Occasional glitches

[fbkarsdorp]

I'm aware the blank screen issue (#95) was largely resolved with Emacs 26.2, but I'm still experiencing occasional glitches and redrawings. Most people seem to happy with the fixes introduced in 26.2, so perhaps it's my config (which isn't doing anything fancy, though), or do other people also still experience this?

[goranmoomin]

I’m also experiencing occational glitches in macOS High Sierra with Emacs compiled from master and with the xwidget patch applied; but I’m not sure what’s causing it, considering that HEAD isn’t bug-free, or the xwidget patch may be the problem; or something else?

[d12frosted]

I also experience them time to time on Mojave, but it's not as bad as it used to be when Mojave came out. I don't have the links right now, but there are threads on the Emacs mailing list related to these glitches. In general, mailing list is the best place to address such issues.

But let's summon @aaronjensen 😸 I am sure you know better!

[aaronjensen]

some context: https://debbugs.gnu.org/db/33/33891.html

My report that led to some fixes: https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=32932

And yes, there are still flickers.

Alan is aware and probably just too busy to address. If you have specific repros, I'd recommend opening a new issue, it may breathe more life into the conversation and give Alan what he needs to fix it. Or, maybe someone else will know a way to solve it.

What'd really be great is if some kind soul would take on writing a Metal version... a man can dream...

[aaronjensen]

One other note, you might want to experiment with the railwaycat macport version: https://github.com/railwaycat/homebrew-emacsmacport

Mitsuharu Yamamoto has been working hard on the rendering portion and it looks like he introduced metal based double buffering back in November.

edit: trying it out now. It's definitely significantly slower at rendering, though if that bothers you less than the flicker, you may prefer it.

[d12frosted]

What'd really be great is if some kind soul would take on writing a Metal version... a man can dream...

A man can dream... 💯

Thank you @aaronjensen for great input!

Regarding emacs-mac-port, while it fixes a lot of 'bugs' and provides nice features (like good retina support), it feels much slower than GNU Emacs, which always was a no-go-for me. So I agree that it's best for everyone to try both approaches and decide what can be traded off.

[fbkarsdorp]

Thanks all for the comforting thought I'm not the only one experiencing these rare glitches. There's one 'glitch' I can reproduce consistently. In org-agenda when clicking on a header and subsequently moving the mouse down, other lines get selected too. This is something that doesn't happen in 26.1 (9.0). Here's an animation of what happens:

Anyhow, I could file this in a new issue and perhaps it helps resolving the glitch issue.

(and yes, the emacs-mac-port feels much slower to me as well...)

[dragonwasrobot]

Also experiencing occasional glitches/redrawings, after upgrading emacs-plus from 26.1 to 26.3. I didn't - to the best of my knowledge - experience any glitches before the upgrade.

[d12frosted]

Does anyone still experience them? For me redrawing works fine now.

[fbkarsdorp]

I'm afraid so, yes, though they have reduced in frequency. Which version are you on?

[d12frosted]

That's sad. Well, I am running on --HEAD.

[aaronjensen]

I'm trying with this:

  (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(inhibit-double-buffering . t))

I don't think I've seen any since using that. I'm also on --HEAD (well, emacs-27)

I was definitely seeing them recently though.

[fbkarsdorp]

I'll give it a try!

[mpolden]

I still notice the occasional blank buffer issue. This is what happens:

• All displayed buffers suddenly become blank while editing.
• To make Emacs re-render things properly I usually scroll to the top of the buffer and bottom (beginning-of-buffer, end-of-buffer).
• Occurs infrequently, maybe once a week.

I don't use emacs-plus though, just plain Emacs 26.3 (brew cask install emacs, which is https://emacsformacosx.com).

[d12frosted]

@mpolden thanks for sharing! I also see some glitches time to time, but not as critical as yours. And usually in org-agenda 😸

[d12frosted]

I still see some glitches from time to time. Like once in a very while, but it is not as critical as it was before. Since it is much stable now, going to close the issue.

[zane]

Another data point: I'm still regularly experiencing the issue described by @mpolden, sometimes multiple times per day.