Graphical glitches, game crashes and apps not launching

Title: Troubleshooting Graphical Glitches, Application Crashes, and Launch Failures on Linux

Introduction

Experiencing graphical glitches, application crashes, or launcher failures can be frustrating, especially when trying to enjoy or complete important tasks on your Linux system. Recently, a user encountered a series of issues after revisiting their Arch Linux setup post a two-week absence. This article explores the scenario in detail, analyzes potential causes, and offers strategies to diagnose and resolve similar problems.

Case Overview

The user initially reports attempting to launch “The Finals,” a game that was working previously but now crashes during startup. Concurrently, most GUI-based applications such as the Snap Store, Gnome Text Editor, OBS Studio, and Visual Studio Code are exhibiting severe graphical glitches, sometimes leading to unresponsiveness or failure to launch altogether. Interestingly, Firefox remains unaffected, indicating the issue may be limited to certain applications or graphics components.

Key Observations

• After a two-week period without logging into the system, the user performed a routine update using yay.
• Post-update, launching “The Finals” caused the game to hang during shader preloading before crashing.
• Attempts to relaunch the game result in partial shader preload (~50%) followed by crashes.
• Applications like the Snap Store and Gnome Text Editor display graphical corruption and become unresponsive.
• Tools such as OBS Studio and VS Code either fail to launch or exhibit graphical issues.
• The user has an Intel Arc B580 GPU and recently reinstalled Mesa and Vulkan packages as part of troubleshooting.

Potential Causes

1. Graphics Driver or Vulkan Issues:
   Reinstalling Mesa and Vulkan might have introduced incompatibilities or misconfigurations, especially with proprietary or updated drivers for Intel Arc GPUs. Shader compilation failures during game startup often point to driver or Vulkan runtime issues.

2. Incomplete or Conflicting System Updates:
   Major updates after a hiatus can sometimes lead to broken dependencies or mismatched library versions, affecting rendering or application stability.

3. Application-Specific Bugs:
   Certain apps may be more sensitive to graphics driver versions or runtime libraries, leading to crashes or glitches.

4. GPU Firmware or Kernel Compatibility:
   Changes in kernel modules or firmware updates may impact GPU functionality, especially with newer hardware like Intel Arc series.

Troubleshooting and Resolution Strategies

1. Verify Graphics Driver Installation
2. Ensure that the latest Intel Arc drivers are correctly installed. For Intel Arc GPUs, you might need