Screen Goes Black for a Few Seconds When Alt-Tabbing out of games with VRR at 240Hz on Wayland

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

Hi,

I’ve been experiencing an issue on Wayland when using Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) enabled at a high refresh rate (240Hz), my screen goes black for a few seconds whenever I alt-tab out of games.

If I disable VRR, but keep my monitor’s refresh rate at 240Hz, alt-tabbing works fine without any black screen. Similarly, if I lower my monitor’s refresh rate to something like 144Hz and keep VRR enabled, the problem doesn’t occur either.

For context:

  • My monitor, cable, and GPU all support HDMI 2.1, which should provide enough bandwidth for 3440x1440 @ 240Hz.
  • This issue does not happen when I use the same monitor and HDMI cable with an AMD GPU—it only occurs with my current 4090.

In my journalctl i see the following whenever i alt tab at high refresh rates:

(../mutter/clutter/clutter/clutter-frame-clock.c:1155):clutter_frame_clock_dispatch: code should not be reached

Thanks

2

I’ve also just tried on KDE too and i get the same results when VRR is set to automatic.

The only difference is if i set VRR to always on then it works as expected, and i don’t get a black screen when alt tabbing and VRR still functions.

Also here is my nvidia-bug-report:
nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (332.4 KB)

3

I see this issue with my 4090 on Plasma Wayland as well, also running a 240hz monitor although it’s maxed out at 120hz with adaptive sync over HDMI 2.1

5

As an update to this issue, I’ve recently switched from GNOME to KDE and have encountered an issue when waking my computer from suspend or after leaving it locked with the screen off for 10+ minutes. When the monitor turns back on, the resolution is stuck at a lower setting (e.g., 1280x720).

Checking dmesg, after unlocking the computer I notice the following errors:

[ 8577.280114] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: HDMI FRL link training failed.
[ 8577.791869] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1398750 3440 3488 3520 3600 1440 1443 1453 1619 0x20 0x9
[ 8579.462929] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1937978 3440 3760 4152 4864 1440 1441 1444 1660 0x20 0x6
[ 8579.592376] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1937978 3440 3760 4152 4864 1440 1441 1444 1660 0x20 0x6
[16367.160558] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: HDMI FRL link training failed.
[16367.671805] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1398750 3440 3488 3520 3600 1440 1443 1453 1619 0x20 0x9
[16369.331716] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1937978 3440 3760 4152 4864 1440 1441 1444 1660 0x20 0x6
[16369.470540] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1937978 3440 3760 4152 4864 1440 1441 1444 1660 0x20 0x6
[24204.827681] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: HDMI FRL link training failed.
[24205.339955] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1398750 3440 3488 3520 3600 1440 1443 1453 1619 0x20 0x9
[24207.005247] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1937978 3440 3760 4152 4864 1440 1441 1444 1660 0x20 0x6
[24207.156366] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1937978 3440 3760 4152 4864 1440 1441 1444 1660 0x20 0x6
[28724.949231] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: HDMI FRL link training failed.
[28725.469210] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] User-defined mode not supported: "3440x1440": 240 1398750 3440 3488 3520 3600 1440 1443 1453 1619 0x20 0x9
[36645.094187] nvidia-modeset: WARNING: GPU:0: HDMI FRL link training failed.

I’m posting this here because I’m assuming it’s related to the VRR issue. If I set my monitor’s refresh rate to 144Hz, I can lock and unlock it without any problems.

I am also still having the VRR issue with Driver Version: 565.77. I have also purchased a new fibre optic HDMI cable and both issues still persist.

7

Still broken with 570.86.16.

8

I have the same issue. It only happens if you turned off the screen using it’s on/off button at some point. You can fix it with “kscreen-doctor --dpms off” (it will turn off the screen) and then moving the mouse to wake the screen.