Menu problems for Compiz Fusion

[Mark Huberty]

I'm running Ibex with Gnome, Compiz Fusion and Emerald. On several applications (all OpenOffice apps, and Kile) the application menus and all other dropdown menus inside the applications render as blank when Compiz is running. I didn't have this problem before Compiz was activated.

Anybody else have this problem, or ideas on how to fix it?

Mark

[Alan A]

I'm seeing exactly that problem - when compiz is enabled, the drop-down menus on some apps just show the icons with no text. Actually the text is displayed for a very brief moment before the menu is blanked.

This seems to affect mostly KDE apps?
unfortunately I have not found a solution (other than to disable compiz).

I'm on Ubuntu 8.10 (upgraded from Hardy) and using an older nvidia graphics card with the .96 drivers.

[eternalnewbee]

Hi there.
Maybe you could post a screenshot of the blanked menus?

[Whisp3r]

I'm having the exact same problem.

Here's what they look like:

[eternalnewbee]

I'm having the exact same problem.

Here's what they look like:
Attached Files
File Type: xcf openoffice.xcf (514.9 KB, 0 views)
What is this? I can't open it.
To make a screenshot go to: Main Menu > Accessories > Take Screenshot.

[Whisp3r]

Lets try this again. OpenOffice is the only program effected thus far.

I have tried changing themes, settings in Compiz/Emerald managers, etc. I've checked the OpenOffice 'fix' in work around, and back and forth. No luck yet.

[Alan A]

I have converted Whisp3r's original .xcf to a .png - this shows a dropped-down menu as well. I would do my own screenshot but am not at home at the moment (it would look much like this anyway).

Other apps that are definitely affected in the same way for me are k3b and kdenlive.

[eternalnewbee]

Ok. Go to: Main Menu > System > Administration > HArdware Drivers
What do you see? Are there any options?
If there are, you probably want to choose the recommended option.

[Whisp3r]

Here it is:

Running Nvidia driver 96, enabled. I tried disabling to see if that fixed it, and it didn't. The only thing thus far I've found that fixes the OO menu problem is using Metacity, instead of Compiz.

[Mark Huberty]

I'm seeing the same behavior as the screenshots uploaded by Whisp3r. Nvidia .96 drivers running on Ibex, with the Gnome desktop with Emerald.

The same behavior occurs in KDE. Disabling the "Legacy full screen support" option on the "Workarounds" plugin had no effect (this was found to fix earlier OpenOffice/Compiz menu issues).

Turning off the "Openoffice menu fix" workaround also didn't appear to help.

Right now, it appears native KDE apps (Openoffice, Kile, Kbibtex, K3b) are the only ones affected.

[Whisp3r]

Hey Mark,
Just wondering; what type of video card are you running? I'm beginning to wonder if its my card (GForce FX with 64mb). I tried everything you did as well, including upgrading OO to 3.0.

[Mark Huberty]

I'm running a GeForce MX 440 AGP 8x.

Perhaps it's the older video cards that have a problem. The .96 video drivers seem to be the common thread.

[kiwi4dguy]

Got same problem here with opera and amsn under gnome, and I would imagine they won't be the only ones. OO is fine here, seems to be working properly.

I also have a geforce4 mx440se graphics card using the 96 driver.

[Whisp3r]

I have access to another card (256mb) AGP card. I'll swap the machine's cards tomorrow and see what happens.

[Mark Huberty]

By this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=978091

It appears that Ibex has issues with the .96 nvidia drivers and legacy support, that cause menu and application button problems.

But that still doesn't seem to explain why some apps (Firefox, native Gnome apps like gedit or evince) work OK, while the KDE apps and OO have problems.

[Whisp3r]

Well, I was going to swap video cards (65MB for 128MB), but ended up finding out that the AGP x4/x8 slot in this box (Linux) is a lot newer then my old box (x4). So no swap. I did LiveCD boot this box, which has the problems, and under LiveCD, OpenOffice menus and the other affects work just fine. Boot off the HD, and OO goes to heck.

