bug wont-fix for Karmic.

We cannot disable the fade plugin as this is the plugin that fades out unresponsive windows.

/apps/compiz/plugins/fade/screen0/options/window_match is set to "any & !(title=notify-osd)" so notify-OSD shouldn't be affected by this plugin anyway.

/apps/compiz/plugins/fade/screen0/options/minimize_open_close is set to true by default which seems unnecessary as these operations are performed by the animation package but toggling it does not give me any visible effect on my system. If you can reproduce the problem please try toggling this.

I have confirmed that the animation window filters are set to the correct defaults to ignore notify-osd, if you have modified them then consider resetting your compiz configuration to the defaults:
$ gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz

David,

It looks like Robert is stuck on needs info. Is there anything you can do to unstick it? Thanks.

Ditto. Disabling the fading windows plugin solved it for me.

We can either consider it's fix released as the settings have been modified, or won't fix as we won't go further to ensure that doesn't happen even if settings are wrong, as that would break the compiz integration.

Please, could anyone from Ubuntu developers take a look at bug #564137 - it's really annoying.
Thanks.