Parts of text boxes missing occasionally

[joany]

Occasionally, portions of drop-down menus and text boxes are missing. This happens with certain applications more than others. For example, it happens a lot with Synaptic Package Manager. In the screen shot below, you'll see that only the lower right-hand portion of the "Package" drop-down menu is visible:



I can usually make the whole text box visible by floating the mouse cursor over it in a swiping motion, but sometimes I have to re-open the text box.

This anomaly happens only rarely with some applications, and not at all with others. For example, I've never seen this happen with Thunderbird, although it happens occasionally with Firefox. Sometimes it happens when I launch an application that requires root privileges, like Snapshot, and only part of the the text box for entering the root password is visible. The problem really is random.

I'm wondering if this could be related to glx rendering or something such as that. I installed KDE over MX-14 using the meta-package, and maybe some packages that should have been installed weren't. Compositing is turned on by default and I've installed the latest NVidia driver that is compatible with my GPU (see signature below). The same thing happened with the older 304.117 driver.

I've looked at System Settings, and everything seems normal there. If anyone can offer insight into what might be causing this, I would greatly appreciate it.

[dolphin_oracle]

I'm wondering...do you see this more with gtk based apps rather than qt based apps?

[lucky9]

Was kde-style-qtcurve installed? Kwin-style-qtcurve?

[kmathern]

Maybe also kde-config-gtk-style

[lucky9]

Have you booted into XFCE to see if it happens there?

I did install Konsole and KWrite after doing the KDE Standard upgrade. However I've not bothered with checking KDE very well. I'll check and get back to you. I've had no problems using XFCE at all.

[joany]

I'm wondering...do you see this more with gtk based apps rather than qt based apps?

Unfortunately, I don't know which applications are which.

I checked kde-style-qtcurve, kwin-style-qtcurve, and kde-config-gtk-style. The first two were not installed, so I installed them. The third one was already installed. Installing the first two did not make a difference (the Synaptic window still has the problem with drop-down menus). Maybe a reboot will do it.

I don't remember seeing this problem with xfce, but I'll log in and use it for a while and see. I'll also try turning off compositing in KDE and see if that makes any difference.

EDIT:

Rebooting after installing kde-style-qtcurve and kwin-style-qtcurve didn't make any difference; however, turning off compositing did. With compositing turned off, the anomaly does not occur on any of the apps; unfortunately, with compositing turned off, the desktop is butt-ugly -- something I couldn't live with.

I would expect xfce to be fine, but I really prefer KDE. Now that I know this is related to compositing, I'll fool around with the appearance settings.

[lucky9]

I have compositing on and using OpenGL with my Intel onboard graphics chip while running KDE Standard (on MXX14). No problems with Synaptic or anything else that I've opened to check.

I'd suggest installing Konsole and KWrite if not installed. If I remember correctly, richb had a problem that those (I'm sure about Konsole, not so sure about KWrite)and they resolved the issues he was having. A search for his posts covering the last 3 weeks or so should turn up the post with the exact problem he was having.

[joany]

I have compositing on and using OpenGL with my Intel onboard graphics chip while running KDE Standard (on MXX14). No problems with Synaptic or anything else that I've opened to check.

I'd suggest installing Konsole and KWrite if not installed. If I remember correctly, richb had a problem that those (I'm sure about Konsole, not so sure about KWrite)and they resolved the issues he was having. A search for his posts covering the last 3 weeks or so should turn up the post with the exact problem he was having.

Konsole and KWrite were already installed. I'll check richb's recent posts (I'm sure there are many) to see what his issue was.

[kmathern]

...I have compositing on and using OpenGL with my Intel onboard graphics chip while running KDE Standard (on MXX14)....

There should be some compositing options at System Settings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced (tab).

On my sid/KDE 4.12.x install it shows four options for the "Compositing type": OpenGL 1.2, OpenGL 2.0, OpenGL 3.1, XRender
And two "Qt graphics system" options: Native, Raster
And there's some other options that are shown below those.

I don't know what's optimal for Joany's situation but I think there's some configuring she can do.

[lucky9]

Looks like he was having a problem with the root actions menu working and F4 not opening a Konsole. He resolved by installing Konsole and kdesudo. Not your problem however.

That said trying XRender is worth a try. I assume that this was a problem before the driver upgrade. I'd think it's more of an interface type of problem though. I know I'm not seeing the problems with Synaptic et al with my KDE Standard system.
As noted I'm running on onboard Intel graphics. It'll be several hours before I can check my Desktop with it's Nvidia graphics. I've left it at the default MX14 installation so it'll take a little bit to get KDE Standard installed.