Wacom Bamboo One tablet random coordinate malfunctions

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I would like to add that this bug also persists on a Wacom Graphire 4 using Gimp in Unit3D on an Ubuntu Oneiric (fully updated) . I tried to activate / deactivate both my intel and nvidia card hoping to see a difference, but it persists on both cards, leading me to think it is unrelated to my graphics card/driver.

I forgot to mention that the tablet works just fin in inkscape

Using a Wacom bamboo pen and touch-fun and have the exact same behavior when using the stylus in Gimp.

Using application mypaint the Wacom tablet behaves correctly.

I've had this bug too, since upgrading to Oneiric. I also get this bug on a clean install of Oneiric.

Not only does it happen in Gimp, but if I drag the stylus on the desktop as well -- to select files on the desktop for example -- it jumps to the corner and selects all of the items. Likewise, if I try to drag a window using the stylus, it jumps and takes the window nearly off of the screen.

Not only in the wacom tablets that the problem happens.

I have the same problem in a tablet MousePen Genius.

I have a same problem when using Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet with Gimp. I'm running 11.10 with Gnome Shell .
It seems to work fine in Inkscape.

Same problem here ; dramatic case for me as Gimp-painter 2.6 is my main tool for work , makes all the distro unusable for me.
( img : http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/1631/ubuntuoneiricocelotgimp.png )

Here is what I tried without success :
- Update xorg via ppa to xorg edgers
- Update linux-wacom
- Unactivate compiz
- Use Gnome Classic / Gnome Shell / etc...

I verified the same problem using only the mouse. I recorded a video:

http://youtu.be/9rDf6_FwKEY

I tested also here with this tablet now, and it affect the same :
- Wacom Bamboo Fun A5
- Intuos4 A5 Medium
- Wacom Cintiq 21Ux
- Wacom Intuos3 A4
Gimp 2.7.3+Git compiled from source with Gimp-razor ( http://blog.zanshine.com/blog/stephane-richard/2011-05-10/cutting-edge-gimp-in-latest-ubuntu/ ) seams to not suffer of this, but it really slow and got some 'missed strokes' or 'empty strokes' ( you paint , and nothing appear, as if the brush engine get freezed ).

I installed another ubuntu based distrib, Ubuntu Studio 11.10 ( witch is XFCE based ) and ran the same issue.

But this time, after a lot of test, I get it fixed ; and it was after installing sources from Xorg edgers, and upgrade all xorg package via synaptic ( + restart ) , https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa . This new upgrades made my system use nouveau/mesa/gallium instead of Nvidia proprietary ( I see it running 'glxinfo' inside a terminal ) ...so, maybe nvidia proprietary driver being guilty.

So, I presume I 'sort of' got it fixed ( at least I hope ) and did a 20min painting without any ghost lines problems. I still have to inspect if 3D performances are enough good to run Blender , games , etc... , I don't know a lot this new driver "nouveau/mesa/gallium" . My experience always lead me to had the reflex to install "additional proprietary driver" at first start after a fresh install...

[ info : Test run for Gimp 2.6 - Gimp-painter, from Mizuno ppa + Xorg Edger upgrade + Ubuntu Studio 11.10 ( witch is XFCE based ) ]

I use ATI graphics card without proprietary driver and still have this issue, so I don't thing it's graphics driver related .
There's a bug reported upstream for this problem: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=661872

Same here after upgrade from 11.04. before my wacom bamboo pen was perfectly working.

Hmmm, it seems is the same using the mouse with painthbrush, at this point I'm not sure is related to wacom maybe, maybe is related to input devices in general?

m-marti, is your mouse for some reason enabled as an extended device? If yes, disable it. You wont lose anything as mouse does not provide any extra info for extended devices.

As far as I am aware from my testing with mmiicc, it only affects extended devices and a specific event deliver mechanism known as event history buffer that is provided by X. It's a known source of trouble. According to my tests with mmiicc 2.7 does not exhibit this problem because of this commit: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/commit/?id=dbf844c012894166e312470f0d98560d5e426613 With this I disabled the history buffer use because there are plenty of cheap tablet drivers that get it permanently wrong and 2.7 has event fill that prevents even mice from drawing polygons when moved fast, so milking every single event out of the device is no longer essential.

Oh, problems with the event history buffer can originate pretty much anywhere below GIMP, so wacom driver to X to GTK can be the cause... And I don't know of any other application outside gimp that uses it... If you do, let me know.

@Deevad the commit I linked can probably very easily ported to painter.

