Install Updates Graphical Glitch

[firenice03]

P.S. It's a shame that Şerban created a new post on this subject rather than replying to the original thread so that everyone would be able to see the full discussion. As you can see, despite the fact that I replied to my original thread, my latest post and response to all those who were good enough to give me feedback is now detached from the original thread. Jerry, Can this kindly be corrected?

Thank you in advance.

 

@Mart
I don't think its been separated, Serban's post started a new page of the thread -  at the top of thread on left side you should see page 1/2 

[Mart]

P.S. It's a shame that Şerban created a new post on this subject rather than replying to the original thread so that everyone would be able to see the full discussion. As you can see, despite the fact that I replied to my original thread, my latest post and response to all those who were good enough to give me feedback is now detached from the original thread. Jerry, Can this kindly be corrected?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Mart]

So this is where I am with this...

As per trinidad's suggestions, I increased my swappiness to 80 and reduced my vfs cache pressure to 50. I also briefly downgraded zenity and zenity-common from versions 3.32.0-5 to 3.18.1.1-1 and then ran Linux Lite's 'Install Updates' again, however the same graphical glitch problem (or 'silent updates' problem as referenced by stevef, referring to earlier posts in Jan 2019 - https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/installing-software/updates-via-gui-no-indicator) still occurred.

So this is my workaround/adaptation solution -

A couple of years ago I installed Xubuntu-core and had to install Ubuntu's 'Software Updater' (Ubuntu's native update app). From my old notes, I saw that you have to install five packages to use Ubuntu's Software Updater, three of which are already installed in Linux Lite - python3-update-manager, update-manager-core, and update-notifier-common. So by simply adding two more packages via Synaptic - (Gnome) update-manager and update- notifier - you can avail yourself of Ubuntu's Software Updater in Linux Lite.

Ubuntu's Software Updater runs perfectly on my hardware without any graphical glitches/silent updates. And being interactive, the great thing about Ubuntu's Software Updater is that if, on occasion, you don't want to upgrade a particular package (e.g. an older version of libreoffice, as Şerban mentioned), you can just uncheck the package and choose not upgrade it.

One minor irritant is that Ubuntu's Software Updater also installs 'apport', Ubuntu's native bug reporting app (not needed in Linux Lite) that causes 'live' bug reporting pop-ups to appear. This function of apport can easily be disabled by going to /etc/default/apport and changing the value of enabled=1 to enabled=0.

Of course, it's understandable why Jerry and the team ring-fence their updates to avoid noobs deselecting packages willy-nilly and causing self-inflicted issues in Linux Lite. But for those with a little bit of knowledge and discernment, Ubuntu's interactive Software Updater can be quite useful in respect of avoiding upgrades of specific packages.

Footnote: If anyone has any theories as to why Ubuntu's Software Updater works perfectly on my hardware, while Linux Lite's native 'Install Updates' app doesn't, it would be interesting to hear.

Cheers

[Şerban S.]

https://askubuntu.com/questions/844323/error-message-when-running-zenity-under-16-04-gtk-message-gtkdialog-mapped-wit

"It seems that the Gtk devs decided to add this warning which affects a number of packages. We just have to wait for the Zenity dev to catch up and fix Zenity "

Probably still relevant.

TC

Unfortunately, the same error message appears in Gambas 3.14.3 when running some apps.
I've been working on an app I need for myself and I got tons of messges identical with this quoted in the article.
It seems that the message is included somewhere in a GTK superclass and for whatever reason it is triggered in some situations. As I see things, the parent window should be provided as a default option in all error cases, based on a filter internally contained in the class that triggers the message. So, might be a conditional missing or somewhat.
It's an abnormal exiting situation that was supposed to be caught by the Error system and at least throw an exception or whatever that could be further analysed.
However, the message is the same allover the place.
Now, I see it pops out in the installer/updater code so the bug is deeply hidden somewhere.
Might be a ton of reasons so for now, I guess all we can do is wait to see how this goes on in the devs team.
Maybe there is a bug report on that and it awaits the availability of a dev to solve it.
Unfortunately, both my knowledge and interest in digging for those kind of things is close to none.
I assume if there is a bug report on that, people ignored it since I belive in GTK 3.x (latest looks is 3.24.x) the bug will be elliminated.
In my program, there was something related to an "Event Loop call", which I never understood what was supposed to mean.
I never wrote code to call any event NESTED. Procedures, yes, but never called events (event handlers) recursively so it goes beyond my understanding what the message was supposed to mean.
Subsequently, it triggered this GTK warning, repeatedly.

