I’m actually not entirely sure, I’m still working on getting video to play at all on hers because for some reason the video codecs are missing from her Fedora KDE installation. ( I installed them at the same time and in the same way.)
Once I get hers fixed I’ll try to play the same content and see if it has an effect.
As far as the 8bit color, That didn’t change the behavior, same flickering.
I’ll return with an update on what I find with hers.
I’ve seen some flickering on 8bit content under kUbuntu, I’d put this down as a Wayland issue, as it only happens when watching Video
Did some more testing.
This is the weirdest thing ever but I tried playing Kill La Kill on my girlfriends FW12 and I got the exact same behavior (violent flickering that persists in the bios) This is the only show that makes the display flicker like this, we also watch tons of Buffy the vampire slayer and no matter how much we watch it never flickers. (The effect is amplified intensely by pausing the video in full screen.
I think this is likely a design flaw in the FW12 screen. I’m playing a ripped Blue-ray disc in the form of an Mkv file in Celluloid and the effect is incredibly consistent. The video is not HDR, and Its 10bit.
I wasn’t able to reproduce it in X11 so you may be on to something.
Though it doesn’t explain why it persists in the bios >:[
Yep, still trying to figure out whats causing it. Framework support had me jump all the hoops…
So far I am only able to trigger it using fullscreen Playback on Fedora 42 KDE in Chrome.
Running Chrome Flatpak in Bazzite (Which should basically also be Fedora KDE..) does not Trigger it.
Running Video in Firefox fullscreen also does not trigger it.
Once It is triggered it persists for some time even on desktop and Bios…. I don’t even have an idea what makes it stop. It feels like it is ramping up the longer I watch something in Chrome. The longer it as flickering, the longer it takes to disappear… Very annoying.
Let’s share what we found, so we might find a solution at some point…
Mine gets way worse way faster when I pause the video in full screen. The longer I let it sit paused the worse it flickers and the longer it takes to go away. It works the same way on the second machine I have but isn’t present in the X11 session of KDE plasma.
I’m convinced its some combination of Wayland and the firmware.
I’ve actually tried initiating the flickering and then shutting the machine off, swapping the boot drive and booting up. It still flickers even after the entire drive is swapped. I think Wayland does something with the display and just screws it up for a while.
What player are you using? For me the flickering doesn’t ramp up when pausing in Chrome and Jellyfin. It must be something very specific… Even haven Firefox open in the Background seems to stop the behavior for me…
I’m using celluloid
did you end up having any luck with a solution for this? I’ve been having a similar issue since receiving my laptop. (Have a case open with FW support currently but want to make sure there actually is a solution before my return window closes)
Still trying to figure out a rhyme or reason-
in Linux it seems to be pretty extreme sometimes, both Ubuntu and Fedora. Sometimes its totally fine though
(example of flickering in linux ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb8dKcNuQl0
Windows has been better, usually its just a flicker that’s a single row of pixels rather than the full screen flickering
Not really. I wasn’t able to reproduce it in an X11 session of plasma on Fedora 42 but it doesn’t matter because I need to use Wayland for compatibility so that isn’t a solution.
Since starting this thread I’ve received an entirely new Framework 12 and the issue is still there. I’m convinced it’s some mix of bad firmware and software. or perhaps a design flaw in the framework 12 display because every laptop I’ve tested flickers. (I’ve tested 3.) It’s extremely easy for me to reproduce. All I have to do is watch a video with celluloid and after about 10-20 minutes it starts.
It’s really disappointing because I don’t think framework knows what the issue is either. I spent a month with them trying every troubleshooting step you can think of and absolutely nothing helped.
I’m hoping Framework designs a gen 2 display for the 12 because this display has awful light bleed, comically bad color accuracy, and it flickers. I don’t even know if this problem can be fixed.
One thing I just noticed: My new unit flickers in the middle third of the screen instead of the whole thing.
My flickering looks different to yours. It looks more like the backlight is flickering violently. I recently switched from KDE to gnome because tablet mode just seems nicer integrated. there the issue is also gone for me (even in a Full Wayland session).