Thank you Alexia, hmmmm, I have to check, I'll try and add a comment asap. I'm waiting gimp 2.8 ever more anxiously

@Alexia : Thanks a lot for the infos, thanks also for pointing the commit, but I think I'll not try to maintain Gimp-painter 2.6 or support it anymore. At least thats the idea for the moment ( can change in few hours XD ) , I decided to adapt myself to the Gimp dev version , or last realease ( as 2.7.3 , for exemple) .
No textured brushes and no smudgy mixbrush will be the main 2 features I'll drop off in the change ( I also liked 'reduce update frequency' , witch made in Gimp-painter the display faster and improved performance of painting ).
Anyway, compare to many improvement I noticed with time and testing the last dev version , it will be easier to have good mood to update. : )

@all : I tested upgrading to Xorg edgers package and adopt Nouveau driver for a Ubuntu 11.10 main edition. Bug is not happening with this if you use Gimp 2.6. Tested with Gnome Shell desktop mainly . But I'll not keeping this last solution test ; performances are so slow and make it unusable for my taste... Xfce Ubuntu studio 11.10 distro was really faster for displaying the painting strokes.

Thanks everyone for looking into this problem in more detail! I will try the solution given by Alexia as soon as possible. It would be great having a working GIMP with a typically-configured Ubuntu 11.10, since for me, this problem is quite severe.

@devaad The reduce update frequency patch was in concept ported to 2.7 long ago along with several other performance boosts. 2.7 is a lot faster than 2.6 was even with large brushes.

Also affects me in Xubuntu 11.10, with a Bamboo Pen.

Hi everybody,

Just got a bamboo connect ctl-470 and was having the same problem. I am using oneiric so a installed the new driver as explained in this post :

https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=CAG1eVf398pnsDJ%2Bfm-hzUwyqJqxBCxVt5E1B%2Bi5wyb2LVj8eEg%40mail.gmail.com&forum_name=linuxwacom-discuss

Then ubuntu finally recognized the wacom tablet but got the same problem you are getting.

 I found that if I removed Compiz ( sudo apt-get remove compiz, sudo apt-get remove compiz-core )and reboot, the tablet works just fine in gimp.

Im kind of new to Linux and dont know what exactly does Compiz do. I have been working one day and havent noticed a difference since I removed it ( just a grey background when im logging in for a cople of seconds ) Everything else seems fine. Im using this as a temporary solution to my problem.

Can somebody explain what problems can I possible get because of this solution?

That sounds like window manager needs to be added to the list of things that can screw up the history buffer.

@cvargas-z compiz is a compositing manager that uses 3D graphics hardware to create good looking and fast compositing effects on your desktop. In the newer Ubuntu versions, it is primarily used by the Unity graphical shell. When using 11.10 without compiz, your system probably fell back to Unity-2D, which is a Qt/QML based version of the Unity shell. This is not really a bad thing. For better graphics cards, using Unity/compiz makes your shell (the windows, launchers etc.) have better effects and run faster, but the difference is not that big (I am personally using Unity-2D all the time).

@sil2100 Thank you very much for explaining this so clearly, So I guess I will be using Unity-2d until this problem is solved.

Removing compiz does not solve this problem for me. But in fact, the bug appears less often than before.

Here I finally ended to remove all , even if updating Xorg edgers and use last Nouveau driver solved my problems, the performance of painting were horrible. Also very slow painting strokes in _all_ 2D programs....

I fallback to a Linux Mint 11 Katya main , based on Natty system with a downgraded compiz ( http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/how-to-downgrade-to-compiz-086-in.html ) and a downgraded Xorg ( sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-core=2:1.10.1-1ubuntu1 ) . So a version in between Maverick and Natty , compatible with Natty Ppa :) Works perfectly and damn fast. My laptop will be ready for the conferences I have to do next weeks.

I also get issue with lake of customization / functionality with new Gnome 3 ( I liked the base GUI, and ergonomy , btw ) ; it makes me use too much terminal / GSettings / Tweaks and various code to access to basic customization where Gnome 2 series were fast and mostly GUI tweaks. ( login screen/ place icons on the dockbar/ nautilus script / startup script / etc.... ) So, I felt a real regression. I don't blame Gnome team, new product is young compare to old 9 years old one, and there is very good job in the 3. I blame modern distribution who pack it while it's not a ready solution... imo.

Are all of you having this problem not only in GIMP but also in the desktop? Try moving a window with your wacom stylus. When you let go of the window, does it jump across the screen?

@mpredotka : You are right, I dont know why, I removed compiz at work and I got no problems. I did the same thing at home and the problem considerably less, but was still there.

@osarusan : Yes it happens in the desktop in my computers.

Anybody knows if it is possible to do what deevad did in oneiric? I mean downgrading compiz ( http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/how-to-downgrade-to-compiz-086-in.html ) and a downgrading Xorg ( sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-core=2:1.10.1-1ubuntu1 )

In theory, you might be able to downgrade them using Synaptic and the "force version" option, but there's a very strong possibility that would cause everything to stop working altogether.