Bad thing is that we can only see this happening but for what can we do, as I see, nothing is clear.
When I first looked at the screenshots, I recognised the behaviour from my own experience. In my case, it was a glitch due to GPU driver overlapping. I solved it removing the Intel driver that caused the glitch.
Now it looks that here is a different thing though.

Hope that will go away in the LL 5.0 updates.

Best regards!

[trinidad]

https://askubuntu.com/questions/844323/error-message-when-running-zenity-under-16-04-gtk-message-gtkdialog-mapped-wit

"It seems that the Gtk devs decided to add this warning which affects a number of packages. We just have to wait for the Zenity dev to catch up and fix Zenity "

Probably still relevant.

TC

[Şerban S.]

The silent updating problem has been reported at least twice on the forum before.  It seems to be a edge case but is not limited to one user.

There was some progress/diagnosis on Derek_'s thread after DeepThought found and reported a divide by zero error when running lite-updates from the terminal which seemed to provide some insight.

Code: [Select]

https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/installing-software/updates-via-gui-no-indicator/msg45517/#msg45517
Reviewing this thread might be relevant in this case.

Thanks for the tip! (I did it on the forum interface too! )
Well, I have a good practice when it comes to "blind running-something".
I make heavy use of Task Manager. Since it is in my StartUp, I look at the threads that are running, each time I find something looking weird.
If the updater is running without refreshing its GUI, that is clearly a video issue, so checking if there is a PID running, will make it clear if the Updater is running so, I can make a sound decision on what to do, if this is the case.
This can be applied on any App that went sideways, more often for video glitches reasons.
Sometimes, it happens. Maybe because two apps with different VCLs (Visual Class Libraries, such as Qt and GTK) are running simultaneously and actually, they are doing something. I use DoubleCommander for one, an this is Qt based, while the rest of the environnement is GTK based. So, sometimes if a third app starts, might get some trouble that is likely to appear randomly enough and rarely enough to be able to track it down.
One known issue, is Thunar FM, that caused lots of trouble with the panels, leading to desktop Panel 1 freeze, leaving out the only option to handle from keyboard accelerators, everything on the desktop. Happily for me, I'm using computers for over 25 years and I remember some keys by hard so when it happens, I usually get along without "external" assistance.
It is difficult to talk about this kind of issue that in fact consists in mixing DEs and video compatibilities among concurrent VCLs running simultaneously. Many users barely care for what is "under the hood" and expect the Windows "Point'n'click" philosophy work "out-of-the-box" on Linux, all the time...

Have a great day!

[stevef]

The silent updating problem has been reported at least twice on the forum before.  It seems to be a edge case but is not limited to one user.

There was some progress/diagnosis on Derek_'s thread after DeepThought found and reported a divide by zero error when running lite-updates from the terminal which seemed to provide some insight.

Code: [Select]

https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/installing-software/updates-via-gui-no-indicator/msg45517/#msg45517
Reviewing this thread might be relevant in this case.

[Şerban S.]

I'd like to see compositing disabled, compiz completely removed and replaced with Compton. See if it does the same thing. I only have newer pc's to test things on.

I did exactely what you asked here, some couple years ago, when still on Mint. I even gave up all "fancy" features and it solved the problem. Never tried to use compositing since though, so this solution might well work, unless... video effects are really wanted. In which case, I doubt there is another solution than hardware upgrade.

The funny thing is that by the time, I was looking for a replacement for Linux Mint, due to high RAM consumption (it went up to 1400 MB on idle...) so I tested for some weeks Linux Lite (Guess it was before 4.0 or 4.0 at most) and then Manjaro and some other distros.
Got the same idea, disabled Compiz and all went OK. Well, more or less. It complained about something, I forgot what, but since there were no visible trouble, I just ignored the warning.
Maybe it worths mentioning that I primarily test distros that ship an XFCE version.
At the time, as now, I chose Linux Lite for the specific reason that it has XFCE.
There are tons of settings that I keep for years (/home partition) and took me more than 2 years to tune everything so, yeah, I'm stucked on XFCE.

[TheDead]

Ooooh! Didn't catch that one. An intel Celery! o.O - Poor poor you, my condolences.  
When I see one I usually run away in the other direction, and I don't have to run very fast. *wink wink*  (Note that AMD Sempron/Duron are, I mean were not better ) 
Nice catch @trinidad  !

