Graphics glitches in GNOME apps

Help
1

I’m having trouble with some of the default GNOME applications, where the graphics seem to glitch out completely. I’ve seem this happen in the File Manager, Settings, and Document Viewer. I’ve never seen this happen in any other applications.

Screenshot From 2025-12-19 12-09-27
Screenshot From 2025-12-19 12-09-27443×580 21.4 KB

Is this a known issue others have encountered?

My graphics card is an Intel B580, but I have my monitors connected to the motherboard to use the AMD on-board graphics. However, this happens even if I connect to the graphics card directly.

Please let me know if there is any other info I can provide.

2

How have you configured your graphics?
could you share your config?
Also could you try this env in your config:

environment.sessionVariables = {
  INTEL_DEBUG = "noccs";
};
3

Everything related to my graphics card is in it’s own file /etc/nixos/intel-arc.nix, which I include from my configuration file:

# https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics
{ config, pkgs, lib, ... }: {

  # use amd integrated gpu first, then intel graphics card
  services.xserver.videoDrivers = [ "amdgpu" "modesetting" ];

  hardware.graphics.enable = true;
  hardware.graphics.extraPackages = with pkgs; [
    intel-media-driver
    vpl-gpu-rt

    # optional, just in case
    intel-compute-runtime
  ];
  hardware.enableRedistributableFirmware = true;

  environment.sessionVariables = { LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME = "iHD"; };
  boot.kernelParams = [ "i915.enable_guc=3" ];
}

What does INTEL_DEBUG = "noccs"; do?

4

I switched to Plasma just to see if my issues still persisted, however I have not seen any graphical issues at all.

Since I only encountered these glitches in GNOME-specific apps, is it related to GNOME somehow? Seems odd if that’s the case, and I would guess it’s some underlying library that’s causing issues.

5

Can you run export GSK_RENDERER=gl then launch a gtk app? Does that fix things?

related:

Make sure your system is up to date too. If you’re unsure, post the output of

nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
6

Oh! That seems to resolve my issue.

Running Nautilus from the command line after exporting that made all the lag and rendering problems disappear.

I’m still on Plasma, but if I go back to GNOME, where exactly would I configure GNOME to use that? Since I don’t want to launch applications through the terminal each time.

7

That’s not really the fix. This workaround should not be necessary if you updated your system. I just asked to verify if it’s the same issue.

8

Gotcha. My system:

 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 6.12.58, NixOS, 25.11 (Xantusia), 25.11.20251117.89c2b23`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.31.2`
 - channels(root): `"nixos"`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/store/f640ps0hcp7w5jzg18djf8gdhl6r2rnl-source`
9

November 17, that’s quite old. Definitely needs an update and restart, as this was fixed around Nov 22. Since you’re clearly using flakes, run nix flake update in your NixOS config directory, then rebuild.

10

Updated and restarted, and can confirm the issues are now gone!

Thanks for the help @waffle8946!