Ubuntu – How to fix missing characters from font after awakening from suspend

fontsgnomegraphicsguisuspend

I find that often after awakening from suspend on Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 with GNOME 3.20 (I have only found this issue on the latest version, though I have not tried with GNOME 3.18 on 16.04) that I get this strange font issue which can't be fixed by restarting gnome-shell and seemingly only by restarting my entire machine:

gnome-system-monitor font issue

Shutter font issue

File Chooser font issue

Title Bar font issue

gnome-control-center font issue

I do not believe that this is a theme issue as I have tried all the built-in themes (including the dark and light versions) and it is the same for them all. Though it does not seem to affect gnome-shell areas, that is the top-bar, the Activities Overview, etc, are not affected for some reason. So what could this issue be caused by and how can I fix or workaround it?

Information Update:

I have had a look at this answer but the only options in the gnome-tweak-tool for Antialiasing are Rgba, None, and Grayscale, but none of them seem to have any affect on the issue. Is there something I'm missing?

Best Answer

This might be symptom of a kernel bug since 4.4.6, see here which reportedly got fixed in Linux kernel 4.8.x, and the fix will be in Ubuntu 17.04 (which will likely have 4.10 kernel).

On Fedora bug tracker, someone reported that changing / adding this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf helps:

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "intel"
   Option      "AccelMethod"  "blt"
   Option      "TearFree"     "true"
EndSection

Didn't try, I am going to wait for 17.04.

To me, this happens also after switching to another user account and back.

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