Cinnamon: Disappearing Panel Fonts

What kernel version are you all running? On LM i have only seen this issue when using a 4.4 series kernel. My laptop has intel integrated graphics - interesting to hear that it affects nVidia and AMD/ATI.

My solution for LM17.3 is to stick on the 3.13 kernel series.

I'm running Cinnamon under Debian Jessie. my Kernel's version is 3.16

@chrisonhub

What kernel version are you all running?

4.4.0-47-generic 68-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 26 19:39:52 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

@Neowizard
interesting - I didnt see this issue with 3.19 (linux mint 17.1 and 17.2). When i upgraded to kernel 4.4.0 on LM17.3 and also LM18.0, I regularly saw these graphical problems after waking from sleep or switching between active user sessions.

@Redsandro
I rolled back to LM17.3 (thank god for backups!) after trying LM18. I also saw the "invisible mouse" problem, which is one of the known issues with LM18 and intel graphics.

Very disappointed - I was looking forward to the new cinnamon and 16.04 ubuntu base. I cannot upgrade until this is fixed and it looks like the bugs have been around since 2015 so I have little hope in them being fixed quickly. Thankfully LM17 is supported for another couple of years.

This also affects icons 'painted' by Cinnamon in certain circumstances

@feren thanks for bringing these threads together. This bug has been around for 2 years now, any idea who can help fix it?

Not at all sure

Linux Mint 18.1 is out. I'll upgrade when I have the time. Perhaps it fixes the infinite shutting down of doom bug. Rolling back is never a good workaround when other bugs are only fixed when moving forward.

Someone (Patrick G) suggested that removing the xserver-xorg-video-intel package worked, I got a message but dont think their post is visible on the website.

@Redsandro when you upgrade, please report back on LM18.1 and if removing this package helps.

I am on Linux Mint 18.1, and I am experiencing the same issue: no text on Cinnamon applets after a suspend.

@chrisonhub I would try that, but could you provide some instructions on what to expect? If I remove the graphics driver, and end up in text mode, then sure, I will be unaffected by the bug, but it still doesn't sound like a solution. :smile:

@DavidNemeskey supposedly removing this driver will allow linux to fall-back to the other video driver built into the kernel. it was mentioned on the Arch forums, I cant remember where at the moment.

What will happen? Maybe you will be dumped to text mode. Maybe this issue will be magically fixed. Someone is going to have to try it and report back!

If you do try this, make sure you have a backup.
If you get dumped to text mode, then surely you could use apt to reinstall the xserver package and reboot?

LM18 was so bad for me I am still running 17.3 - I have a second hard disk i can swap into my laptop to try this all out on, but i have been too busy!

@chrisonhub OK, removing the package indeed solved the problem. But what am I using now, then? :smile:

$ sudo lshw -c video
[sudo] password for david: 
  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:30 memory:f7800000-f7bfffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:f000(size=64)

$ uname -a
Linux XXX 4.4.0-47-generic #68-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 26 19:39:52 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I thought the driver I removed _was_ i915, so maybe it's only a different version? But how can I find out the version number, anyway? Will reinstall the package tomorrow to see if the output is any different.

_Purging the xserver-xorg-video-intel package did NOT solve the bug for me and introduced regressions._ I'm running Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64bit and have no custom configuration files in /etc/X11/.

Here's what the package description says:

$ apt-cache show xserver-xorg-video-intel
 The use of this driver is discouraged if your hw is new enough (ca.
 2007 and newer). You can try uninstalling this driver and let the
 server use it's builtin modesetting driver instead.

My graphics hardware is from 2010.
sudo lshw -c video output is no different before and after removing the package. inxi -G no longer display any loaded drivers (before: intel), just the unloaded ones which haven't changed (fbdev, vesa).
The regression after purging the package is in the form of a screen flicker, as if caused by bad vsync. I can reproduce the regression consistently in this way: switch to a gnome-terminal window and immediately type something, the whole screen flickers.
There may be other regressions as well, I've been running without the package only for a short time, but will probably install it back soon to get rid of the flicker.

Disappearing text on the panel and in applet menus still persists regardless. __I can reproduce the bug__ every time within seconds by switching between songs in Audacious _while MPRIS 2 Server is enabled_ in the Audacious plugin settings (required for player integration with the sound applet), and it doesn't make a difference whether the sound applet actually has or does not have "Control Players" setting enabled. I've tried the same song-switching test in VLC and Xplayer and the bug doesn't happen. Edit: I now tried the same test in Clementine and the bug _does_ happen as well.
Something must be happening in the interaction between Cinnamon on the one hand, and Audacious' and Clementine's use of MPRIS on the other. It seems pretty strange that MPRIS alone would cause a graphical bug in Cinnamon's panel.

