Atom started flickering after linter update

[merlijn-sebrechts]

After the last linter update, the Atom UI started flickering. Each Time I change a python a code file with errors, the UI flickers a bit.

I have no idea how to start to debug this so let me know if you need more information.

• no js errors
• Ubuntu 16.04, Atom 1.15.0 (from webupd8 ppa)
• latest version of linter + pylint

[Arcanemagus]

Can you define "flickers" a bit more? Are things moving around (for example, the panel appearing)? Or is it flashing as if there is a graphics driver bug?

[merlijn-sebrechts]

Flashing as if there is a graphics driver bug.

I'm using Intel graphics with the default Ubuntu drivers BTW.

[merlijn-sebrechts]

So, I did some further digging and debugging.

• Flickering stops when I disable linter.
• This seems to be an issue of Chrome/Chromium + Ubuntu + Intel Xorg driver + new version of linter. (Atom uses Electron which uses Chromium)
• Removing the Intel Xorg driver (force falback to modesetting driver) fixes the issue!

sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg-video-intel
# and reboot

This shouldn't cause any problems. Newer Ubuntu & Debian releases drop the Intel xorg driver because of its poor quality.

PS: It might be best to leave this issue open for other affected people. A lot of people seem to have this issue.

[steelbrain]

Thanks for the good find @galgalesh

I wonder if you can just disable GPU on Atom to avoid uninstalling the driver (atom --disable-gpu or just atom --enable-gpu-rasterization)

[jy95]

I have same issue with api-workbench that use linter : https://atom.io/packages/api-workbench .

• Windows 10 X64
• Atom 1.15.0

I also got this at startup :

[steelbrain]

Hi @jy95

Can you report what you saw in the console?

[jy95]

I cannot reproduce now : seems the extra installation for linter dependencies fix this message

[steelbrain]

Closing because it's a driver issue

[flamein]

It's not just Xorg, i have the same thing on Fedora with wayland (maybe uses Xwayland)

[NeetishRaj]

atom version is 1.21.0
linter version 2.2.0
linter-ui-default version 1.6.10
linter-htmllint version 1.4.0
linter-csslint version 2.0.0
HTML file tabs in editor flickers in short bursts ( white blocks appear for very short time), whenever text is entered , it started happening when i installed linter plugin, its dependecy linter-ui-deault, lintercss and linterhtml.
Flickering happens while

• starting to enter text
• saving the file with CTRL + S
• selecting all with CTRL + A

and only for html and css files, and I am using linter for only these two, no issues in javascript files for which I have disabled linter.

[Arcanemagus]

@NeetishRaj Please read the rest of the comments on this issue, this is a driver bug in the Intel drivers on Linux.