But we've already got 20 people on this bug... we should really try to get someone assigned to this if possible. Like some of you, I am a professional artist who uses GIMP, so I have to do my work on a spare computer not running Oneiric until this problem is fixed.

Also, I think we should update this bug to reflect that it isn't a GIMP bug, but a GTK bug. There's a little more information here: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=661872

Basically, since it goes away if you disable the input events in GIMP, and since it affects the desktop too, it can't be a GIMP-specific bug.

It seems we will hace to wait Meanwhile, and since this bug doen't affect gimp 2.7 I think this might be a good opportunity to give it a try.

If you are a Linux newbie like me here it is a nice tutorial on how to compile 2.7 it its very easy

http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/compiling-gimp-for-ubuntu

Just adding myself into the mix. I've decided to drop WINE+Photoshop and go full on with GIMP and I run into this.

*Gimp 2.7+Git compilation info :

 I advice this script : http://blog.zanshine.com/blog/stephane-richard/2011-05-10/cutting-edge-gimp-in-latest-ubuntu/

Here I did local change to the script to make it cleaner :
l.52
opt_dir="/opt"
( to build in opt and keep 2.6 , I also create a 'gimp' folder with 777 right in this /opt/ folder )

l.55
src_dir="$HOME/source-to-compile/gimp-razor/"
(the place I keep the source )

l.186
sudo make install || exit_with "while executing 'make install' for $name"
( I add 'sudo' )

Then I run the script and it work alone automagically. Same to update.
To launch Gimp : it's in a 'bin' folder inside /opt/gimp ... easy to create a launcher.

I've noticed another bit of strange behavior.

While the bug always seems to be occuring in GIMP, it doesn't appear on the desktop until run xsetwacom to set the range of my stylus for my left monitor (I have a 2-monitor setup).

When I first log in, the stylus covers both screens in absolute mode, and dragging windows creates no strange problems. After I run xsetwacom to set the range, moving windows causes them to jump off the screen after I lift the stylus from the tablet.

I can confirm now that the bug does not appear in GIMP 2.7.3 on Ubuntu 11.10 for me.

That's good news... however as 2.7.3 won't install on 64bit systems I hope we can get a fix for this asap.

Experiencing same horizontal and vertical line spikes utilizing two Genius Mousepad 8x6 tablets on both 386 and AMD-64 Ubuntu 11.10 machines utilizing latest NVIDIA 280 drivers and GIMP Editor. Confirm that disabling the Extended Input Devices stops the problem. However, without Extended Input Devices enabled the tablets will not have pressure sensitivity capabilities. This problem did not exist in UBUNTU 11.04.

Tested and Confirmed this problem pertaining GIMP with the following UBUNTU 11.10 shells:
GNOME, GNOME Classic, UNITY, UNITY 2D, Lubuntu, LXDE Session, Xubuntu, Xfce Session

Additionally Martin Owens PPA for Wizardpen Drivers does not include the latest version for Oneiric Ocelot 11.10
https://launchpad.net/~doctormo/+archive/xorg-wizardpen

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/doctormo/xorg-wizardpen/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main
Only Natty version and earlier available.

Inkscape drawing works but pressure sensitivity does not. But I believe this was also the case in version 11.04.

SynfigStudio also works but you must manually install as the Ubuntu Software Center will not install even though it is listed. There appears to be no setup for tablets so again..., no pressure sensitivity capabilities.

Regarding Blender..., Drawing OK, all pen buttons work. Pressure sensitivity is supposed to be active in SCULPT MODE but I couldn't get it to work. But this could be due to my ignorance of the proper use of this function.

Considering that the BIG BUCK BUNNY project lists the use of SYNFIG STUDIO, BLENDER, GIMP and INKSCAPE as tools , this bug presents itself as a serious problem meriting top priority regarding a fix.

How can I apply the fix in Alexia Death's commit? I'd like to get this working but I don't know how to use the information on that page.

@Douglas : I was in the Sintel team, and Ubuntu always made problems with Wacom / Xorg on there release for artist ; and more since 11.04. As a solution, if you are serious about digital painting and drawing I propose this : http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article95/linux-mint-11-install-notes

@Matthew : Grab sources and libraries , find the files and write the new code, compile. In theory ... Good luck.

Confirmed Deevad's findings with version 2.7.3xxxxxxxxxx nightly build PPA in Ubuntu 11.10 386 ver. but using Genius Mousepad 8x6 tablet in our case. See Post #12: Getting same output as your Wacoms.