The Media Player Remote Interfacing Specification is a standard D-Bus interface which aims to provide a common programmatic API for controlling media players.

https://specifications.freedesktop.org/mpris-spec/latest/

One thing that is common to both Audacious and Clementine is that their processes persist after closing their windows despite explicitly disabling such settings, and even SIGKILL (!) isn't able to kill them. This seems to be due to MPRIS, I think sound applet is keeping them alive through it and blocking any signals to those processes. Restarting Cinnamon with cinnamon --replace then finally kills those processes, but not if you restart Cinnamon via panel right-click menu instead.

I completely forgot this panel font bug exists when I was still using 17.3 just two weeks ago because I had disabled MPRIS server in Audacious on that system for some reason, and nothing else triggered it in the whole year since 17.3 was released.

Sorry for my English.
Every time I use Clementine or Rhythmbox this problem occurs: the panel letters disappear. And the interface of some applications also disappears, such as Transmission and System Monitor.
Today the computer crashed with the Clementine application.
I'm leaving Ubuntu for Debian Cinnamon, but this problem is bothering me a lot. I just can not hear music.

@dqgls can you check what Kernel you are running in Mint 17.3? The only one still getting security updates is the 3.13 series and this is running really well for me. I see this bug when using newer versions of the Kernel. Try rolling back to the 3.13.102 or whatever is the newest and see if the bug persists.

@chrisonhub I experienced the issue straightway when LM 17.3 came out in December 2015, so it's not just newer kernels, although I think the first kernel on Rosa was 3.16 so I will try 3.13 later.

If I remember correctly it was LM 17.3 that introduced "Control players" feature with Cinnamon 2.8. At that time I immediately noticed a correlation between song change in Audacious and DE integration (desktop notifications, album art change in sound applet, etc...), so I just turned off a bunch of stuff instead of investigating more closely, and then completely forgot about the issue which never appeared ever again.

Switching from 17.3 to 18.1 I decided to enable player integration in the sound applet, and everything was fine for a while, but then it started appearing again fairly often.

Some albums trigger it after a few song changes, others almost never, and after some testing I'm now fairly certain that it's connected to album art data (song tags, whether normal or unusual, don't make any difference whatsoever). But it's not just a few albums either. Note that album art can be embedded into audio file metadata itself instead of existing as a separate image file. So far albums that cause problems are such.

I tried putting COGL_ATLAS_DEFAULT_BLIT_MODE=framebuffer in /etc/environment (see https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=913425#c7), and then couldn't reproduce the issue at all with those same albums that trigger it quickly. But after about 24 hours of uptime the issue reappeared and could again be reproduced within seconds on each attempt.

Right now I'm back on 17.3, which has the same pattern as 18.1: the issue appears only if MPRIS is enabled, anything else doesn't make a difference. Desktop notifications don't cause it either. What I find strange is that, as far as I understand, MPRIS itself has nothing to do with graphics manipulation (it only sends album art as any other data), and that it's not just Audacious but Clementine too, and @Sashz reports Rhythmbox as well.

And to repeat again, whether "control players" feature is enabled or not, whether album art is actually shown on the panel or not, all this makes no difference. The reason why I suspect sound applet regardless is that when a player has MPRIS enabled Cinnamon doesn't let that player's process die until Cinnamon itself is restarted via --replace option.

When I have more time I will test Audacious + MPRIS on 17.2 as well, which I don't think had the sound applet integration yet.

@Sashz can you do the following:

• look around Rhythmbox for any settings that mention MPRIS, remote control, servers, etc., and try turning off those settings
• if you suspect certain albums or songs then look if they have embedded album art: navigate to their directory and see if those audio files themselves have album art thumbnails

@dqgls I just grabbed an album from Amazon MP3, which appears to have album art embedded. I only have Banshee installed, but it does have the MPRIS-dbus plugin active. They didnt trigger the bug for me, but I only did limited testing. I am on Kernel 3.13.0-100 (latest is -106)

I skipped tracks in Banshee and also using the Cinnamon applet.

@dqgls regarding the flicker, have you tried adding
CLUTTER_PAINT=disable-clipped-redraws:disable-culling
to your etc/environment ?

