Electron-Based Apps fail to use Hardware Acceleration in cachyos-settings 1:1.2.8-1

[JI20]

Hi there, there seems to be a bug in version 1:1.2.8-1, causing Electron Based Apps to fail using Hardware Acceleration, leading to them taking multiple minutes for startup on hybrid gpu systems. Disabling the GPU for a specific App lets them load normally (e.g. using code --diasble-gpu).

Related bug-report in the CachyOS Forum on this issue: https://discuss.cachyos.org/t/launching-electron-apps-takes-sudenly-1-minute-fine-with-disable-gpu/12900

This issue occured after a system update today. While downgrading the updated packages one-by-one, I found that downgrading cachyos-settings from 1:1.2.8-1 to 1:1.2.7-1 resolves the issue, so the new version introduces this bug.

The following line in etc/profile.d/electron-ozone.sh added in commit e28772a seems to be the culprit here (as its the only change between the two versions and related to Electron):
export ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=auto

[vnepogodin]

there was likely issue with the Intel iGPU failing to support proper Wayland with HW accel, as without the prime-run or setting to dGPU-only in the BIOS will use Intel iGPU

[JI20]

Just tested it, using prime-run or setting the display mode to dgpu does not seem to help the issue. In XWayland mode the apps work fine (only on version 1:1.2.7-1), but not in native Wayland mode.

On Cachyos-settings 1:1.2.7-1, running prime-run code ./ --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland also produces the long startup times, so it seems to be some deeper issue with Wayland, GPU Drivers or Electron itself. On Cachyos-settings 1:1.2.8-1, the apps are not starting properly, even when telling them to use X11 specifically.

I'd suggest removing the line added in the new version of cachyos-settings, so that these apps at least can startup as usual using XWayland, until the issue is fixed upstream.

[damiankorcz]

This was also the case for Mailspring. The app would boot up and you'd get the tray icon but the window won't appear no matter what. Prefixing with ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=x11 fixed it.

[ptr1337]

Aye, time to revert. But we tried.

[JI20]

Hey again, actually, maybe it doesn't need to be reverted. Since the issue seemed to be related to the Intel iGPU, I added i915 to the front of my MODULES in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf (followed by limine-mkinitcpio and a reboot) and that actually fixed it for me, using caachyos-settings version 1:1.2.8-1. I had i915 in the kernel modules before, but in last place, which did not work for me.

So, maybe, this doesn't need to be removed, but rather i195 needs to be added to kernel modules for the respective systems?
Requiring all users with intel iGPUs to add it manually seems like a bad user experience though, so maybe this can be done automatically?

[vnepogodin]

So, maybe, this doesn't need to be removed, but rather i195 needs to be added to kernel modules for the respective systems? Requiring all users with intel iGPUs to add it manually seems like a bad user experience though, so maybe this can be done automatically?

had also reports from nvidia-only users. some apps have glitches and HW accel doesn't help there

[damiankorcz]

This was also the case for Mailspring. The app would boot up and you'd get the tray icon but the window won't appear no matter what. Prefixing with ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=x11 fixed it.

This was also with a 9070 XT using Mesa drivers. So definitely a hit and miss across all GPUs.

[ptr1337]

Closing for now. We will retry in a year or so