gtk3: windows displayed as all black, for x11 install

[asic512]

I work on a Macbook M1, Monterey 12.6 and X11 with icewm.

I have a problem with applications such as nautilus, evince, gnome-chess etc: I suspect something related to gtk3 or gnome. The problem is the following: for each case, the windows opens and looks as usual but as soon as I move the cursor the background in the window becomes black. Moreover some icons look strange.

[mascguy (Christopher Nielsen)]

Can you provide two screenshots: One for the initial case (where the windows look fine), along with the second (after the background changes to black).

[asic512]

Screenshot of gnome-chess opened with x11

[asic512]

Thank you for your answer. I have added a screenshot of gnome-chess with wrong background. Note that the background looks grey in the .png file but it is in fact black on my screen! Moreover if I take a screenshot when gnome-chess looks fine, I got exactly the same picture (grey background).

[mascguy (Christopher Nielsen)]

I did some digging through upstream's issues, and I didn't see anything related to black windows for X11. There were such issues with Quartz, but those appear to have been fixed a year ago.

So I'm not sure where to go from here. Thoughts anyone...?

[asic512]

I should add that I work with XQuartz 1.20.11. Is there any known problem with gtk3? I should also add that a white background keeps white while a grey background becomes black after moving the mouse. Can I fix this configuring differently gtk3? Anyway most of the icons look strange.

[LenoreHorner]

Discussion at ​https://github.com/XQuartz/XQuartz/issues/31 suggests XQuartz 2.8.3_rc1 plus setting defaults write org.xquartz.X11 enable_render_extension 0 might fix the problem (or might make things cripplingly slow). I can (barely) read Gnucash through this, but it's quite painful and I'd love to see a fix. What can I do to help?

[LenoreHorner]

The defaults write does not fix things for me on M1 on Ventura using xorg-server that I just checked for updates today.

[asic512]

I use GNU Emacs 28.2: no problem. I use Nautilus: black issue (even if I can see the list of files). I use Evince: black issue for the menus but the pdf is OK. So the problem seems to come from gtk. My Windows Manager is IceWM.

[tcwan (TC Wan)]

Ventura 13.4, on Mac Mini M2, with XQuartz 2.8.5.

MacPorts 2.8.1, with latest gtk3@3.24.38_0+x11, still exhibits blacked out windows for gnucash@5.0_1. When starting gnucash, the main window will display correctly, though the menu items are inverted (gray text on black). However, once I open an account tab, the new tab would be black, and occasionally I can get it to revert to white background by fiddling around with clicking on a row and moving the mouse. It will rever to black once I do something in the window.

Were the patches to fix the gtk3 blacked out windows incorporated into 3.24.38_0? Or is the gnucash behavior due to some other issue? evince displays the menu items correctly. Similarly with dia, though the x-y rulers where the pixel coordinates are displayed will become black when the mouse is moved around.

[tcwan (TC Wan)]

gnucash@5.1 with gtk3@3.24.38_0+x11 still has black window contents issue in account tabs.

[tcwan (TC Wan)]

The problem persists with gnucash@5.4 and gtk3@3.24.38_0+x11 on Sonoma 14.0. I downloaded the macOS build from gnucash.org which does not exhibit this behavior. However, I prefer the X11 version since I can access gnucash via a remote login, instead of having to log into the account from the welcome screen in macOS.

The toolbar icons are not displayed correct at any time, but that can still be tolerated since they are not critical. The main tab (FirstTab.png) in the window displays the background in white. Subsequent tabs (SecondTab.png) will display the background in black (inverted). Clicking in a field in the tab views will show the proper background, but any mouse movement will revert to the black background. Unfortunately I could not screen-capture the case where the second tab displays normally, somehow it will always show it with the black background.

Edit: Interestingly, after uploading and checking the png files, they seem to be displaying the content but with some kind of Alpha overlay? They are legible when viewed from the browser, but once downloaded to my Mac it again exhibits the black window issue.

[tcwan (TC Wan)]

Gnucash Main Screen

[tcwan (TC Wan)]

Gnucash Account view (subsequent tabs)

[tcwan (TC Wan)]

When chasing down the new lead (alpha transparency issue), I found the following discussion: ​Xquartz Issue 31

Edit: Whoops. Didn't realize this was discussed earlier in the thread. Nonetheless, the workaround to disable render extension (#9) didn't work for me. Gnucash crashes immediately on startup, whether local X11 session or remote (via SSH).

(gnucash:8649): Gdk-ERROR **: 18:29:43.630: The program 'gnucash' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length erro'.
  (Details: serial 532 error_code 16 request_code 72 (core protocol) minor_code 0)

This is with XQuartz 2.8.5.