[trinidad]

I have seen this particular issue before with the 4.x series on older hardware with 3G or less of RAM. It is intermittent depending on the size of the update. It is definitely a system RAM handling issue, but given that is does not cripple the system with OOM problems it's neither a glitch nor a bug. There are some things you can experiment with.

1) Check your BIOS for internal graphics settings. Look for a frame buffer location option. If there is one choose the above RAM setting.
2) Do both of these together. Increase your swappiness setting. Default is 60. Try 80. Decrease your vfs cache pressure setting. Default is 100. Try 50. Your system will slow slightly but RAM will hold up better to big processes.
3) Watch for fifo errors, or underruns or overruns at bootup. Some older low end Intel Celerons actually do not run Linux kernels of any series without those errors. They work, but they are not programmable on some older OEM MOBOs.

TC
 

[Jerry]

I'd like to see compositing disabled, compiz completely removed and replaced with Compton. See if it does the same thing. I only have newer pc's to test things on.

[TheDead]

It maybe hardware related but in a hardware-support / supported feature sense.
IMO, I would think it's a kernel support issue.

If it's a clean install and you feel like experimenting. You could update the kernel... but also downgrade it, but this could "break" your installation and/or features.
I only downgraded once because of a hardware support issue. It worked for me but I don't know if I would suggest it "officialy".

[Şerban S.]

Hi guys, thanks for the interest

You're welcome!

[...] Of course, it could be a hardware issue  [...]

To me, it is obviously a hardware issue.
You never mentioned what type of video you have.
The CPU specs, say nothing about the graphics:
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/40738/intel-celeron-processor-t3000-1m-cache-1-80-ghz-800-mhz-fsb.html

[...] By the way, does anyone know the name of the package(s) behind the Linux Lite 'Install Updates' utility? [...]

Yes.

Code: [Select]

/usr/bin/lite-updates
Copy and Paste the line into the terminal and hit "Enter".

[Mart]

Hi guys, thanks for the interest

Quote from Şerban: 'You probably installed Unity instead of Xfce'.

Just to clarify: I am running and testing Linux Lite 5.0 Xfce as a triple boot  (No, I didn’t install Unity unknowingly in my sleep!). I have not modified my OS, but I have customized my xfce desktop, which Linux and Xfce easily allows you to do. For the record, I'm using three Xfce panels, a standard wallpaper, the Xfce panel weather update plugin, and Conky Manager running a Gotham script, all with Numix icons. It's the same degree of desktop customization/theming that I use on my main driver LL 3.8, which has never displayed the same graphical glitch that we're discussing.

For the sake of eliminating the modification / customization question, I have re-installed LL 5.0 and run it out of the box without any desktop customization. But the same ‘Install Updates’ graphical glitch still occurs -



As before, after graphical glitch, empty screen follows until window pops-up confirming ‘Updates Successful’ .

Of course, it could be a hardware issue (I'm using a ten year old laptop) and specs do change, but I am also running Ubuntudde 20.04 without similar problems, so I guess that eliminates the 20.04 Ubuntu base as a possible cause.

By the by, does anyone know the name of the package(s) behind the Linux Lite 'Install Updates' utility? Application Finder refers to the package variously as X-Xfce, X-Xfce-Toplevel, and exo-file-manager, but I  can' t find a listing under any of these names anywhere in Synaptic Package Manager.

Cheers

[Şerban S.]

Humm, Jerry's right.
If you change de DE to something other than XFCE, only that could cause your problem. :-/

Hi!
It was a great idea to put the screen captures!
From what I see, your trouble, is called "video buffer underrun".
You probably installed Unity instead of XFCE. While Lite is way above the average tolerance limits (I know it from practice!), using either Unity or Gnome 3, it's the same thing. You probably enabled all the graphic effects and this puts a high amount of pressure both on the CPU AND GPU.
On this kind of machine, this is the result you get.
Although Lite + XFCE IS speciffically designed for low resources computers, what you are asking, requires a Quad-core CPU and a far more advanced GPU, and lots of RAM. Anyway, more than 3 GB.
Now, if you really want to use Gnome 3 or Unity, best approach is to disable from the WM, all the video effects, since all they do is eat up 50% of your resources and nothing else useful.
Since my best guess is you want to do other things with this computer than play animations and the like, disabling the video gadgets, will get you closer to a usable system, even on this configuration.