"Gimp 2.7.3+Git compiled from source with Gimp-razor... seams to not suffer of this, but it really slow and got some 'missed strokes' or 'empty strokes' ( you paint , and nothing appear, as if the brush engine get freezed )."

Exactly, the spontaneous streaking to the edge of the canvas is no more. But if you draw fast you get holes in the lines you draw as if the signal from the tablet was being dropped or interrupted for a small fraction of a second. If you draw slower, it's not a problem.

Confirmed Matthew Meyers findings in post #40:

"however as 2.7.3 won't install on 64bit systems"

GIMP 2.7.3 would not install on our 64bit Ubuntu 11.10 setup.

In contrast to these problems with GIMP, MyPaint works flawlessly with the Genius tablet with no setups required and full pressure sensitivity.

@Deevad: Thank you for the reference to davidrevoy.com. Excellent program/utility selections and setup info. My daughter is the graphics artist wannabe. I'm just trying to bug swat things before I turn her loose on attempting to learn this stuff. Learning is much more difficult in a buggy environment because when something goes wrong you don't know whether it's you or the programming. And, that causes fear and apprehension which inhibits learning. It's obvious to me that I should go to Walmart and buy a couple of 16GB Sandisk Flash drives to install bootable Linux variations to see what setups give the least aggravations. If you worked on Sintel, she would probably love to talk to you. She is a dragon fanatic..., draws them all day long.

Confirmed Diggao's post #11.

Line streaking/spiking was produced in GIMP 2.6 using only a standard generic Microsoft Optical Mouse (USB-PS/2 Compatible) and Ubuntu 11.10. Nothing like this seen in other programs such as MyPaint, SynfigStudio, Inkscape or Blender.

In fact, the streaking frequency was far more prevalent, 5 to 10 times greater, with the mouse than the Genius Mousepad 8x6 Tablet on our 64bit Ubuntu setup.

Did the same thing with a Dell ball-tracking mouse with PS/2 connection on our 32bit Ubuntu setup.

I can't help but think that maybe someone made some little tweak in communication protocol and loused up the connection handshaking from what was previously agreed upon. Or maybe another few clock cycles were added in some other process that causes a loss of communication which must be then reestablished. Maybe the line streaks in GIMP 2.6 are the same thing as the dropouts you get the faster you draw in GIMP 2.7.3. Perhaps they are the same problem manifest differently. The problem is across multiple hardware peripheral devices proven to work before the upgrade to 11.10. So it's not the hardware or their drivers. It has to be the way information is passed to and from GIMP to the Kernel. The compatibility problem is probably in the new kernel. It would be interesting to find another debian based distro with the same kernel to see if the problem can be reproduced. Or maybe it is that compounded with a buggy Compiz. Deevad may be correct about a buggy Compiz and Xorg.

"Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins. Because it conforms to the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual standard, Compiz can substitute for the default Mutter in GNOME or KWin in KDE."

From http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article95/linux-mint-11-install-notes

"Correct distribution bugs :
 Linux Mint 11 comes with all the bugs of Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narval . Bugs makes Compiz laggy ( effect for windows manager ), problems for 3D programs and tablet. "

importance = low ?
I would have expected high ;(

Gimp has become unusable with my wacom intuos .
No bug of this kind in Krita, and pressure sensitivity is fine without configuration...

That turns out not to be the case. A Qt bug with similar effects on
Krita and Pencil was fixed shortly before Oneiric came out. See:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/qt4-x11/+bug/799202 I don't
know if it has been backported to Natty yet.

Notice they deemed this Qt/KDE bug of medium importatnce.

KDE tools were using the event hstory buffer as well, and they did the same thing I did in GIMP 2.7. Witch is to stop using it. The only thing it proves is that GTK is not at fault, X is.

I may have jumped to conclusions I shouldn't have. That issue is totally different. And affects pressure, not coordinates.

@Alexia : I think you are right about X ; because the solution I found in this thread were to upgrade to 'Xorg Edger' ppa, and it fixed the problems. ( even if I felt the overall was a bit 'slow' ... but not on Ubuntu Studio using XFCE ) So I think the problem may disappear with next Xorg version in Ubuntu updates. That's why I also understand the low status.

 If the fix is already done in the next updated version of Xorg, it's just a "wait and see" issue.

@Douglas : Thanks for quoting my blog ( davidrevoy.com ) and cool if the infos I provide are usefull for you, and if your daughter have question on open-source 2D software or on something, she can feel free to comment on my blog ; I usually answer to each post.

This bug affect me too, I have ubuntu 11.10 with a bamboo connect pen CTL-470, gimp 2.6 and an intel graphic card. This bug is very annoying, I can't use my tablet on gimp anymore and that very frustrating.

Who's the guilty, gimp, wacom drivers, xorg or compiz?

