no menu bar on top, compositing bug?

Bug Description

Failure mode: ISO testing, OEM Desktop install

ISO Image: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/20110705.1/oneiric-desktop-amd64.iso
H/W: Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop
Test case: http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Install/DesktopOem, failed on Case ID: uoi-001

The menu bar along the top of the desktop is not rendered on my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop.

Attached: Screenshot of missing menu bar and weird lines across screen.

Just to add, when I move my mouse over the blank menu bar I can click on the items on the menu, but I cannot see the menu bar at all.

possibly duplicate of bug 745996

Is this due to the way stacking is broken?

Or a compositing bug indeed. What kind of graphics card is that running on?

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Inspiron#Inspiron_6400.2FE1505 it could be either an ATI or Intel issue. Intel should work. ATI, there have been some issues with older chipsets like the one I am running. It is fixed in the regular desktop case though. Maybe a corner case when in install mode.

Let's consider it's a stacking issue for now. I'm shifting that to Thomas's bug list.

Colin: could you indicate whether you can get that systematically or not?

If that's systematic and can indeed be traced as a stacking issue, that would be a major finding! Otherwise, it should be requalified as a compositing problem, pushed to Jay's Nux bug list.

lspci output says it is a
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc M52 [Mobility Radeon X1300] [1002:7149] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

1. Yes, it's a ATI Technologies Inc M52 [Mobility Radeon X1300] [1002:7149] (answer to posting #6)
2. It happened every time I booted, so it was repeatable (answer to posting #7)

Kept on the radar since it's driver related and reproducible, so worth fixing if that improves the general level of GL support across the board.

Colin, does this still happen with latest Oneiric? I couldn't figure out whether this was on Ati or Intel from the bug (sorry if I missed something). If the latter, it may well be a dupe of #745996 as Jean-Baptiste mentioned. In our tests, this has usually happened on Intel due a custom ~/.drirc file (though ISO testing suggests that this would be a fresh install?) or a /etc/drirc file. Removing it fixes the issue.

OK, tested with today's ISO and the bug no longer happens, so it's now been magically fixed somewhere.

Thanks for testing. I'm setting the status to 'Fix released'