Guess its time to look into getting a new card.

[felixnine]

yeah, weird, i have the same problem, but it's ONLY kde3 apps. the amarok nightlies and other kde4 (qt4?) apps are fine.

[IceReaver75]

Yeah same problem here with open office. I have the Nvidia Geforce 6200 A-LE card and if I use the 177 drivers I can't use the human themes or any theme based off the human theme without getting the title bar washout but open office menus work just fine.

If I switch to the 96 drivers I can use the human themes just fine with no washout but all the open office menus are gone.

There just no happy medium with the Nvidia drivers. You either have to sacifice the human themes or have no open office menus. I tried to look into the xorg configs of both drivers but they are same.

[Malac]

Same Here on a demo machine just showing them how good Ubuntu is and then open OpenOffice and oops:
92484
All other compiz effects working fine. Switching to metacity shows the menus but is a bit of a pain.

lspci output:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (rev b2)lshw output: *-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400]
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: b2
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm agp agp-2.0 bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=nvidia latency=248 maxlatency=1 mingnt=5 module=nvidiaUsing 96.43.09 driver according to drivers app

[felixnine]

due to a bunch of other problems with ibex, i went back to hardy. it sucks, but problem solved.

[Whisp3r]

I put 8.04 with Compiz on this box, and OO works just fine. Oh well. We'll see how it all works when I get done building my first computer. :)

[mfaust731]

I have Ibex with the nvidia 96 driver and have the same thing, however open office works fine here - it is Scribus and google earth that has blank menus>

[Alan A]

I have found a workaround which partially solves this problem for OpenOffice. If I set fonts to Subpixel (System/Preferences/Appearance/Fonts) I get my OpenOffice text and menus back with compiz enabled. Unfortunately other KDE apps are still without text.

I found this at http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122695 where the author also suggests making some changes to the xorg.conf file. The xorg.conf changes did not seem to make any difference for me - only the font setting change.

[Malac]

I have found a workaround which partially solves this problem for OpenOffice. If I set fonts to Subpixel (System/Preferences/Appearance/Fonts) I get my OpenOffice text and menus back with compiz enabled. Unfortunately other KDE apps are still without text.

I found this at http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122695 where the author also suggests making some changes to the xorg.conf file. The xorg.conf changes did not seem to make any difference for me - only the font setting change.
I can confirm the above workaround works for me in OpenOffice and also the tip for wine.
Make sure you close the QuickStarter if you use it as the changes don't show up until it is restarted.

[SocratesTNR]

Been having problems on OO, Ubuntu 8, NVIDA card (I think - noob).

Turning off anti-aliasing in OO worked although the result isn't pretty.

Sub-pixel thing didn't :-(

[jhutton]

I have found a workaround which partially solves this problem for OpenOffice. If I set fonts to Subpixel (System/Preferences/Appearance/Fonts) I get my OpenOffice text and menus back with compiz enabled. Unfortunately other KDE apps are still without text.

I found this at http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122695 where the author also suggests making some changes to the xorg.conf file. The xorg.conf changes did not seem to make any difference for me - only the font setting change.

Thanks - these steps fixed it for me.

[lemming465]

We're discussing this on launchpad as bug 297836 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/297836). The best workaround so far is to disable Compiz effects using System -> Preferences -> Appearance, Visual Effects = none. It was not a problem in 7.10 or 8.04, but I'm sticking with 8.10 anyway.

[Malac]

This may have already been said but this is obviously a problem with the nVidia driver 93.46.09 and certain (older??) nVidia cards, as I can confirm this is not an issue at all with one of my machines which has an older ATI card, compiz enabled. OpenOffice, Wine menus are fine also all KDE apps are okay.

Hope this helps in tracking it down.

[LepeKaname]

Thank you! It solved my problem.

BTW, I also had the NVIDIA MX 400 ... with the 96 driver.

