Bug#860012: kwin-x11: kwin hangs randomly (drm:intel_pipe_update_end [i915]] Atomic update failure on pipe A)

[Wouter Van Hemel <wouter-debian@publica.duodecim.org>]

Package: kwin-x11
Version: 4:5.8.6-1
Severity: important


Hello,

The last 8 months or so kwin_x11 has been hanging randomly probably at least once a day. The screen just freezes mid-operation and doesn't update anymore; but I can still switch to a non-x11 console. The hangups occur when switching desktops or on some websites in Firefox that are graphics intense or have video.

I think the bug is related to the graphics driver code, because there's often a line in the logs around the time freezes happen. Here's one from today:

[Mon Apr 10 11:09:48 2017] [drm:intel_pipe_update_end [i915]] *ERROR* Atomic update failure on pipe A (start=20652 end=20653) time 355 us, min 1192, max 1199, scanline start 1176, end 1202


The computer is a fairly old system with the Intel Q35 Chipset and uses the default Intel drivers:

[drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20160919 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0


Killing kwin from a non-X11 console (with `kwin_x11 --replace`) brings back the system – minus some programs that don't like that approach, so I assume the bug is in kwin or perhaps the Intel driver for i915. I have seen other references to "Atomic update failure on pipe ..." in bug reports in diverse places on the net, but no clear solution.


Thanks for your time,

  Wouter


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=nl_BE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages kwin-x11 depends on:
ii  kwin-common           4:5.8.6-1
ii  libc6                 2.24-9
ii  libepoxy0             1.3.1-2
ii  libgcc1               1:6.3.0-11
ii  libkf5configcore5     5.28.0-2
ii  libkf5coreaddons5     5.28.0-2
ii  libkf5crash5          5.28.0-1
ii  libkf5i18n5           5.28.0-2
ii  libkf5windowsystem5   5.28.0-2
ii  libkwinglutils9       4:5.8.6-1
ii  libkwinxrenderutils9  4:5.8.6-1
ii  libqt5core5a          5.7.1+dfsg-3+b1
ii  libqt5gui5            5.7.1+dfsg-3+b1
ii  libqt5widgets5        5.7.1+dfsg-3+b1
ii  libqt5x11extras5      5.7.1~20161021-2
ii  libstdc++6            6.3.0-11
ii  libx11-6              2:1.6.4-3
ii  libxcb-cursor0        0.1.1-3
ii  libxcb-randr0         1.12-1
ii  libxcb-xfixes0        1.12-1
ii  libxcb1               1.12-1
ii  libxi6                2:1.7.9-1

kwin-x11 recommends no packages.

kwin-x11 suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information