Yesterday I did an update (using yes | yay) for about 75 packages on my 6 year old EndeavourOS system. I do updates every 2 weeks in general. Rebooted, did some work and left the screen on, for an hour (I usually do this). Came back and saw my screen having weird doubling text glitch, [like this screenshot above]. This issue also visible on my firmware setting (BIOS) screen, which leads me to believe this might be a h/w issue, though not sure.
I want to know whether an arch update can break my display. One particular thing I noticed this morning was, when i adjusted my display brightness, the screen went back to normal for a minute or so.
Also recently I changed my battery about 2 months ago. This was my second battery replacement. After I did my first battery replacement (3 years ago), my laptop had similar display issues with Intel integrated graphics on Windows a month later. which forced me to switch. It was fine on Linux, up until now. So it got me thinking if there is any connection with battery replacements and display issues. I know it sounds weird. Earlier there were not display anomalies on the BIOS screen, but now there is.
Is there a way to fix this.
System info: HP Envy, EndeavourOS Linux 6.12.1-arch1-1, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U with Intel UHD Graphics 620
[Update 1]
I hooked up my laptop to an external monitor and everything looks fine on the monitor screen. So the issue is only with my Laptop’s screen I guess.
[Update 2]
Packages I upgraded yesterday
alsa-card-profiles
alsa-ucm-conf
alsa-utils
sqlite
npth
systemd-libs
libsysprof-capture
gnupg
file
systemd
pacman
archlinux-keyring
bash-completion
btrfs-progs
c-ares
dav1d
dkms
edk2-ovmf
ell
eos-translations
fastfetch
spirv-tools
glslang
libpipewire
pipewire
pipewire-audio
libwireplumber
wireplumber
pipewire-jack
libjxl
shaderc
libplacebo
pixman
ffmpeg
noto-fonts
firefox
flatpak
fluidsynth
fwupd
gst-plugin-pipewire
iwd
js115
js128
less
libbpf
libsynctex
libtool
openal
mpv
noto-fonts-extra
passt
perl-image-exiftool
pipewire-alsa
pipewire-pulse
pkgconf
plocate
pv
qt6-translations
qt6-base
qt6-declarative
qt6-multimedia-ffmpeg
qt6-multimedia
qt6-svg
qt6-wayland
sudo
systemd-resolvconf
systemd-sysvcompat
ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols-common
ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols
virtiofsd
webkit2gtk-4.1
webkitgtk-6.0
welcome
xterm
librewolf-bin
librewolf-bin-deb
That is Lorem ipsum, a test text used usually for doing layout and playing around with text processing. I have absolutely no idea why it would be showing up on boot.
That said, no idea why you would have this type of issue. Do you have BTRFS? With Timeshift? If so, you should have the option to boot into an earlier version, as it was before the update.
If not, to clarify, is this happening in the BIOS as well? The doubling of text lines with some cutoff? Can you show a photo of that too? And do you have an external monitor to connect? Maybe something happened with the display itself and it isn't software at all.
Sorry for not clarifying. The screenshot is not my boot screen. The system boots up into EOS fine but only issue is the display's weird doubling effect. This screenshot is lorem ipsum text on a text editor to show my screen's state (I will clarify it on my post description). I did what you said, hooked up my laptop to an external monitor and everything looks fine on the monitor screen. So the issue is only with my Laptop's screen I guess. Also yes, the doubling glitch is present on the bootup screen, BIOS screen. Unfortunately I don't have timeshift.
OK, so it sounds like you may have a loose ribbon cable. I have had a couple of similar issues where the number of lines is not reporting correctly so the system doubles up or halves weirdly. This has in most cases been a loose or dirty ribbon cable connecting the screen to the motherboard. Unplugging and replugging the ribbon cable is likely to solve the issue if that is the cause, you really don't need much friction and ribbon cables are very delicate.
I think the update timing is probably just a coincidence, there is not really a simple path for updating something to impact your screen in BIOS unless you have microcode updates or something similar, but really it is probably not from updates.
Other file systems have backups working perfectly fine.
True, but EndeavourOS recommends BTRFS and Timeshift, so that was the most likely backup solution in place. I personally like it, but not making any judgement, just asking based on highest likelihood.