Black screen with GLX backend in default settings

[creshal]

• picom v13
• Kernel 6.18.13-arch1-1
• Mesa 26.0.1
• Openbox 3.6.1
• AMD Radeon RX 9070

Picom started blackscreening after updating it, so I nuked all my config files thinking I had some legacy option set that broke it. Nope. Even with /etc/xdg/picom.conf wiped as well and running only picom --backend glx I get a black screen; the system is responsive and the mouse cursor still properly chances shape when I hover over a terminal window, so it seems to be "just" a rendering glitch?

• GLXInfo finds the GPU: glxinfo.txt
• picom running with trace logging for ~1 second before I ^C it, after confirming it blackscreens: picom.trace.txt

[AaravTheGreatest]

I had the same issue, with nearly the same gpu (9060xt), it works with xrender's backend for me. I want the glx features like dual_kawase, though lol

[creshal]

I just want games to not lose 20% FPS, I'm not doing anything else with it. :(

[yshui]

hmm, nothing is wrong in the log. could be a driver problem?

does picom --backend egl make a difference at all?

[creshal]

egl shows exactly the same symptoms as glx.

I don't have a good way of downgrading mesa and everything depending on it right now, but kernel 6.12.74 and picom 12.5 show the same symptoms, and I upgraded to mesa 26.0.1 (from 25.3.5) at the same time as I upgraded picom, so it does sound like a mesa issue (or mesa fixed a driver bug that broke workarounds for the bug, wouldn't be the first time).

[yshui]

this is tricky, not sure what information i can ask for, and everything works over here.

does picom prints anything to the terminal (besides the logs)? is there anything interesting in /var/log/Xorg.*?

[authorisation]

egl shows exactly the same symptoms as glx.

I don't have a good way of downgrading mesa and everything depending on it right now, but kernel 6.12.74 and picom 12.5 show the same symptoms, and I upgraded to mesa 26.0.1 (from 25.3.5) at the same time as I upgraded picom, so it does sound like a mesa issue (or mesa fixed a driver bug that broke workarounds for the bug, wouldn't be the first time).

I had the exact same issue, however it was only happening to me in video games, seemingly games using DX12 but upon retesting it right now, it only happen with egl while xrender and glx work now. Not sure if this requires a separate issue as this one seems similar but here is a video recording of it happening in Resident Evil requiem.

Killing picom while the game is running fixes it, and starting picom after the game has launched also prevents the black screen from happening.

2026-03-02_15-01-18.mp4

Log file is 40MB big, had to keep it running for a little bit so the game could start up.
picom.trace.log.tgz

[ErlanRG]

I’m experiencing the same issue. I’ve tried switching to other backends, but none of them work properly for me:

• egl and glx: black screen
• xrender: very low frame rates, making it unusable

I followed the same steps as @creshal, but I’m still getting black screens.

[yshui]

@ErlanRG

xrender: very low frame rates, making it unusable

if you are using xrender you want to turn off blur and shadow.

[yshui]

can any of you try downgrading mesa? and is there anything interesting in /var/log/Xorg.log?

[absolutelynothelix]

i’d also look into dmesg after the black screen, amdgpu may print something interesting there

[creshal]

• dmesg: Nothing
• xorg.log: Nothing with TearFree enabled, with TearFree disabled I get the usual page flip warning but it makes no difference.

And I must stress again that this isn't a "driver crashed" black screen: It's literally just a black texture overlaying all windows. The mouse cursor still is visible, and it changes shape between regular/text/button cursors, and tools rendering over the root window also work:

• scrot can still lock the screen, and displays its lock/typing/wrong password screens just fine
• flameshot still displays its screenshot overlay and all its controls just fine, except all they're capturing is a black texture

Downgrading mesa for a quick test was less painful than expected, though:

• 26.0.0 shows the same symptoms
• 25.3.5 works fine

Next step would be building 25.3.6 (arch never packaged it) and then either bisecting between it and 23.3.5 (if .6 also breaks) or 26.0.0 (if .6 works), but building mesa looks non trivial, dunno when I'll have time for it.

[yshui]

oh yeah, if you can bisect mesa that will be awesome. tysm.

[authorisation]

And I must stress again that this isn't a "driver crashed" black screen: It's literally just a black texture overlaying all windows.

I'm pretty confident of this happening to my issue above aswell, opening the Steam Overlay works and the cursor changes but there is just a black overlay rendered on top of it. Downgrading mesa didn't do anything though.

[creshal]

As far as I understand it, Steam can roll its own mesa build depending on how you install it, Help → Steam Runtime Diagnostics tells you what version it's using internally.