@Nathan_Alan_Hansen When you’ve been testing have you tried Gnome? From what @Stefan_Muller-Meerka said it sounds like it might be a mix of KDE + Wayland that’s a factor and that maybe Gnome + Wayland doesn’t cause the same issue?
..very weird, though.
I didn’t explicitly test the flickering in gnome but I did use it on two of the machines for the first few days and don’t remember having any issues. It could very well be a KDE + Wayland thing.
Unfortunately that still isn’t a solution for me because I can’t stand Gnome lol.
Oh and also, i could not reproduce it on Bazzite with KDE…
This is pretty strange, to me as they are both based on Fedora 42. It must be something super specific happening in that config, that we still don’t understand.
Yeah I totally get that, I also am not a fan, although saying that when my FW12 arrives I’m planning on shovelling Ubuntu 24 + Gnome on it while I work out how I’m naturally going to use it.
I’ve totally seen this kind of issue before where a graphics corruption ‘hangs around’ independent of anything that should by all logic clear it out. Mostly anecdotally but a couple of times personally.
There’s something about the modern GPU graphics stack where the buffers can get garbage in them that very slowly resolves over time. Worst one that REALLY freaked me out was on my Steamdeck when I was farting around, probably trying to see how hard I can tilt Cyberpunk or something and the screen 1/2 froze, as in 1/2 of the screen froze when the rest kinda carried on, so I quickly restarted it using the normal Steam button power option and the frozen part stayed there… All the way through boot and into the main Steam launcher, but the frozen half kind of faded and then everything was back to normal again.
I’ve also personally seen more usual RGB static bars on gfx crashouts that hang around like bad farts even through a power cycle but quickly clear on reboot, but it was the Steamdeck one that really made me ponder because that’s weird, it’s like one of the screen buffers gets a nasty cold and has to take a little while to flush it out of it’s system.
So, hell of a lot of anecdotal here, but it’s leading me to think that there’s a little perfect storm in the weeds. It’s why I was asking about Gnome and stuff, there’s something at one of the crossover points between distro, DE, display server etc where that particular combination plus signal freq or exact refresh rate missmatch is causing the gfx stack to wobble when it’s stressed and a section of the gfx hardware gets stuck in a bugged loop.
Is there any update on this?
Can Framework please release a statement in this regard?
I have a batch 1 FW12 and I just experienced the flickering. Also KDE + Wayland, watching a video on MPV in full screen. I have never experienced before, so as others have said it must be some video format or something that overheats and triggers this problem.
Yet, the problem persists after reboot, after a kernel downgrade (I use Tumbleweed and loaded an older snapshot, same problem), and also on BIOS screen.
This is 100% a hardware problem.
Yep, I kind of gave up for now and settled for gnome. I still don‘t undestand, why it only happens on kde+wayland. The same video files in the same player do not trigger this for me in gnome…
So there must be some easy solution to mitigate the problem in software. Fo me it seems like the lcd drivers are overdriven or something and need to cool down or stop resonating or something…
Hi folks, need the following please as this sounds like it may be two issues occurring.
Thank you for your help as we work to reproduce this. This format allows me to spot the pattern faster than trying to gleam various posts.
The two common themes I am seeing is celluloid and Plasma. I would like to make sure we focus on Plasma, as seeing in on a BIOS screen would be another issues entirely.
Seeing this on celluloid? Seeing this on games or just about anything full screen?
Seeing this on BIOS as well? Y/N (if yes, this needs to be in a ticket with this thread linked)
KDE Plasma Version?
Distro/Kernel?
There is more information on what looks to be the same issue here:
Hey Matt,
I think the issue is not celluloid related. I could reproduce the issue with Chrome and celluloid. Someone else was using mpv.
the only common thing we found so far is that we are all using KDE Plasma + Wayland on Fedora 42.
For me it happens in KDE, it does not happen on Bazzite or Gnome.
I did multiple upgrades to the kernel during my use of kde. Also upgraded the bios to latest. I think it was 3.4.
Also i think 2 issues are mixed here. Some have very rapid flickering on bright surfaces like me or Nathan, while others are se slower flickering with noticable blanks. I think these two kind might be unrelated. The people with the blanks see it always. The flicker on bright surfaces starts and then persists for some time even through reboots and bioses