I'm also affected by this bug. Initially I thought I was crazy or my Wacom Bamboo Fun was crazy, till I find this bug here.

Same problem here with Wacom Bamboo pen&touch and with a Wacom Intuos 4M

this problem has disappeared for me with the last 11.10 update!

An effective workaround for me is to turn off X-tilt and Y-tilt in the input-device settings.

I didn't have to do this in 11.04, and I don't know what it effects - but as far as this bug go - it's an effective workaround, as I haven't been able to reproduce it since.

Ignore my last comment - I were just able to reproduce it .... Sorry for the ones who got their hopes up :(

@yorugecko : Thanks for the info ; I saw yesterday on a Virtual machine of 11.10 the Xorg server update and i thought too it will solve the solution. Too bad I can't really test my graphic tablet threw a Virtual Machine to confirm, but i'm pretty sure it's ok since my old solution was to update the xorg server to the ppa of xorg edgers.

Same problem with Genius GPen F610, ubuntu 11.10 & GnomeShell window manager.

Latest Xorg update didn't fix the issues for me (Ubuntu 11.10, Wacom Bamboo CTH-461 )

@Deevad: Your guide to a working setup for digital painters saved me a lot of time and headaches. Thanks!

@Knut Erik : i had to do a partial upgrade of the system to get it working. However here is a video of the non-buggy gimp :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuL2RGTnl1I

The same problem using any device in "Screen" mode (Mouse or Genius EasyPen i405 Tablet with wizardpen driver). With the mouse in screen mode de problem is more evident. Random lines appear while I'm drawing.
Kubuntu 11.10 Oneiric 64bits. Gimp "6.2.11-2ubuntu4" package.

@yorugecko: Viewed the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuL2RGTnl1I. Could you be more specific regarding what you mean by "a partial upgrade"? I seem to have the bug over multiple desktop versions of Ubuntu 11.10 with GIMP and two Genius Mousepad 8x6 tablets. For me the symptoms are least using XUBUNTU desktop but still present. It takes me maybe a minute to 90 seconds for it to show up drawing in pencil mode doing fast circles by hand. Could you try scribbling for about three minutes just in pencil mode and see what happens rather than jumping around different functions. If the problem doesn't show up then give us a rundown on what you did to fix it.

If you have a fix go over to www.davidrevoy.com and tell David so he can test and post it on his blog. He is the art director for the Blender Foundation and a lot of people in the computer graphics art community are pulling their hair out over this. He has a setup for installing and modifying Linux Mint ver. 11.04 to prevent having various annoying bugs. See: http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article95/linux-mint-11-install-notes.

GIMP 2.7.4 nightly builds now compile on 64bit Ubuntu 11.10, while previously version 2.7.3 would not (see posts #40 and #44).

The following commands will install this unstable work in progress:

Open command prompt run the following commands

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:matthaeus123/mrw-gimp-svn

Update the source list

    sudo apt-get update

Upgrade gimp using the following command

    sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

While this version does not fix the problem with data loss while drawing very fast (line breaks) there appears to be less of a drop-out problem and the line thins right before the line breaks. Then there is a recovery with a thin line and then it goes back to a normal pressure drawing line again. This is somewhat different then what I described in Post #44 and #45 regarding GIMP 2.7.3. There you would be drawing a line and it would just break and then reappear as you did quick scribbling of large circles.
I noted that today there was also an update of UPSTART version 1.3-0ubuntu11 which is an "event-based init daemon" a 288kB download, which might be relevant. UPSTART is a replacement for the /sbin/init daemon which handles starting of tasks and services during boot, stopping them during shutdown and supervising them while the system is running. It appears the frequency of streaking lines to the edge of the windows in GIMP 2.6 may have also lessened somewhat but is still present. In either case 2.6.11 or 2.7.4 there seems to be somewhat of an improvement over two weeks ago. Has anyone else noticed this?

To reproduce this bug set GIMP to draw with Pencil in NORMAL mode, set brush to ROUND FUZZY, point size to 6, set to BASIC DYNAMICS, leave all other settings in 0.00 or their defaults in the left-hand window. Set your tablet to SCREEN configuration. Then try and draw big sweeping circles quickly in a window set for say 800x600 at 96dpi.

There is no problem at all... as long as you don't draw real fast in ver. 2.7.4... which is kind of a show-stopper for most. Note that I am using the Genius Mousepad 8x6 tablets because my daughter and I am just getting into this and I didn't want to shoot for WACOMs. So WACOM users should try this and see how it works in your environment and report back here because this is the most substantial thread on this bug problem.

@stealthdeath
I launched the update manager and I installed all the updates, it said that I had to do a partial distribution upgrade if I wanted to update everythig. Pressed ok and restarted computer when finished amd got it working.
I also scribbled for 5-6 minutes in pencil mode and this bug did not appear.
I don't know if i made myself clear enough...