I have stumbled across more information on this bug - people have seen the same issue in MATE, intermittently - https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=186783

One comment in the thread: found that switching to the UXA backend fixed the problem: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_graphics#SNA_issues

In other news, Debian now defaults to using the Modesetting driver, not the intel one:
https://tjaalton.wordpress.com/2016/07/23/intel-graphics-gen4-and-newer-now-defaults-to-modesetting-driver-on-x/

Mint 17.3 with the 3.13-106 kernel and everything runs fine, no sign of this bug.

LM 18.1 clean install on Intel machine with Intel graphics. I have the problem after switching external screen. I closed the lid on the notebook, unplugged the TV, walked to a different room, plugged in a HDMI monitor, and opened the lid. Problem is only in the Cinnamon bar at the bottom and the menu. Not in any apps.

Not fixed by changing monitor configuration.

the same problem here, but not every time and on Mate not Cinnamon; once on four, five times.
Config:
Thinkpad T-430s
Release Linux Mint 18 Sarah 64-bit
Kernel Linux 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64
MATE 1.14.1
3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller version 0.9 Driver: "i915"

Can you test with Linux kernel 4.8 or later? Some people are claiming that this has been fixed in kernel version 4.8. You can try installing package linux-image-lowlatency-hwe-16.0 or linux-generic-hwe-16.04.

The problem occurred on my work and study machine. I cannot afford to do anything drastic for a month or two. My current approach is to shutdown before shutting the lid.

@mikkorantalainen
Kernel 4.8 seems to work for me. Even internet connection works fine after wake up. For me is almost closed issue (I would like to wait for a week or two to conclude it with certainty).

(how) Can I test this relatively pain-free or will all kinds of software break? Now running 4.4.0-59-generic.

@Redsandro
I've tested by installing linux-image-lowlatency-16.04 - and in general whole distro works fine, and only VirtualBox had some problems. But due the fact that I work with VB in daily routine I removed this version and working right now with old one. And I had version 4.4.0-21-generic - so it was older than yours.
For me it was almost "pain free" :)

@ip413 - why did you use the lowlatency kernel...?

You should use the standard "generic" kernel, since that's the analogue to the 4.4.0-21 kernel you have been using:

sudo apt install linux-image-generic-hwe-16.04

As of right now that will install the 4.8.0-39-generic kernel...

@mikkorantalainen - Is there a reason to use the lowlatency kernel in this case? Isn't that just throwing in another variable?

@mainmachine
I installed this packed without thinking, for me it is "the same thing". But this could be significant, and I tested generic version and for the issue the result is the same - it seems to work fine. But, my wifi connection is dead - lowlatency kernel worked better here - maybe this means something, maybe not.

4.8.0-41-generic hard locks my laptop.

Simply running command

sudo apt install linux-generic-hwe-16.04

in terminal window and restarting the computer should fix the problem. In case of problems, you can select older kernel (4.4.x) from grub boot menu (if system does not work at all) and remove the latest kernel package with

sudo apt remove linux-generic-hwe-16.04

The generic 4.8 kernel should be good enough if you just want to avoid the rendering problems. I find that lowlatency kernel works all around better for me (better performance overall in addition to improved latency).

(The last time I had any issues caused by lowlatency kernel was a couple of years ago when I tried to use lowlatency kernel with Virtualbox. Virtualbox kernel drivers have since been fixed and 5.x series works just fine with lowlatency kernel.)

@ip413 which version of Virtualbox are you using? I'm currently using Virtualbox (version 5.1.16-113841~Ubuntu~xenial) with hwe lowlatency kernel and it works just fine.

According to https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1633207#p1633207 it seems that this bug is caused by some unidentified change in Linux kernel 4.3 or 4.4 and fixed around version 4.6. If somebody can easily reproduce this bug and knows how to do kernel bisect (or is willing to learn) pinpointing the exact change might allow fixing the issue in default generic kernel, too. I can reproduce this bug randomly around once in 5 days so I cannot figure the exact cause.

@mikkorantalainen
My VB is 5.1.2 r108956 (Mint/Mate)- the problem is probably only about rebuilding virtualbox-dkms. VB works in fact, but all images are not working at all, I get some awful errors.

4.8.0.41 was sitting there in Linux Mint Update Manager. Click. It is installed. No visible changes or problems. I will test with the plugging in and out of monitors/TVs, etc.

