Google Chrome - screen flashing / flickering

[Sniktbub]

Hello,

Just recently, I have experienced this error. It appears to occur randomly.

Tried to reinstall chrome and initially it worked fine, but the error came back. Reinstalled it again today.


I tried to find some info on the subject, but apparently it's a decade old bug that could be caused by numerous factors and there is no single solution to it.

Any tips?


PS. My machine is running on Windows XP SP3 (32-bit), Google Chrome version 49.0.2623.112.

[exile360]

You could try updating your graphics drivers, and if there is a setting for hardware acceleration in Chrome, try changing the option and restarting Chrome to see if that fixes it.  Other than that I'm not sure, and since it's XP it might just be an old bug with no fix, at least if it only applies to older operating systems/older Chrome versions.

[Sniktbub]

Hi Exile,

Thank you for the quick reply.

My graphics drivers are up-to-date, I believe. Should I consider doing a clean reinstall of them?

Sure, I can do that; it won't be much of a problem, but it brings another question to my mind --- is there a good way to clean up the junk files NVIDIA tends to leave after each installation?

Yes, there is a hardware acceleration option in Chrome. It's ticked by default. I will try to turn it off, if the error happens again.

PS. Is it possible that my bookmarks are part of the problem? It's one big bloated file, almost 5mb. Should I try reducing it? Or there's no way it could possibly be connected to that?

[exile360]

You can run DDU; it will remove all remnants of your NVIDIA drivers; just be sure to run it from Safe Mode, then reboot and reinstall the latest driver package.

I doubt your bookmarks have anything to do with it, however since I'm also not a Chromium developer I really cannot say for certain either way.  It just doesn't seem to me that it would be related.

[exile360]

By the way, if you use G-Sync, that too might be the issue if the older build of Chrome isn't compatible with it or if the version of the driver available for XP causes the issue.  I suspect disabling hardware acceleration will eliminate it though, as that tends to fix these types of issues where an app uses hardware acceleration for rendering (I've seen rendering issues with browsers, email clients and other applications occasionally in the past and that setting was often the cause, though not always).

[Sniktbub]

22 minutes ago, exile360 said:

You can run DDU; it will remove all remnants of your NVIDIA drivers; just be sure to run it from Safe Mode, then reboot and reinstall the latest driver package.

I doubt your bookmarks have anything to do with it, however since I'm also not a Chromium developer I really cannot say for certain either way.  It just doesn't seem to me that it would be related.

Just tried running DDU 18.0.2.5.

I got the error message saying it's not a valid Win32 application; can't run it.

[Sniktbub]

22 minutes ago, exile360 said:

By the way, if you use G-Sync, that too might be the issue if the older build of Chrome isn't compatible with it or if the version of the driver available for XP causes the issue.  I suspect disabling hardware acceleration will eliminate it though, as that tends to fix these types of issues where an app uses hardware acceleration for rendering (I've seen rendering issues with browsers, email clients and other applications occasionally in the past and that setting was often the cause, though not always).

How to check if my graphics card uses G-Sync?

[Sniktbub]

According to this thread, 18.0.0.4 is the version that I could use:

1) https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1601

2) https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1316

Should I give it a try?

[exile360]

Yes, you'll need to use a version compatible with XP; it sounds like the version you downloaded was an x64 build for 64-bit operating systems.

[Sniktbub]

15 hours ago, exile360 said:

Yes, you'll need to use a version compatible with XP; it sounds like the version you downloaded was an x64 build for 64-bit operating systems.

Tried the earlier version. Sadly, I couldn't get DDU to work in either Safe nor Normal mode.

The tool starts itself fine, but it always crashes when prompted to perform any of its clean actions. Bummer.

But I guess that's a subject for another thread.


--
Next time I reinstall my graphics drivers, perhaps I could limit the installation by deselecting stuff like GeForce Experience? What do you think?

Thank you for your help so far.

[exile360]

If you don't use it, sure, there's no need to install it (I always use the custom install option myself and don't install the optional stuff I don't use).

I guess DDU isn't working with XP these days.  Oh well, hopefully the issue will be fixed by one of the other suggestions.

By the way, did you ever try toggling the hardware acceleration setting and restarting the browser to see if it makes any difference?

[Sniktbub]

29 minutes ago, exile360 said:

If you don't use it, sure, there's no need to install it (I always use the custom install option myself and don't install the optional stuff I don't use).

