Entire Screen flashes black whenever i interact with videos

[thatoneguy]

This started happening recently and its incredibly annoying . Figured its an issue with amdgpu , but reinstalling the drivers didnt help . Over the last few days i tried everything from upgrading my kernel to getting a completely fresh install of debian but nothing seems to work . I only recently started getting into linux so im not that good at this stuff , can anyone help me out here ?
*Currently using an rx580 gpu .

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Anything in the logs?

That seems to be quite a new card, which version of Debian are you using?

[thatoneguy]

Anything in the logs?

That seems to be quite a new card, which version of Debian are you using?

Currently im on debian 9.7
I get this in the log files ( used youtube videos ) :
debian firefox-esr[1597]: unable to create file '/run/user/1000/dconf/user': Permission denied. dconf will not work properly.
Pretty much the same thing when i use the default video player that came with gnome , unable to create file '/run/user/1000/dconf/user': Permission denied .

[Head_on_a_Stick]

im on debian 9.7

The package versions for that release were frozen way back in 2017 so if your hardware was introduced after that date then support will likely be poor.

For example, the stretch version of xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu is 1.8 but upstream is on v18.1.

You could try a "live" version of MX (GNU/)Linux—I think they run backported versions of the graphics stack—if things work better there then you can reproduce their configuration by checking which packages are from their backports repository:

Code: Select all

# apt install apt-show-versions
apt-show-versions | grep backports

https://backports.debian.org/

Or just install MX, it is apparently rather good

[thatoneguy]

im on debian 9.7

The package versions for that release were frozen way back in 2017 so if your hardware was introduced after that date then support will likely be poor.

For example, the stretch version of xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu is 1.8 but upstream is on v18.1.

You could try a "live" version of MX (GNU/)Linux—I think they run backported versions of the graphics stack—if things work better there then you can reproduce their configuration by checking which packages are from their backports repository:

Code: Select all

# apt install apt-show-versions
apt-show-versions | grep backports

https://backports.debian.org/

Or just install MX, it is apparently rather good

Oh well that explains alot . Thanks
Guess i'l try installing mx now .

[stevepusser]

im on debian 9.7

The package versions for that release were frozen way back in 2017 so if your hardware was introduced after that date then support will likely be poor.

For example, the stretch version of xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu is 1.8 but upstream is on v18.1.

You could try a "live" version of MX (GNU/)Linux—I think they run backported versions of the graphics stack—if things work better there then you can reproduce their configuration by checking which packages are from their backports repository:

Code: Select all

# apt install apt-show-versions
apt-show-versions | grep backports

https://backports.debian.org/

Or just install MX, it is apparently rather good

When we rebuild packages from backports for MX, we rebrand them as "mx", so the command should be

Code: Select all

apt-show-versions | grep mx

We do have the backported amdgpu driver from Buster, along with the other xserver-xorg-video drivers from testing, which for some reason are not in stretch-backports. That might also make a difference.

Or just install MX, it is apparently rather good

Our recent explosive growth in popularity has led to one of our repo mirrors exceeding bandwidth limits; also an influx of beginners that ask questions on the forums like "How do I install a program?", ignoring the excellent MX user's manual that Jerry, the MX project head, and others have labored long and hard to create. It makes him cry a little every time he sees a question like that. Not to mention an enthusiastic set of FrankenDebianers that insist that PPAs and deb-multimedia never caused any problems before for them before, so it can't be those that are making wine-staging or obs-studio impossible to install.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Our recent explosive growth in popularity has led to one of our repo mirrors exceeding bandwidth limits

Oh, OK, should I refrain from recommending it then?

Arch would be my personal choice for brand new hardware but MX at least acknowledges the existence of non-free software, which seems to suit Debian users better, and the "helper" packages you folks provide do seem rather useful for the non-technical types.

an influx of beginners that ask questions on the forums like "How do I install a program?", ignoring the excellent MX user's manual that Jerry, the MX project head, and others have labored long and hard to create. It makes him cry a little every time he sees a question like that.

I can offer my services as a n00b-scarer if you want

[sunrat]

Guess i'l try installing mx now .

You could try it live first. It is very easy to install though.

Our recent explosive growth in popularity has led to one of our repo mirrors exceeding bandwidth limits; also an influx of beginners that ask questions on the forums like "How do I install a program?", ignoring the excellent MX user's manual that Jerry, the MX project head, and others have labored long and hard to create. It makes him cry a little every time he sees a question like that. Not to mention an enthusiastic set of FrankenDebianers that insist that PPAs and deb-multimedia never caused any problems before for them before, so it can't be those that are making wine-staging or obs-studio impossible to install.

I've been wondering for a while how many clones of yourself you have working to do the mass of packaging and forum help I see. It couldn't possibly be just one person. Please remember to sit back and smell the roses sometimes.
I too get dismayed at the amount of low quality posts now on MX forums. Questions covered in the manual and requests for packaging yet another text editor or a new MX tool for a simple one-line command. And people who refuse to even try to learn anything.
I can help with the n00b-scaring. It needs to be subtle and respectful over there though, or richb will get angry.

[stevepusser]

Getting back to the original question, the first post says that the black flash has only recently begun happening, so apparently his system was working fine before with Stretch's amdgpu. So why it started doing this is a mystery. The driver wasn't updated in stretch recently, and xorg's last security update was back in October. So MX may not be a cure-all if the hardware doesn't require those newer versions.

MX does have a feature that lets you keep your /home during the install, which should make migrating easier, though.