My bad! Post #63 describes data loss in GIMP ver. 2.7.4 with thin lines. This is due to using a different Brush than previously. The standard GIMP Brush does not produce thin lines but complete data loss while GIMP Brushes #1 and #2 give the thin lines before and after dropouts.

Just loaded the Linux Mint 11 Gnome Live CD and tried drawing in Gimp 2.6.11 without tablet drivers installed for my Genius Mousepad 8x6 and without NVIDIA drivers installed. It worked absolutely perfect! No streaks to the edge of the screen at all. No dropouts in the lines whatsoever. Full pressure sensitivity was observed. Scribbled as fast as I could with no problems. But then again Linux Mint 11 is based on UBUNTU 11.04 and everything works fine there. The Linux Mint 12 release candidate will be available around November 11th, based on UBUNTU 11.10. But they are using Gnome 3.2 with Mint Gnome Shell Extentions (MGSE) and MATE to replace Gnome 2.32 instead of Unity and Gnome Classic. This presents and interesting opportunity to see if Unity has screwed up things in UBUNTU since Linux Mint 12 RC is a permutation of Ubuntu 11.10.

I will pursue the Linux Mint 12 RC to test against the bug here in Ubuntu and report back.

Same problem - Aiptek 1200U tablet and Ubuntu 11.10/Gimp 2.6.11

LINUX MINT 12 Release Candidate TEST of 64-bit DVD Version downstream development of UBUNTU 11.10 Version.

http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/testing/linuxmint-12-gnome-dvd-64bit-rc.iso

Released November 10th, 2011, Time: 9:16 1.0 GB Download

Bug persists in GIMP 2.6.11 with streaks to the edge of the screen using Genius Mousepad 8x6 tablet and pen. In Gnome 3.2.1 with MGSE, the bug is horrific. In MATE desktop environment the bug is significantly less. It is even less in Gnome Classic and least apparent in Gnome Classic (No Effects) desktop environments.

The same is true of the bug manifestation in UBUNTU 11.10 from worst to least: UNITY > Gnome Classic = Lubuntu = Xubuntu > Gnome Classic No Effects.

So trying to evade this bug by jumping to the upcoming version of Linux Mint 12 will not help at this time. In fact, the Gnome 3.2.1 3D environment was so bad that the drawing could not keep up with pen movement in addition to having to deal with the spontaneous streaking from the bug. I am running a triple core AMD CPU at 3.1 GHz so this graphics performance is disastrous. The performance was irrelevant to whether my tablet drivers were installed or removed.

This leaves only two options:
1) Drop-kick back to UBUNTU 11.04/Linux Mint 11, or,
2) Try another distribution of Linux along Debian development design.

Hi,

I have the same problem with my Wacom Bamboo Fun CTE-450. But it's worse with my simple Logitech mouse !
XFCE doesn't fix the problem.

As Fabien Poulain wrote: with the tablet it happens, but with the (Logitech) mouse I am totally lost - no way one can draw that way.

This glitch occurs since the upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10 with GIMP 2.6.11.

What I tried (and none of the approaches changed anything):
- uninstalling Compiz
- running xfce, Unity 2D and Gnome classic style
- booting without my Bamboo CTH-460 (and not pluging it in at all)

However, normal operation with the mouse and tablet are fine - e.g. "krita", games and desktop in general are running well.

I can confirm the bug on my 11.10 machine with my new Bamboo Pen & Touch SE. Tablet and mouse, however, work fine on desktop and other programs so far.

I gave Gimp 2.7.3 a try but it's missing to many features I am used to til now.

I will try the xorg edgers workaround.

Sorry, but I think the importance of this bug is not "low". This bug makes GIMP unusable in many cases. Need a quick solution, or at least a workaround.
Thank you.

People who are setting their mice to screen mode - DON'T. You don't get any benefits and whole lot of trouble, including this bug. Leave it disabled. Screen mode is for tablets.

FYI update:

The part where the Desktop was affected by flying windows and being unable to select things as reported by Matthew Meyer (osarusan) and trischan (cvargas-z) turned out to be a separate bug from this one. Triggered by using xsetwacom to set the stylus or eraser to Button 1 1, which is the driver default. Bug was found a couple of weeks ago and fixed upstream: http://linuxwacom.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=linuxwacom/xf86-input-wacom;a=commit;h=20958f84eef0b40f91e4559099f342f28650c183 The fix is now in the just released xf86-input-wacom-0.12.0 tar.

So this bug does appear to be Gimp specific. See Alexia Death's comments.