I guess DDU isn't working with XP these days.  Oh well, hopefully the issue will be fixed by one of the other suggestions.

By the way, did you ever try toggling the hardware acceleration setting and restarting the browser to see if it makes any difference?

I see. Thank you. What about things like PhysX, HD Audio Driver and nView?

I may try posting on wagnardsoft forums later.

No, never tried it. Never had to. Reinstalled Chrome yesterday and haven't encountered the error again so far.

Just turned off the hardware acceleration now, I'll keep you posted if I notice any change.

[exile360]

Well that's good, maybe it was just a corrupt Chrome installation.  PhysX is optional and most games don't use it (and if they do, they'll install it anyway) and as for nView, if you don't have a multi-monitor setup, you don't need it.  Install the HD Audio Driver.

[Sniktbub]

On 6/24/2020 at 10:54 AM, exile360 said:

Well that's good, maybe it was just a corrupt Chrome installation.  PhysX is optional and most games don't use it (and if they do, they'll install it anyway) and as for nView, if you don't have a multi-monitor setup, you don't need it.  Install the HD Audio Driver.

Thank you.

[exile360]

You're welcome  

[Sniktbub]

It's happening again, but I "learned to live with it".

I suspect that lacking a suitable adblock extension can be to blame.

Mypal is my secondary browser and it's not giving me any such problems.

[exile360]

If you need a decent ad blocking extension, uBlock Origin is good, and of course Malwarebytes Browser Guard blocks many ads and trackers as well (along with malware, scams and other dangerous and undesirable content).  The link that says Chrome in my signature below will take you to the page for the extension if you wish to take a look.  I'm not sure whether those extensions work under XP, but they should assuming Chrome's code is the same and if it is a compatible version of Chrome for the browser extensions of course.

It may also be due to hardware acceleration; maybe it doesn't work well under XP or with the XP version of NVIDIA's drivers for some reason.  Instructions on changing the hardware acceleration setting can be found here if you wish to give it a shot.  If so, change the setting, then close the browser and reopen it, then test to see if the issue is fixed.

Edited July 28, 2020 by exile360

[AdvancedSetup]

 

[Sniktbub]

On 7/28/2020 at 11:38 AM, exile360 said:

If you need a decent ad blocking extension, uBlock Origin is good, and of course Malwarebytes Browser Guard blocks many ads and trackers as well (along with malware, scams and other dangerous and undesirable content).  The link that says Chrome in my signature below will take you to the page for the extension if you wish to take a look.  I'm not sure whether those extensions work under XP, but they should assuming Chrome's code is the same and if it is a compatible version of Chrome for the browser extensions of course.

It may also be due to hardware acceleration; maybe it doesn't work well under XP or with the XP version of NVIDIA's drivers for some reason.  Instructions on changing the hardware acceleration setting can be found here if you wish to give it a shot.  If so, change the setting, then close the browser and reopen it, then test to see if the issue is fixed.

I'm well aware of how good uBlock Origin is ;) It's just not compatible with my Chrome version. Maybe some old build is... but I had no luck hunting it down (I have, however, gotten it for Mypal --- it works beautifully with it, blocks every ad, I've really got no complaints).

MB Browser Guard used to work for me in the past, but I'm unable to download it now --- I'm getting the "download interrupted" error message from Chrome's webstore. I'm guessing that it simply doesn't support my old Chrome version (49.0.2623.112).

Thank you for more instructions about the hardware acceleration. Honestly, my patience is at its end I find myself relying more and more on other browsers than Chrome, but I will let you know if I try it again.



@AdvancedSetup

Yeah, I did some essential reading on your forum, but I'll make sure to read that thread again. Thank you.

[exile360]

That's what I was afraid of; Google has made a lot of changes in the recent past to add-on compatibility, especially for web filters/ad blockers and similar extensions, so as time goes on it is very likely that they will stop working with the older XP compatible version of Chrome.

I've been using IE11 (back when I was still on Windows 7), Firefox and SRWare Iron (based on Chromium, just without any of Google's embedded tracking and advertising functions enabled in the code) for a long time.  These days I use both Iron and Firefox (haven't touched either version of Edge really), though as time goes on it seems Mozilla is making Firefox more and more like Chromium so eventually pretty much all major browsers are going to either be based on Chromium, or have near identical functions and compatibility unless something changes.  Nothing against Chromium, it's clearly a good browser engine/framework, however it is nice to have real options and alternatives, at least in my opinion.