Screen flashes with Gnome-Shell, Parallels 7, Ubuntu 11.10

I haven't seen any flickering or Gnome Shell crashes in a while. I don't know if that's because of the various rolling updates Ubuntu has pushed or because I'm using a Shell theme which doesn't cause the problem.
 
I noticed there were some gnome-shell updates since my last try so I loaded it up in Parallels again and did the updates and gave it a shot. Now gnome-shell crashes and leaves me without anything but some borderless windows that I can't do anything with. So, it got worse for me...

I haven't installed any special gnome-shell extensions or themes. I'm running on the base system.

Meanwhile, it continues to work absolutely fine for me when installed natively on my Macbook Air... No crashes at all.
 
Hi,
first of all thanks everyone for your feedback - we do appreciate it.
What we need to deal with the problem is a bit more info from you.
When the situation is reproducing goto Help menu and call Report a Problem...
- and give us report ID.
We also need some additional information about your VM:
1) If it was a clean installation of Ubuntu 11.10 or an update from 11.04 one?
2) If any system updates were installed for Ubuntu 11.10?
3) In case if any system updates for Ubuntu 11.10 have been installed, did you reinstall Parallels Tools after that? Which way to reinstall was used: a) Virtual Machine-Reinstall Parallels Tools in PD GUI WITHOUT manual uinstalling them from inside the Ubuntu, b) Virtual Machine-Reinstall Parallels Tools in PD GUI AFTER manual uninstalling?
4) In which exactly mode VM was working when the bug appeared - Fullscreen, Coherence or Windowed one?
5) Was more than one monitor connected at that time?
6) If Fullscreen was used when the bug appeared, was "Use all displays in fullscreen" option in View menu set on or off?
 
mercy said:
Hi,
first of all thanks everyone for your feedback - we do appreciate it.
What we need to deal with the problem is a bit more info from you.
When the situation is reproducing goto Help menu and call Report a Problem...
- and give us report ID.
We also need some additional information about your VM:
1) If it was a clean installation of Ubuntu 11.10 or an update from 11.04 one?
2) If any system updates were installed for Ubuntu 11.10?
3) In case if any system updates for Ubuntu 11.10 have been installed, did you reinstall Parallels Tools after that? Which way to reinstall was used: a) Virtual Machine-Reinstall Parallels Tools in PD GUI WITHOUT manual uinstalling them from inside the Ubuntu, b) Virtual Machine-Reinstall Parallels Tools in PD GUI AFTER manual uninstalling?
4) In which exactly mode VM was working when the bug appeared - Fullscreen, Coherence or Windowed one?
5) Was more than one monitor connected at that time?
6) If Fullscreen was used when the bug appeared, was "Use all displays in fullscreen" option in View menu set on or off?
Click to expand...

Had a crash happen this morning within 3 minutes of starting the VM and getting to work. I submitted a report, here it is:

Report #12524780

I was using two Virtual Desktops. I was working on the second Virtual Desktop inside of my Perforce client. On the first Virtual desktop I had gnome-terminal open and at a prompt and Google Chrome open but no web pages loaded yet (on the bookmarks screen). I was clicking on the "Actions" item from the menubar in Perforce right when Gnome-Shell crashed completely. I can not perform anything else in Gnome-Shell at this time. I have to log out and back in to get it to restart. This crash took approximately 3 minutes to occur when I brought up the system and started work.

Clean installation of Ubuntu 11.10 with Gnome-Shell installed and being used.

All system updates have been installed. This problem existed before the updates as well.

Parallel Tools was reinstalled after update using the GUI without manually uninstalling the previous version. However, this was happening when a fresh install of Parallel tools was installed after the fresh install of Ubuntu as well. Same problems.

This happened while in FullScreen Mode on an external monitor connected to my Macbook Pro.

"Use all displays in fullscreen" mode was turned OFF.
Click to expand...
 
Just a note, I have noticed that not using the Perforce client so far has made allowed me to work longer without a crash. If I open the Perforce client, a crash is inevitable within minutes. the Perforce client is a QT app, so maybe that has a little to do with it? I'll keep working without the Perforce client open and see if I get any crashes and how long it takes. I do know that it will eventually crash without having the Perforce client open, so I will get some details when it does...
 
Report #12528416

I am having occasional crashes that gnome-shell seems to recover from now. I have not opened the Perforce QT GUI since last report and there have been no hard crashes since then. During these last couple of crashes, including the one from the report, I was just using Epiphany.
 
