Invisible application windows on mutter-46.x
Affected version
- Slackware64-15.0, kernel 6.6.28
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti @ driver 550.76, 2x1920x1080 @ NVidia TwinView
- mutter-46.0, gnome-shell-46.0, gnome-shell-extensions-46.0
- X.Org X Server 1.20.14, X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0 (no Wayland here
😇 )
Bug summary
As of mutter-46.0
, all application windows appear to be invisible. Yes, invisible. They are actually there, ie. they can be interacted with if you know where to click and/or type, but they are just not visible. This also includes window decorations, ie. title bars with minimize/maximize/close buttons, scrollbars on the side, and so on, not just the actual application contents. They (ie. their icons) do show up in the Alt-Tab
switcher thing in "GNOME" sessions, and they do also show up in the Alt-Tab
switcher thing as well as in the taskbar in "GNOME Classic" sessions. The only other things that are visible on screen are the main menu bar across the top of the primary monitor (the one with the three dots and the bar on the left, "... -", whatever that's supposed to be) in "GNOME" and "GNOME Classic" sessions, and the taskbar at the bottom of the primary monitor in "GNOME Classic" sessions. I can provide screenshots if needed, but I guess from the descrition it should be pretty clear what's visible and what's not. Right?
For example, I usually get the GCR prompter upon login asking me to unlock my keyring. I know it's there because it shows up in Alt-Tab
(plus in the "GNOME Classic" taskbar), and I know that it works because it disappears again after I Alt-Tab
to it (or select it from the taskbar), and (blindly) enter my password. It's just not visible during the whole process.
Similarily, if I start a couple of gnome-terminal
s, they appear in both the Alt-Tab switcher and the taskbar. If I then cycle through them via Alt-Tab
(or the taskbar) and press Ctrl-D
, they disappear as expected. Again, they're just not visible during the whole process.
GDM (gdm-46.0
), which AFAIK also uses mutter
& gnome-shell
for its login screen (or greeter, or whatever it's called), does work fine as usual, though. Everything that is normally visible is also visible with mutter-46.0
. It's only after logging in that windows suddenly become invisible.
As soon as I switch back to mutter-45.4
, "GNOME" and "GNOME Classic" sessions work fine again, and all windows are visible as expected.
NOTE 1: as I'm on Slackware, there's no systemd
, just elogind
. So if mutter-46.0
now depends on systemd
to make windows visible for some weird reason (although I could not imagine a reality where this would make any sense, but hey, what do I know?
NOTE 2: I'm actually running a "GNOME Flashback" session as my daily driver, so this doesn't really affect me much. However, I usually tend to check out the default "GNOME" and "GNOME Classic" sessions every now & then (on new releases, for example) to see what's new, and if there's something that would convince me to switch over, or at least try it out for some time, so that's how/why I noticed this strange invisible windows thing.
If you need any more information about my system or setup, just let me know. Thanks for listening!
Steps to reproduce
- install GNOME 46 on Slackware64-15.0 (yes, that's a lot of compiling
🤓 ) - in
/usr/local/etc/gdm/custom.conf
haveWaylandEnable=false
in the[daemon]
section - in the GDM Login Screen, select the "GNOME" or "GNOME Classic" session, and then login
- start a few apps from the menu, then go looking for their windows on screen
What happened
Mutter does not show any application windows on screen, although the applications are actually running.
What did you expect to happen
Mutter should actually show the windows of all running applications - what else?™
Relevant logs, screenshots, screencasts etc.
Screenshots and/or logs can be provided on request.