Thanks for pointing that out.
After switching my mouse-mode to "Disabled", the mouse behaves now correctly.
So I turned the Pen and Eraser to "Disabled" - and now the tablet lost it's pressure-sensitivity, but the erratic behaviour disappeared. :-/
Pen/Eraser back to Window or Screen - and the problem re-occurs. :-(

PS: I have a dual-screen setup.

@alexiade, I think most of the persons that have referred to "mouse" in screen mode has been to point out that the problem occurs with any device in screen mode (mouse or any tablet), not only with the Wacom tablet.
Regards.

@yafu, @alexiade

Yes, this bug occurs using both the tablet and the mouse. And in different models.
I use a 8x6 Genius MousePen and I'm having the same problem.

Re #73: the bug, or at least the underlying problem is not GIMP-specific. While GIMP will react with drawing a straight line to the edge of the canvas, at least some Krita beta builds crashed due to out-of-range coordinates.

Serial Wacom Intuos 2 here, so the report title and Affects is not accurate.

This makes successful use of any (?) tablet impossible and turns current Ubuntu into a non-option for everyone relying on working with one. I think this suggests a high importance.

I have the same problem with waltop slim tablet on oneiric64 and gnome3
Works fine in inkscape.

This is for ubuntu people: As fixing or replacing X can be complcated, there is the patch in master git tree ( http://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/commit/?id=dbf844c012894166e312470f0d98560d5e426613 ) that could be ported to 2.6 in packaging . you would have working gimp on this broken setup without radical changes.

Thank you Alexia.

As I understand it this is a workaround for the bug which would enable Gimp to work in Oneiric and has a very low chance of causing regressions in Gimp. All Ubuntu would need to do is add this patch to their Gimp package to disable the history buffer and release it as an update.

I quickly slapped your link into a patch form so that Launchpad janitor would be aware a patch has been submitted. It is untested and Ubuntu packagers should follow your link to actually obtain the patch.

The attachment "app-Disable-history-buffer-via-use-of-gimprc-option.patch" of this bug report has been identified as being a patch. The ubuntu-reviewers team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review the patch. In the event that this is in fact not a patch you can resolve this situation by removing the tag 'patch' from the bug report and editing the attachment so that it is not flagged as a patch. Additionally, if you are member of the ubuntu-sponsors please also unsubscribe the team from this bug report.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by Brian Murray. Please contact him regarding any issues with the action taken in this bug report.]

For those who don't want to patch and rebuild Gimp themselves, Gimp from PPA with the patch Alexia Death mentioned:

https://launchpad.net/~grumbel/+archive/gimp

I can confirm Ingo's PPA using Alexia's disable-history-buffer patch results in Gimp finally being usable in Oneiric. Tested with a Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch and tablet PC.

There may be a slight problem with very light pressure strokes not coming through (stroke discontinuous) and tool selection being a little sticky. But that just might need a little fiddling. More testing would be helpful of course.

Thank you Ingo. With your PPA we now have a viable alternative while waiting for an official response.

Thanks alexiade for the patch! Thanks grumbel for the PPA!

My thanks to grumbel for his PPA that finally got GIMP working with my Bamboo Connect with oneiric and input-wacom-0.12.0. As a photographer and web designer that's all Ubuntu, GIMP is a work requirement and to me "high" priority. Hopefully this all finds it's way into 12.04.

Grumbels PPA adds something more than only this patch, and it caused warning for every startup, so I decided to open my own PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:aapo-rantalainen/gimp26-noghostline
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gimp

It contains gimp from Ubuntu 11.10 and patch from post80, nothing more. Truly speaking I do not understand why this patch fixes it, but gimp seems to work now.

Thank you, Aapo! It worked perfectly.

Same bug here, Oneiric, Gimp 2.6 and Wacom Bamboo CTH-460. After adding Aapo PPA and reinstalling Gimp it worked perfectly. Thank you !

I experienced the same issue on 11.10 (kernel 3.0.0-15-generic) with Gimp 2.6.11 under the default window manager. At the same time that I was running Gimp, I had a VirtualBox session running in seamless mode (guest OS application windows appear in the host OS's window manager directly). Upon closing the VirtualBox session and restarting Gimp, the problem disappeared.

Hey everybody. I had the same problem on a Genius M712X tablet (Waltop International). It now works after getting the update and reinstalling GIMP. Thanks for the great work.

new news: I downgraded to natty, installed everything again, and the waltop slim tablet has worked perfectly until i've installed a new version of blender, blender 6.1 with a lot of new libraries, then the problem returns, so, could it be a library issue?

mmm.. maybe the last comment is not true,
i was installing a lot of things, one of them was the last ati driver from this repository: ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
maybe is for that and not for blender
(i've tried to delete the last comment but it's not possible)
natty 64- ati radeon hd- waltop slim tablet

btw adding aapo PPA repositories it works fine!! thanks aapo, so this solution works in Natty too, ;)

@diggao

GENIUS MOUSEPAD 8x6 TABLET FIXED

Confirmed that "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:aapo-rantalainen/gimp26-noghostline" patch worked with UBUNTU 11.10 and Genius Mousepad 8x6.

