[SOLVED] Rendering problems

[hstoellinger]

Hello,
Since today my application windows don't use the complete available area of the monitor. At the top of the screens there is an "empty" space within which the top part of the screen background is displayed. In addition to this - eg. with Konsole windows, the area shows the application menu bar against the screen background. I did "fiddle" with the control bar settings yesterday, which might be the reason. Here comes the output of inxi -F for my laptop system:

System: Host: hslaptop Kernel: 5.11.0-31-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Console: tty 2 Distro: Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo)
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Sony product: VGN-AW11M_H v: C6010CXT serial: 28282369-5004308
Mobo: Sony model: VAIO serial: N/A BIOS: American Megatrends v: R0200Y2 date: 08/12/2008
Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 69.5 Wh condition: 72.2/73.3 Wh (98%)
CPU: Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 Duo P8400 bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 3 MiB
Speed: 1596 MHz min/max: 1600/2267 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1596 2: 1596
Graphics: Device-1: NVIDIA G98M [GeForce 9300M GS] driver: nouveau v: kernel
Device-2: Ricoh Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC9 [R5U870] type: USB driver: uvcvideo
Display: server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1680x945~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: N/A v: N/A
Audio: Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.11.0-31-generic
Network: Device-1: Marvell 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet driver: sky2
IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:1d:ba:86:ca:c7
Device-2: Intel WiFi Link 5100 driver: iwlwifi
IF: wlp5s0 state: down mac: 00:21:5d:b5:9a:72
Drives: Local Storage: total: 298.09 GiB used: 138.1 GiB (46.3%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Fujitsu model: MHZ2320BH G1 size: 298.09 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 89.47 GiB used: 68.21 GiB (76.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 5.2 MiB (1.0%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda7
Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 9.97 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/sda1
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: 50.0 C gpu: nouveau temp: 49.0 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 277 Uptime: 38m Memory: 7.73 GiB used: 3.14 GiB (40.6%) Shell: Sudo inxi: 3.3.01System: Host: hslaptop Kernel: 5.11.0-31-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Console: tty 2 Distro: Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo)

By the way - I cannot find where to specify "software-rendering" within System Settings...
Thanks for any helpful hints
H. Stoellinger

[claydoh]

I did "fiddle" with the control bar settings

What do you mean by this? Unsure of what you mean by 'control bar'.
What specifically did you fiddle?
Can you post a screenshot of what you see?

[hstoellinger]

What do you mean by this? Unsure of what you mean by 'control bar'.
What specifically did you fiddle?
Can you post a screenshot of what you see?

-> I mean the "task bar". It's called "Kontroll-Leiste" in German (that's why I called it "control bar".
Us Non-English native speakers have to cross yet another barrier when trying to solve issues!

-> eg. - number of lines in task bar, height
-> Screenshot shows the respective application window. Beyond the top of it one can see (some 7 to 8 mm) of
the screen background. It seems that not ALL of the top screen area is used for displaying application windows.
On the bottom everything (bottom of task windows, task bar) is shown correctly. On the screenshot below what
I talk about is the narrow dark-blue background area at the top...
By the way - my apt history.log doesn't show any updates in the area of Plasma/KDE or the like.
Thanks for your help.

[claydoh]

Was asking just for clarity, specifically because of the language differences.


Try right-clicking on the top, there may be an empty panel accidentally added there. You would get similar menus to right-clicking on the bottom panel where the taskbar, system tray, and other items are.
If it is an empty panel, the right-click menus will be different than if you right-click on the actual desktop somewhere else.


Examples:

Empty panel
mine is not transparent at the moment as I am using a different theme, and I don't have a bottom panel with systray, task manager, etc on my second screen
If I was using one of my usually transparent Plasma style choices, the top area would look like the second image, with the wallpaper showing through as expected.



Same screen with normal desktop menus, and the empty panel removed.



Note the different menus.

If it IS a panel, then simply right-click >> Edit Panel >> More Options >> Remove panel.

If not.......

[hstoellinger]

Thanks a lot! It WAS a superfluous empty panel! I had added inadvertently. I removed it - like you suggested - and everything is fine now!
Regards from Salzburg

[claydoh]

[GreyGeek]

Claydoh,

[chimak111]

Claydoh,
[ATTACH=CONFIG]9524[/ATTACH]

He's been there, done that

[claydoh]

He's been there, done that

I will neither confirm nor deny that statement