X server crashes when switching display Scale (100%/200%/300%/400%) on L4T R38.4

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson Systems Jetson Thor
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1

Hi Nvidia team,

I found a display bug on my Jetson running L4T R38.4 (JetPack 7.1).

I can reproduce it every time.

My setup:

# cat /etc/nv_tegra_release
# R38 (release), REVISION: 4.0, GCID: 43443517, BOARD: generic, EABI: aarch64, DATE: Wed Dec 31 00:15:19 UTC 2025
# KERNEL_VARIANT: oot
INSTALL_TYPE=openrm
  • Session type: X11
  • Tested 4K monitor: Dell S2721QS
  • Tested 1080P monitor: ASUS VA249HE

What happens:

Go to Settings → Displays → Scale, and switch between the percentages (100% / 200% / 300% / 400%). After switching, the Settings window leaves a “ghost” trail when I try to drag it. Then the whole window becomes unresponsive — I can’t click anything, and I can’t minimize, maximize, or close it. The screen is basically frozen.

image
image1803×1097 251 KB

How to reproduce:

  1. Open Settings → Displays.
  2. Switch the Scale value (for example 200% → 100%).
  3. The screen freezes with a ghost image, and I can’t click or move any window.

Notes:

  • The 4K monitor is easier to trigger this.
  • On the 1080P monitor, I can trigger it if I first make the Settings window smaller by hand, then switch Scale from 200% to 100%.
  • A reboot fixes it. If I repeat the steps, the problem comes back. It is 100% reproducible.

What I checked:

The system itself is still alive after the freeze — SSH still works, and CPU is idle (not stuck at 100%). gnome-shell process is still running.

I tried to restart the shell with gnome-shell --replace (with DISPLAY=:1 and the correct XAUTHORITY), but it fails immediately because the X server is already gone:

XIO:  fatal IO error 0 (Success) on X server ":1"
      after 9359 requests (9359 known processed) with 0 events remaining.
[1]+  Exit 1                  gnome-shell --replace

The X server itself seems to go down when I change the Scale. I’ve attached the full Xorg log in case it helps.

Xorg_crash.log (25.3 KB)

Is there any fix or workaround so switching Scale doesn’t crash the X server?

Thanks a lot for any help.

3

Hi,
Would suggest upgrade to Jetpack 7.2 r39.2. Some issues are found and fixed in later releases.

4

Hi DaneLLL,

Thanks for the reply. I understand newer releases may include fixes, but upgrading to JetPack 7.2 (r39.2) is not an easy option for us right now, and I’d like to explain our situation.

We are shipping our product on JetPack 7.1 (L4T R38.4) to our customer, so we cannot switch to 7.2 in the short term. On top of that, we use a custom carrier board, so we can’t just flash a stock JetPack image — every BSP update requires us to merge and adjust changes for our board first. Jumping a whole minor release is a significant effort on our side.

Also, “upgrade to 7.2” doesn’t tell us whether this specific issue is actually fixed there. Before we commit to that effort, we’d really like to understand the root cause.

So could you help us with the following:

  1. Can you point us to the specific fix / commit / patch for this X server crash on Scale change? If we can identify the change, we can try to cherry-pick / merge it into our R38.4 tree and verify whether it resolves the issue on our board.
  2. If a backport to R38.4 is possible, that would be the ideal path for us. If it isn’t, knowing exactly what was changed still helps us confirm 7.2 will fix it before we invest in the upgrade.
  3. Is there any temporary workaround on R38.4 in the meantime (for example an Xorg option or config) to avoid the crash when switching Scale?

We’re happy to test any patch or debug build on our side and report back with logs. Thanks a lot for your help.

5

@DaneLLL

Just checking in on this issue. Any updates or progress?

6

Hi,
Do you observe the issue on AGX Thor developer kit with Jetpack 7.2(r39.2)?

7

Hi,

We haven’t tested 7.2 on our custom board. We’re currently on 7.1 (R38.4).

10

Hi,
This looks to be a bug in Ubuntu:
Bug #1924689 “Window border corruption after changing display sc...” : Bugs : mutter package : Ubuntu

We set up AGX Thor developer kit with Jetson_Linux_R38.4.0_aarch64.tbz2 + Tegra_Linux_Sample-Root-Filesystem_R39.2.0_aarch64.tbz2 and the issue is not seen. Please give it a try.