I don't have 4.8.0.41 in update manager :) - anyway I tried 4.8 but I can't make my VirtualBox images working. I going back to old, "good" 4.4.0

Trying out 4.8.0-41-generic #44~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP from linux-image-generic-hwe-16.04 now. Give it a week or so before I can make a judgment.

Remember, for VirtualBox support, you need to compile the virtualbox-dkms using linux header files. E.g. (reboot with the hwe kernel first and then):

sudo apt install linux-headers-generic-hwe-16.04
sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms

And reboot your VM. Saved states don't work. Everything works for me, even saved states.

@mikkorantalainen is there a performance benefit to VirtualBox using the lowlatency kernel? Or are you in audio?

Can someone, for my sanity, explain what hwe means? _"Hlatest Wlinux Ekernel"_?

@Redsandro Hardware Enablement Kernel

HWE = https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

The reason lowlatency improves overall system performance is that kernel has more changes to run tasks in paraller. For example, lowlatency kernel can run waiting tasks during short idle periods while waiting for IO device. Generic kernel could also start running the same task but it cannot interrupt task processing as fast as lowlatency kernel and as a result, IO device may end up waiting for CPU time is another task has been started on CPU. If your system runs less paraller tasks than you have CPU cores, this does not apply to you. However, if your system is busy but all tasks are not CPU limited, lowlatency kernel usually improves things.

Technically lowlatency kernel sacrifices some CPU throughput to improve overall system latency. If you're mining bitcoin on CPU or running HPC code generic kernel is better. For the normal people, lowlatency kernel is usually better.

After saying that, generic kernel has probably been tested more so some more exotic hardware may work better with generic kernel. The ability to interrupt pretty much any task any time will put more requirements on driver quality. As a result, poor quality hardware drivers may work better with generic kernel. If kernel driver does not contain bugs, it will work with lowlatency kernel just fine.

I am on debian 8 and I added a 4.9 kernel via Jessie backports and as well cinnamon 3. Things look good will wait a week to see if the issue is gone. apt-get install -t jessie-backports linux-image-.... to get it installed. Of course you have to add Jessie backports to your apt sources.list and run apt-update first. BTW the rt kernel did not work well at all for me.

@feren @mikkorantalainen thanks for helping me stay sane. 10 years linux and I had never heard of it. Please don't tell anyone.

For the normal people, lowlatency kernel is usually better.

This is interesting, because everyone gets generic for free, and only the technically anointed get to do lowlatency.

I have this issue as well. I see that you have been working on it for years now. Is there a resolution in site?

@Redsandro generic is the default because it has better compatibility with different hardware. As I wrote above, if driver quality for your hardware is bad, lowlatency kernel will cause problems (driver not working at all, random system lockups or random errors such as dropping packets for NIC). If lowlatency does work, it's usually better choice. However, casual users would have hard time changing the kernel if default kernel did not work with their hardware.

@Flyweightt Did you test -lowlatency or -rt kernel? I'm asking because Ubuntu no longer has -rt kernel at all and -lowlatency kernel is just PREEMPT instead of hard realtime (like the old -rt kernel in older ubuntu versions was).

The problems seem to be permanently gone using kernel 4.8.0. However, ecryptfs is now broken.

See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1682410

Shall we close this issue once Linux Mint ever gets Kernel 4.8.0? I know that'll be a while, but still...

Ubuntu 16.04.2 will be released with Kernel 4.8 and that will be the LTS supported kernel. I guess that will mean it will become available to LM sometime soon, maybe when 18.2 comes out.

At least for Ubuntu, you can see their Kernel and LTS plans here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/RollingLTSEnablementStack

I 'm sad to report that I have this issue with a 4.8 kernel :(

From a fresh install of Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya, on a recently acquired Toshiba Satellite A100 laptop (old laptop but new to me, so no older comparison points).

uname -sr
Linux 4.8.0-53-generic

cinnamon --version
Cinnamon 3.4.3

glxinfo | grep -i vendor
server glx vendor string: SGI client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI Vendor: X.Org R300 Project (0x1002) OpenGL vendor string: X.Org R300 Project

lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV515/M54 [Mobility Radeon X1400]

I did an upgrade from my working 18.1/4.8 to 18.2 and the problem did not resurface. Have not tried fresh install. Will not try fresh install until this problem fixed.

In nearly three years no one has posted logging or a backtrace for the issue, closing it as 'Insufficient info' is provided!

