Missing pixels in single line and column

jwt27

Since 2 days now I noticed that there is a single line and a single row of pixels missing, directly in the center of the window, in a crosshair shape. I find it very distracting.

On some pages it goes away briefly when clicking some UI elements, or right-clicking to bring up the context menu.
The issue also disappears when the window is maximized.

You can clearly see it here on this crosshatch pattern, from
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/sharpness.php:

More examples:

Version/flags:

Vivaldi	5.6.2867.50 (Stable channel) (64-bit) 
Revision	30007b46836fcb1b1c6e4f750e7804c408822d8f
OS	Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (Build 7601.24544)
JavaScript	V8 10.8.168.22
User Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/108.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Command Line	"D:\Program Files\Vivaldi\Application\vivaldi.exe" --disable-oop-rasterization --flag-switches-begin --enable-gpu-rasterization --enable-quic --enable-webgl-draft-extensions --enable-zero-copy --enable-smooth-scrolling --top-chrome-touch-ui=disabled --use-angle=d3d11 --enable-features=BackForwardCache,EnableDrDc,ParallelDownloading,RawDraw,WebAssemblyBaseline --disable-features=CanvasOopRasterization --flag-switches-end --save-page-as-mhtml

Pathduck

@jwt27 Hello and Welcome to the Vivaldi Community

I don't see that at all, not on the test page and nowhere else. I'm on Win10 x64.

My guess is some GPU issue on your system - or one of the many experimental flags you've enabled. Why do you have all those flags set?

I'd start with removing all those flags. Then add them back one by one.
Note that enabling flags is global for all user profiles, so you'll need to remove them, creating a new profile won't help.

The default flags for Vivaldi are:
--flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end --save-page-as-mhtml

Also, have you tested in other browsers?

Please try the troubleshooting steps:
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/troubleshoot/troubleshooting-issues/

jwt27

@Pathduck Hi, and thanks!

Those flags helped improve performance, especially OOP rasterization made the browser very slow at one point. Not sure if they're still necessary, haven't touched them in a while.

I disabled them now, but the issue still remains. Also I don't see this issue on either Chrome or Firefox.

Pathduck

@jwt27 OK first disable all flags (like you've done), and double-check in Help > About that the command line is standard.

Then do the rest of the troubleshooting steps, including testing in a clean profile and disabling all extensions.
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/troubleshoot/troubleshooting-issues/

The point is you need to exclude any and all potential causes one by one. Best way to do that is testing in a completely clean profile.

jwt27

@Pathduck Okay, no flags, no extensions, on guest profile: didn't change anything...

What did help, was disabling hardware acceleration. No surprises there, I guess. But of course it makes everything super slow, so that's not a solution.

Also, while maximizing the window does resolve the issue, I noticed that manually resizing the window to fit the screen does not have the same effect.

mib2berlin

@jwt27
Hi, some user report to use the flag

--disable-gpu-rasterization

Enable HW acceleration again and start Vivaldi from a terminal with this switch or us the the flag in Vivaldi.
Some user need to disable it some to enable it, try to disable it first.

Cheers, mib

DoctorG

@jwt27 Open vivaldi://flags , reset all flags and restart.

Vivaldi 5.6 Stable does not set such command line parameters by default.

jwt27

@mib2berlin Thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately it didn't help...

Another thing I tried is enabling "native window" mode - when I do that, I'm getting these missing pixel lines all over the screen!

I see others here reporting issues with window size since the last update. While I don't see that on my end, I'm thinking it could be related. Eg. if Vivaldi renders a 1000x1000 px window, but the actual window size is 999x999, it has to scale down and discard one line and one column of pixels, which happens to be right in the center. In the native-window mode there is a double border, so the difference between render surface and window size is larger, and more pixels are dropped.

Should also mention, I use the "Windows Classic" theme (win2k style). That could be relevant too in calculating window sizes.

mib2berlin

@jwt27
Hi, I know people don't like to hear that, but Vivaldi 5.7 will be the last version for Windows 7.
Even when you report this as bug, I guess this will not be fixed in time.
Some user report issues with Intel Xe and Nvidia GPU, this was about VSync settings on Nvidia, for example. Can you add your GPU device, please?

Cheers, mib

jwt27

@mib2berlin Dropping Win7 support would be very unfortunate... If that is the case, is it possible to downgrade to 5.7?

As for my graphics cards, I have 2x Titan X in SLI.

mib2berlin

@jwt27
We are at Vivaldi 5.6.2867.50 at moment, so it need 3-4 weeks for the next stable Vivaldi 5.7.
I dont´t think 5.8 does not work an 7, it is not supported for bug fixing, security updates and so forth anymore.
2x Titan is a huge rig! You can try to disable VSync in the Nvidia settings. This is mainly used for gaming, search a bit about.
Iirc, you can add profiles for applications in the settings, if the setting collide with gaming you can create a profile for Vivaldi.

Cheers, mib

jwt27

@mib2berlin Sorry, for some reason I thought the current version is 5.8.

Can't say I see much of a difference with vsync on or off. I've never seen that work properly in a browser window anyway.

What I can report is that, when I change to the Windows 7 Aero theme, the missing pixel problem is resolved - but now the window is too big when maximized. So the two issues are clearly related.

mib2berlin

@jwt27
Hm, you can try to install the snapshot version 5.7, there was some border fixes for < Windows 10 versions and more to come.
You need to install it as standalone install to make it independent of you stable install.

https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/standalone-version-of-vivaldi/
Download:
https://vivaldi.com/blog/desktop/

Cheers, mib
EDIT: You can try Native Window, it takes some space but may work: vivaldi://settings/appearance/

jwt27

@mib2berlin Thanks, I tried the latest snapshot, but it doesn't seem to be fixed there yet.