Stellarium 0.21.2 Flicker on Fedora 35

[Amanda-M-UK]

Running Stellarium 0.21.2 on Ferdora 35 (all updates applied) with an Intel GPU causes dreadful flicker. The machine is using a i7-9750H CPU with a UHD Graphics 630 GPU. Stellarium was working correctly until about two weeks but after updates to mesa it started to flicker. I have also tried building Stellarium with source downloaded from github but this has the same problem.

A similar machine which uses a GeForce GTX 165 GPU and running Fedora 35 (all updates applied) works correctly.

I am attaching the log.txt and hope that somebody would be able to help with this problem. If you require further information then please let me know.

log.txt

EDIT:

This problem is fully reproducible on both the GNONE (wayland and xorg) and XFCE desktop environments.

[github-actions]

Thanks for adding your first issue to Stellarium. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

[gzotti]

#2077?

[alex-w]

#2077?

Maybe. Both systems have Intel GPU and uses i915 driver.

@Amanda-M-UK could you attach the log from x11 session also?

[alex-w]

@Amanda-M-UK please check our AppImage also

[Amanda-M-UK]

I've done more testing for this problem.

I setup a fresh Fedora 35 system on another laptop (7 gen Intel). The specs for this machine are: Intel i7-7700 with an HD Graphics 630 (rev 04) GPU. I ran Stellarium without updating and there was no flicker. I then updated Fedora and ran Stellarium again. This time, the flicker problem was evident. The following mesa packages were updated:

Upgrade  mesa-dri-drivers-21.3.2-1.fc35.x86_64                        @updates
Upgraded mesa-dri-drivers-21.2.5-2.fc35.x86_64                        @@System
Upgrade  mesa-filesystem-21.3.2-1.fc35.x86_64                         @updates
Upgraded mesa-filesystem-21.2.5-2.fc35.x86_64                         @@System
Upgrade  mesa-libEGL-21.3.2-1.fc35.x86_64                             @updates
Upgraded mesa-libEGL-21.2.5-2.fc35.x86_64                             @@System
Upgrade  mesa-libGL-21.3.2-1.fc35.x86_64                              @updates
Upgraded mesa-libGL-21.2.5-2.fc35.x86_64                              @@System
Upgrade  mesa-libgbm-21.3.2-1.fc35.x86_64                             @updates
Upgraded mesa-libgbm-21.2.5-2.fc35.x86_64                             @@System
Upgrade  mesa-libglapi-21.3.2-1.fc35.x86_64                           @updates
Upgraded mesa-libglapi-21.2.5-2.fc35.x86_64                           @@System
Upgrade  mesa-libxatracker-21.3.2-1.fc35.x86_64                       @updates
Upgraded mesa-libxatracker-21.2.5-2.fc35.x86_64                       @@System
Upgrade  mesa-vulkan-drivers-21.3.2-1.fc35.x86_64                     @updates
Upgraded mesa-vulkan-drivers-21.2.5-2.fc35.x86_64                     @@System

This problem is fully reproducible on a 10th gen and 7th gen Intel GPU laptop but not on a laptop with a GeForce GTX 165 GPU . It certainly looks like an issue with i915 GPUs.

Here's a log.txt created from running Gnome with xorg.
log.txt

If you need any further information then please let me know.

[tuxedotje]

$ stellarium (first startup of stellarium)
QSocketNotifier: Can only be used with threads started with QThread
Empty translation file for language "en_US" in section "stellarium-scripts"
qt.gui.icc: Unsupported ICC profile class 70727472
QPngHandler: Failed to parse ICC profile
qt.gui.icc: Unsupported ICC profile class 70727472
QPngHandler: Failed to parse ICC profile
qt.gui.icc: Unsupported ICC profile class 70727472
QPngHandler: Failed to parse ICC profile
qt.gui.icc: Unsupported ICC profile class 70727472
QPngHandler: Failed to parse ICC profile
qt.gui.icc: Unsupported ICC profile class 70727472
QPngHandler: Failed to parse ICC profile
qt.gui.icc: Unsupported ICC profile class 70727472
QPngHandler: Failed to parse ICC profile
qt.gui.icc: Unsupported ICC profile class 70727472
QPngHandler: Failed to parse ICC profile
Error in Asterism "TA6" : can't find star with coordinates 2.14697 / 8.55097
ERROR reading asterism lines record at line 88 for culture "western"
WARNING - asterism abbreviation "TA6" not found when loading asterism names
qt.qpa.wayland: Wayland does not support QWindow::requestActivate()
Oculars::validateAndLoadIniFile() found existing ini file version 3.1
Satellite has invalid orbit: "KESTREL EYE IIM (KE2M)" "42982"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "1998-067PN" "43638"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "CREW DRAGON DEMO-1 DEB" "44064"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "ENTRYSAT" "44429"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1023" "44728"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1044" "44749"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1064" "44769"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1097" "44916"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1163" "45069"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1632" "46170"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1662" "46369"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1745" "46377"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1824" "46721"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1897" "46761"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1935" "46771"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1937" "46773"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1943" "46795"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1787" "47125"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1836" "47127"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-1855" "47142"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "STARLINK-2312" "47980"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "CYGNUS NG-16" "49064"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "ANTARES R/B" "49065"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "SL-8 R/B" "7004"

On Fdora 35 Gnome 41.

[uli13]

I have the same flickering for some time using openSUSE Tumbleweed. System is regularly updated. However when I open stellarium from commandline with the following command it works OK: LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 stellarium

[gzotti]

Thanks @uli13 for that tip. It apparently switches off hardware acceleration, but low framerate is better than flicker. This goes into the FAQ.

[alex-w]

Duplicate of #2077

[github-actions]

This issue already exists.

[alastair87]

If you have a secondary nVidia GPU in the laptop, i.e. PRIME, you can also work around the issue by running it using that. E.g. on Manjaro I can do:

prime-run stellarium

[alex-w]

@Amanda-M-UK would you try the patch from the MESA issue?