@leigh123linux I haven't seen any requests here about logging or backtrace, nor instructions how to produce one. People uploaded e.g. screenshots or the relevant part of the output of lshw, so maybe if you had asked for it, people would have provided said info...

I guess this is fixed in LM 18.2, as I've never got the bug since 18.1...

@DavidNemeskey

A few sceenshots and some random hardware info is useless when trying to find code issues.
We shouldn't be expected to ask for logs to be provided, could you imagine how long it would take to respond to 30+ reports asking for this basic info?
I used to see this issue occasionally with my T410 using Fedora 21 - 22 , the user logs didn't show anything related to the issue.
I haven't seen the issue on the T410 since updating to newer Fedora which indicates an issue in the Ubuntu graphics stack.
FTR I spent time trying the steps provided to reproduce, none of them produced the issue.

For those on mint 18.2 using newer Intel hardware could try removing the intel legacy driver and switch to modesetting driver instead

sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel

reboot

P.S 18.2 radeon users could also try modesetting driver as well, I have no idea how to switch to it.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Radeon-Modesetting-DDX-Xenial

@leigh123linux You could always provide a link to a page somewhere (e.g. in the central README.md) that describes what information you would like to see for each report. I would gladly provide any info I can, but it's difficult without knowing what you might be needing.

The logs not providing enough data is of course, another matter altogether. It is also a bummer that you could not reproduce it, but before removing the driver, I could, consistently, with logging in and out, so at that point I could have acquired any info. If it turned out to be an Ubuntu bug, we would have been in a better position to file it upstream.

I have this issue frequently running LM Cinnamon 18.0 Sarah - usually once or twice a week, almost always when the computer wakes up after opening the lid. Kernel version 4.4, on a Toshiba Satellite C55-B5355. If someone could point me to the location of the log file I will post, but I haven't got the first clue where to find it.

As @allenerenee, I'd gladly provide more useful info.
Until instructed how to do so, I'm using the workaround cited by leigh123linux:

sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel

@allenerenee this is fixed in Kernel 4.8 (linux-generic-hwe) and 4.10 (linux-generic-hwe-edge) as first referenced by @mikkorantalainen

sudo apt install linux-image-generic-hwe-16.04

@allenerenee, there is syslog in /var/log/syslog. You can open Nemo, the file lister, and browse syslog using the text editor. Find the time where you closed the list and the time when you opened the lid.

To keep the log small, you could close every application, wait a minute, close the list, open, then select syslog. That section of the log will be free from distracting application related messages.

@Redsandro this is not fixed in kernel 4.8, see one of my previous comment.

The workaround cited by leigh123linux does not work. I tried it for a few days before commenting back and it was fine. Then I used Wine and I suspect it triggered the bug again. Will try to test and post relevant syslog.

@raph82 I hear you. I wonder if there are two or more different causes for the same problem.

For me the problem does very clearly not occur on 4.8 or 4.10. When I switch back to 4.4, the problem is back immediately. "Something" is fixed for my hardware configuration quite observably so.

I've upgraded to a 4.10 kernel a few days ago and since I did not see this bug.

Funny how it's only after I post "it works again" messages that bugs resurface.
I've seen it yesterday in Nemo and today on the panel, both times after waking up the computer (reopening the lid).
In syslog I found lines about corrupted memory. The time frames seem to match the bug.
I'm attaching screen captures (including one with others, possibly related, bugs) and logs.
Does this report help?

toshiba-syslog-2017-08-13.log.txt
toshiba-syslog-2017-08-14.log.txt

@raph82: I'm having a pretty severe case of this issue right now, but I don't see the words 'memory' or 'corrupt' in /var/log/syslog. Can you tell me the exact messages you're seeing? I'm just curious if your memory issues are related to the problem we're both apparently having.

I just typed grep -i '\(memory\|corrupt\)' /var/log/syslog /var/log/kern.log /var/log/auth.log /var/log/Xorg.*, which should cover all the files in /var/log that were changed today, and it didn't come up with anything interesting. I don't have a Toshiba, though, so there's no 'toshiba-syslog-*' file on my system.

In case any expert on how Mint or Cinnamon render fonts is watching this bug but not #3811, I refer them to the comment I just posted there. I found that the issue isn't quite as simple as 'sometimes, the number 2 and letter Q stops rendering for a particular font'; the size, colour and whether the window has focus apparently affects which characters are rendered. This is a pretty debilitating issue on my system, so I'm happy to help try to solve it. (It'd be nice to minimise how often I have to reboot my system, though. ☺)

By the time I got the response how to find it, I'd upgraded to the 4.10 kernel and haven't had this issue since.