This was my post with screenshots:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6298098

[Eric Qel-Droma]

I have a GeForce MX 400 as well, and using the nVidia driver, I have either no font or font garbage in Wine whether I have visual effects on or not.

I was thinking of trying the whole workaround posted above, but I'm afraid that my Xorg.conf file is too different from what is posted on the other site. If I were to change my Xorg.conf to mirror the other one exactly, could that break my system? Or, if it were wrong, would my system simply revert to the default driver?

Thanks,

Eric

[Eric Qel-Droma]

BTW, the tutorial suggests, that if using Wine, one should "Create a txt (settings.txt) file in fx your home folder containing this:"

What is "fx your home folder"?

[LepeKaname]

1. Create the "settings.txt" in your home directory.
2. Enter this code in that file:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver]
"ClientSideWithRender"="N"

3. $ regedit settings.txt

The idea is to insert that key into your "Windows" registry using the "regedit" WINE command.

So basically you can create it wherever you want and name it as you prefer.

About your xorg.conf I recommend you to make a backup before moving anything. If you have problems with it,you can use mine because it is the same video card:


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
Defaultdepth 24
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
Vendorname "NVIDIA Corporation"
Option "RenderAccel" "0"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
Inputdevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Inputdevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
Vendorname "Unknown"
Modelname "Unknown"
Horizsync 30.0 - 110.0
Vertrefresh 50.0 - 150.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enabled"
EndSection

[carloshiga]

I followed the instructions in

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122695

and it fixed the problem for OpenOffice but my aMSN still have the problem. Any idea?

[antsu]

Hi everyone,
I know this thread is a little old, but I've found something that some of the people that posted here may like to know and I think it can help them. I am running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex with a GeForce 2 MX 400, using the nvidia96 drivers. I was having the same issues with the menus on aMSN, K3B, Amarok and OpenOffice. I did the Wine and subpixel stuff, but they only solved the problem with Wine fonts. So, while searching a way to solve this, I've found the solution that worked perfectly for me.
In your xorg.conf file, under the section "Device", just add the line
Option "RenderAccel" "0"
Them restart X server (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE) and you will have menus on Amarok, K3B, OO, aMSN or whatever :D

ps: sorry if I screwed up something on the writing, I'm not very good in English :(

[If I Get Old]

Hi everyone,
I know this thread is a little old, but I've found something that some of the people that posted here may like to know and I think it can help them. I am running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex with a GeForce 2 MX 400, using the nvidia96 drivers. I was having the same issues with the menus on aMSN, K3B, Amarok and OpenOffice. I did the Wine and subpixel stuff, but they only solved the problem with Wine fonts. So, while searching a way to solve this, I've found the solution that worked perfectly for me.
In your xorg.conf file, under the section "Device", just add the line
Option "RenderAccel" "0"
Them restart X server (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE) and you will have menus on Amarok, K3B, OO, aMSN or whatever :D

ps: sorry if I screwed up something on the writing, I'm not very good in English :(
This totally worked for me. Thank you. No more metacity --replace when I want to use digikam and then compiz --replace when I'm done.

[masque7]

Hi everyone,
I know this thread is a little old, but I've found something that some of the people that posted here may like to know and I think it can help them. I am running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex with a GeForce 2 MX 400, using the nvidia96 drivers. I was having the same issues with the menus on aMSN, K3B, Amarok and OpenOffice. I did the Wine and subpixel stuff, but they only solved the problem with Wine fonts. So, while searching a way to solve this, I've found the solution that worked perfectly for me.
In your xorg.conf file, under the section "Device", just add the line
Option "RenderAccel" "0"Them restart X server (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE) and you will have menus on Amarok, K3B, OO, aMSN or whatever :D

ps: sorry if I screwed up something on the writing, I'm not very good in English :(

That worked. However, log back in and my graphics are glitchy and unusable. System->Prefs->Appearance->Fonts->Sub Pixel worked. GeForce 2 MX 400, Nvidia 96 driver using Metacity, not Compiz.