1) Upgrade.
2) Yes.
3) a
4) Fullscreen
5) No
6) Off

An additional bug, which I think is related: when Ubuntu first boots, my wallpaper is drawn tiled on the screen four times, Gnome Shell and my auto launching applications are only drawn in the first, upper left tile. I have to leave full screen mode, and then reenter it, to have the desktop drawn properly.
 
Mine did that too. However, you can fix that if you go into your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and set you resolution in there. I gave mine a few different resolutions so if I'm not on my external monitor, it will use my laptop resolution.

That fixed the tiled issue and also made the lightdm login a lot better looking too. :)

Alter this section of that file. Notice the "Modes" section. I added 1920x1200 for my external monitor and 1680x1050 for my laptop. It will try each one until it gets a doable resolution, so when I'm not plugged in, it will jump to 1680x1050:

Code: 
# Parallels Screen section
Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Parallels Screen"
	Device	"Parallels Video"
	Monitor	"Parallels Monitor"
	Option	"NoMTRR"
	SubSection	"Display"
		Modes	"1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
EndSection
 
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Hello all,
Thanks you for your answers

If you login in Linux while you are in Full screen, you'll see some artifacts with Linux Desktop, like reduced resolution or shifted Desktop. It's a known issue and we are working on it.

Regarding the problem with screen flickering in Gnome on Ubuntu 11.10 :
deanproxy, we can not reproduce the issue.
In order to continue investigation we need a VM with the problem. If you can upload the VM - please check instructions in your personal message.
 
Ok, I will do that. I want to create a new VM first, from scratch since the VM I'm currently using has work related material on it. I will create a new VM and then run it for a bit and see if it has the same issues. When I have witnessed the issue happen more than once, I will upload it.
 
Ok, I have uploaded my image. I shut it down just after gnome-shell crashed on me and then uploaded it. Hopefully this can help some. If you need any information such as login or whatever, let me know. I just use it very lightly. For instance, I was just installing an app with nothing else open and hit the Activities pane and it crashed.
 
ditto

late-2011 MBP here, with the same issue, although I'm using Linux Mint.

1) If it was a clean installation of Ubuntu 11.10 or an update from 11.04 one?
I get the same thing on Linux Mint, clean install, latest patches and current version of parallels tools.
2) If any system updates were installed for Ubuntu 11.10?
all current patches
3) In case if any system updates for Ubuntu 11.10 have been installed, did you reinstall Parallels Tools after that? Which way to reinstall was used: a) Virtual Machine-Reinstall Parallels Tools in PD GUI WITHOUT manual uinstalling them from inside the Ubuntu, b) Virtual Machine-Reinstall Parallels Tools in PD GUI AFTER manual uninstalling?
yes, re-installed parallel tools after a kernel patch/update
4) In which exactly mode VM was working when the bug appeared - Fullscreen, Coherence or Windowed one?
I usually run windowed, but it has happened fullscreen too.
5) Was more than one monitor connected at that time?
Both with single monitor and dual.
6) If Fullscreen was used when the bug appeared, was "Use all displays in fullscreen" option in View menu set on or off?
No
 
Yep, I have Parallel Tools installed.
g.gif
 
I've been trying to track down the differences between running gnome-shell in Parallels and natively on my Macbook Air the past couple of days and so far no luck... Looking in ~/.xsession-errors shows a few JS Errors, specifically children[index] being undefined and gnome-shell-calendar-server getting a HUP. However, these exact same errors show up on my native install of Ubuntu on my Air as well and the "flashes" (more specifically, gnome-shell crashes and restarts) do not happen there.

I'm trying to find other ways to find specific errors related to these crashes... If I find anything, I'll post it here.
 
mercy said:
Regarding the problem with screen flickering in Gnome on Ubuntu 11.10 :
deanproxy, we can not reproduce the issue.
In order to continue investigation we need a VM with the problem. If you can upload the VM - please check instructions in your personal message.
Click to expand...

Hi,

I'm surprised you can't reproduce the issue. I'm using OS X Lion with latest updates (makes it 10.7.3) and latest Parallels Desktop (7.0.15055).

I get the flickering on the following :
- Fedora 16 updated, then with additions installed
- Mint 12, with additions installed, then distro update, additions uninstall, reboot, additions install

Both flicker within gnome-shell, wether "native" gnome-shell or the cinnamon fork. First I thought it was due to virtualbox VM migration, but reinstalling from sratch led to the same flickering :/

Edit : I don't use Fullscreen.
 
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