On October 12, 2017 10:04:25 AM EDT, Michael Scheper notifications@github.com wrote:

@raph82: I'm having a pretty severe case of this issue right now, but I
don't see the words 'memory' or 'corrupt' in /var/log/syslog. Can you
tell me the exact messages you're seeing? I'm just curious if your
memory issues are related to the problem we're both apparently having.

I just typed grep -i '\(memory\|corrupt\)' /var/log/syslog /var/log/kern.log /var/log/auth.log /var/log/Xorg.*, which should
cover all the files in /var/log that were changed today, and it
didn't come up with anything interesting. I don't have a Toshiba,
though, so there's no 'toshiba-syslog-*' file on my system.

--
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3442#issuecomment-336147375

--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Thanks, @allenerenee. I've seen reports that updating to 4.8 doesn't fix the problem, but I'll try 4.10.

@mscheper: the (possibly) relevant messages in the previously attached syslogs are:
Corrupted low memory
Memory corruption detected in low memory

IIRC those come from /var/log/syslog; toshiba-syslog* was the filenames I gave the extracts.

By the way I'm using 4.10 since August.

I just signed up to Github to make posts here...
I am having this trouble of text disappearing on the taskbar and menus - specifically when I use Clementine, the music player.

OS:
Linux Mint 18.2 64
Cinnamon 3.4.6
Kernel 4.10.0-38-generic

Hardware
Toshiba Tecra A11-12F
i3 M330 2.13ghz
Graphics - generic driver - (presumably intel graphics)

One fix, as suggested much earlier in this thread, is to do
gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor 1.1
followed by
gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor 1

For some people, it seems that subsequent kernel and other updates solved this, but it's still happening on my system.

Greets!
As like Heycharger, I joined to post regarding the same issue. My taskbar and menus do exactly the same (screenshot would be same as 'xhpohanka' posted back on on 13 Apr 2015).

I've done a few time consuming experiments to see where the issue may lie. I'm no tech wizard, although am mildly competent at getting around with the help of Google and various threads, and it seems in my case this issue occurs when I am running any type of audio player. I've tried VLC, Banshee, Clementine and Audacious and ran out of patience.

It's been suggested that this could be a graphics issue. Personally I don't see how this is the root cause as nothing else seems to create the issue. When using VLC to play video files, I've left the application running for a few hours with no change to the taskbar & menus, yet when I play audio (through VLC) the problem arises within 30 minutes of using the application. Again, this issue happens solely with the use of applications when playing audio files (WAV, FLAC & Mp3 specifically).

Not knowing anything about programming or writing scripts/code, I can't suggest a work around. However, may I be so incredibly bold as to suggest that the issue may be a conflict between audio and graphics somewhere (??) This issue never occurred with Ubuntu, only with Mint. Would be nice to get this one solved...

Lenovo ThinkPad-T410
Kernel: 4.10.0-40-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.4.6 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3) dm: lightdm Distro: Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i5 M 520 (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
Graphics: Card: Intel Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0046
Audio: Card Intel 5 Series/3400 Series High Definition Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:3b56
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.10.0-40-generic

Clementine produces the scrambled taskbar effect. Years this is bothering me. Different versions of mint and clementine.
Linux mint 17.3 cinnamon 2.8.8, clementine 1.3.1 Thinkpad T410. Intel onboard graphics.
LMDE 3 "Cindy" cinnamon 3.8.9 same bug. Some files in clementine and strawberry mess up my menu and taskbar. For listening music cinnamon is a pain. Restarting cinnamon every theme. I like strawberry (clementine fork) and clementine for their database handling. In VLC does not happen, all ok. I don't like mate or Xcfe. It's probably cinnamon bug.
sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel does not change anything.
log says: Error while parsing CSS Style (Line:1 1, character: 38): Using Pango syntax for the font: style property is deprecated; please use CSS syntax
Error while parsing CSS Style (Line:1 1, character: 26): not a number
Don't know if that's connected.
Where to communicate with cinnamon developers?

log says: Error while parsing CSS Style (Line:1 1, character: 38): Using Pango syntax for the font: style property is deprecated; please use CSS syntax
Error while parsing CSS Style (Line:1 1, character: 26): not a number

@Shankaraya that looks like a theme parsing error caused by a property like font: bold or something like that. Can you reproduce with the default theme?

Changed to mate desktop. Even deleted cinnamon.