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Troubleshooting

Fixing Blur when recording.

Fix blur and full-screen color artifacts with Vibe Typer on KDE Plasma, Hyprland, and Niri.

The Issue

Some Linux desktop environments and Wayland tiling window managers can apply effects to Vibe Typer's transparent recording-indicator window.

Depending on your compositor configuration, this can look like:

  • whole-screen blur while recording,
  • a tinted/blue full-screen background,
  • or other unexpected overlays.

The Cause

Vibe Typer's recording indicator is rendered in a transparent overlay window.

On some compositors, desktop effects or default rules also affect transparent windows. That can cause visual artifacts for the indicator surface.

Fix by Compositor

KDE Plasma: disable the Blur desktop effect

On KDE Plasma, the most reliable workaround is to disable KDE's Blur desktop effect:

  1. Open System Settings.

  2. Go to Window Management → Desktop Effects.

  3. Search for Blur.

  4. Turn Blur off, then click Apply.

If you prefer the terminal, you can unload the Blur effect for the current session:

qdbus6 org.kde.KWin /Effects unloadEffect blur

To turn it back on:

qdbus6 org.kde.KWin /Effects loadEffect blur

If your system does not have qdbus6, try qdbus instead.

If the issue continues, also test disabling Background Contrast, Translucency, or any third-party effects named Force Blur, Better Blur, Better Blur DX, or Glass.

For third-party blur effects that support exclude lists, add Vibe Typer's window class:

vibe-typer

If the effect supports title matching, the recording indicator window title is:

Recording Indicator

KDE Window Rules may help with opacity and focus behavior, but Wayland may ignore or limit size and position overrides for this kind of overlay window.

To try a KDE Window Rule:

  1. Open System Settings → Window Management → Window Rules.

  2. Add a new rule matching:

Window class: vibe-typer
Window title: Recording Indicator
  1. Add these properties:
Active opacity: Force, 100%
Inactive opacity: Force, 100%
Accept focus: Force, No

If available, you can also test:

Block compositing: Force, Yes

This rule is less reliable than disabling the Blur effect, but it can help on some KDE configurations.

Hyprland: disable blur for the Recording Indicator window

Vibe Typer now attempts to apply this automatically while it is running on Hyprland. It uses hyprctl to scope no_blur to the Recording Indicator window only.

If the blur still appears, hyprctl may be unavailable, blocked, or unable to find the mapped indicator window. In that case, add the rule manually:

To disable Vibe Typer's automatic Hyprland workaround for debugging, launch the app with:

VIBE_DISABLE_HYPRLAND_INDICATOR_NO_BLUR=1 ./VibeTyper.AppImage

  1. Open your Hyprland config (usually ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf).

  2. Add this rule:

windowrule {
  name = vibetyper-recording-indicator-no-blur

  # Match the Recording Indicator window
  match:class = ^vibe-typer$
  match:title = ^Recording Indicator$

  # Disable effects that cause visual artifacts
  no_blur = on
  no_shadow = on
  no_anim = on
  border_size = 0
  no_focus = on
}
  1. Reload Hyprland:
hyprctl reload

If it still blurs, verify the match while recording:

hyprctl clients

Confirm the indicator window uses class: vibe-typer and title Recording Indicator.

If title matching is unstable, try match:initial_title:

windowrule {
  name = vibetyper-recording-indicator-no-blur
  match:class = ^vibe-typer$
  match:initial_title = ^Recording Indicator$
  no_blur = on
  no_shadow = on
  no_anim = on
  border_size = 0
  no_focus = on
}

Community fallback: vibetyper-hyprland-fix

Last resort (global): disable blur for all apps.

decoration {
  blur {
    enabled = false
  }
}

Niri: disable background rendering for Vibe Typer

Add a window rule for the Vibe Typer app-id in your Niri config:

window-rule {
  match app-id="vibe-typer"
  draw-border-with-background false
  focus-ring { off; }
  border { off; }
}

This compositor-specific rule prevents the full-screen tinted/blue background artifact behind the indicator window.

References