Procedure:

1. Remove GIMP with Software Center
2. Open Terminal and type the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:aapo-rantalainen/gimp26-noghostline
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gimp

3. After installation, add back any other related extensions through Software Center.
4. Load GIMP.
5. Configure Input Extensions under Preferences.
6. Disable all pointing devices except for the first tablet listing which you set to SCREEN. (This activates the Pen. The second tablet listing is for the Genius Mouse which you don't need.)
7. SAVE and CLOSE the Input Dialog Box.

Your done. It works. I'm happy again. Thank you Aapo Rantalainen for your help solving a problem that has plagued so many of us. Also thanks to Alexia Death for the initial lead.

Correction on previous post:

That's Genius MOUSEPEN 8x6, not MOUSEPAD.

Sorry if anyone got confused pertaining my bad.

I can confirm that Aapo's patch also works on Wacom Graphire 4 / Ubuntu 11.10! Thank you very much!

I can confirm the bug in ubuntu 12.4 alpha (64bit) (xorg 1.10.4) on an Asus Eee Slate ep121 Tablet with both the build in wacom digitizer and an usb intuos4 W
As pointed out the problem is not only a gimp (2.6.11) problem. I can generate the lines with the jpen java Tablet library as well.
Since the touch input on the ep121 is currently difficult to get to work, the wacom input is crutial for usability of the device.

Is there any definite confirmation that the bug is fixed in xorg 1.11 ?

This bug was fixed in the package gimp - 2.6.11-5ubuntu3

---------------
gimp (2.6.11-5ubuntu3) precise; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/ghost-cursor.patch:
    - Backport patch from git trunk to fix Wacom tablet cursor events
      by ignoring the history buffer by default. LP: #863154
 -- Michael Terry <email address hidden> Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:05:32 -0500

Any chance to fix this bug for Ubuntu 11.10?

Just an update for Aiptek users: The aapo patch works for my system. I'm using an Aiptek 12000u USB hyperpad with Ubuntu Linux 11.10. I just came from Lucid and nothing I did would work until I followed stealthdeath's instructions (above) - they work like a charm - I have full functionality within what I have so far tested. Thanks to everybody for you dedicated and selfless help.

Just applied the aapo patch in Linux Mint 12 / Wacom Graphire 3, and it seems to work. Thanks!

Aapo's PPA also works with a Tevion MD 41217 tablet, under Mint 12 Lisa, using the xserver-xorg-input-aiptek driver. Thanks Aapo!

Just applied the aapo patch in Linux Mint 12 (Lisa) / Wacom Bamboo Fun (CTE-450)
works great
Thanks!

This problem occurs also in MyPaint.

WIll there be any fix soon? Because it makes me unable to work. The problem is system wide - when the jump occurs I click accidentally on Unity icons (so it's not binded to any application - like GIMP or MyPaint). I use MyPaint for my work, so fix only for GIMP isn't enough. :(

I tried aiptek, wacom, acecad drivers for my tablet and all have this problem (it's probably sth in xserver)...

Also - the pressure is not affected - only x and y are changing the pressure is registered normally (unfortunately because if the pressure was also 0 we could just filter it out).

MyPaint doesn't even use the history buffer, or at least it doesn't invoke gdk_device_get_history() anywhere I can see. Could we be seeing two separate bugs here?

Mypaint bug: https://gna.org/bugs/?19896

Anyway, sorry for the noise on a long-fixed bug.

It happens for me as well in mypaint. However, I am using a digipro wp8060.. :| Maybe it's a GTK issue?

Aapo Rantalainen's patch works with Wacom Graphire 4 (usb) / Ubuntu 11.10 with heavy Gnome 3 mods.

Link => https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gimp/+bug/863154/comments/86

It was NOT fixed in the recent gimp update from Ubuntu.

Thanks Aapo!,

PG };8>

It isn't related to GIMP. It's system wide behavior. The clicks go outside GIMP/MyPaint window - for me the tablet clicks on things in the Unity dash randomly changing x or y coordinate to 0...

It can't be related to GTK. It must be related to drivers, Compiz or Xorg - sth low level, it's system wide, not limited to apps, try using your tablet as mouse - the same problem occurs.

PS. Aparently it was fix in latest xserver-xorg-core update on Ubuntu 12.10 (the fix wasn't there in initial version for 12.10).