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Bug 789711 - control-center display panel cannot move monitors
control-center display panel cannot move monitors
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-control-center
Classification: Core
Component: Display
unspecified
Other Linux
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: Control-Center Maintainers
Control-Center Maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2017-10-31 14:29 UTC by David Britton
Modified: 2018-03-13 19:41 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
modetest and gnome-control-center output (42.65 KB, text/plain)
2017-10-31 16:55 UTC, David Britton
  Details
gnome-control-center displays (54.10 KB, image/png)
2017-10-31 17:19 UTC, David Britton
  Details
output of requested gdbus inspection (6.51 KB, text/plain)
2017-10-31 17:19 UTC, David Britton
  Details
display: Remove automatic layout adjustments (5.53 KB, patch)
2017-11-13 17:32 UTC, Rui Matos
committed Details | Review
display: Ignore disabled and closed builtin panels in layout geometry (7.81 KB, patch)
2017-11-14 16:43 UTC, Rui Matos
committed Details | Review

Description David Britton 2017-10-31 14:29:27 UTC
Running wayland, gnome-shell, 17.10, up-to-date.

I have two monitors plugged into my computer, a couple days ago, everything was fine. Now, after a couple of crashes, and package upgrades, I can no longer re-arrange my monitors on the control center interface. When I mouse over a monitor, the cursor changes into a grabby-hand, but when I click and drag, the monitors just stay where they are. No movement at all.

Things I've tried so far --

- removing .config/monitors.xml and rebooting
- disabling & re-enabling monitors

I'm happy to do some debugging on this, but my searches and troubleshooting so far is coming up empty.

DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.26.1-0ubuntu4

I have filed Launchpad bug #1725555 for tracking.
Comment 1 Rui Matos 2017-10-31 14:46:33 UTC
Please run gnome-control-center from a terminal and post here any messages it outputs when you try to move monitors in the UI.

Also the output of 'xrandr --verbose' if this is an X session or 'modetest' if this is a wayland session.
Comment 2 David Britton 2017-10-31 16:55:10 UTC
Created attachment 362652 [details]
modetest and gnome-control-center output

Yes I'm running wayland, though last time I tried the X session I got the same behavior in gnome-control-center.

Attached output with debug logging set.  Basically, nothing interesting to me anyway.  When I click and drag on a monitor, there is no extra messages showing up.

Also attaching the output of modetest.  I compiled following these instructions:

https://wiki.linaro.org/xinliang/libdrm/modetest
Comment 3 Rui Matos 2017-10-31 17:00:40 UTC
so, you have 4 monitors right? and you don't see any output from g-c-c when trying to move monitors?

can you post a g-c-c screenshot and the output of 'gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig --object-path /org/gnome/Mutter/DisplayConfig --method org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig.GetCurrentState' ?
Comment 4 David Britton 2017-10-31 17:19:00 UTC
Created attachment 362658 [details]
gnome-control-center displays
Comment 5 David Britton 2017-10-31 17:19:43 UTC
Created attachment 362659 [details]
output of requested gdbus inspection
Comment 6 David Britton 2017-10-31 17:21:02 UTC
Added the requested two things.  yes, I have 4 monitors, but one of them is the laptop screen that is off.  Basically, the laptop is docked to a 3 1080p monitor arrangement.
Comment 7 leech 2017-11-01 09:05:49 UTC
I experience the same thing.  Here is what I've found out when playing around with it.

Setup at work was 2160x1440 and 1920x1080 external monitors, and I would turn off the 3840x2160 monitor on my laptop.  If I leave the lid open, but the panel disabled in g-c-c, it allows me to move the monitor around.  If I close the panel, it forces the 1920x1080 monitor to the top which breaks the alignment of the two screens physically.  Open the panel back up, and it auto-adjusts back to where I had it and allows me to move it again.

arandr also allows me to move the panel, but then gnome-shell will randomly reload the positions (I think something is causing gnome-shell to crash, but I don't think it's a bug in gnome, since this only started to happen recently (I'm running Debian Sid).  There is definitely something resetting the randr library whenever I open/close the lid.

Also one thing that I hope is added is the physical scaling to be fixed.  Seems randr itself supports detecting this, but it doesn't show up in g-c-c.  My new setup with my laptop is two 27" monitors with 3840x2160 and the same 2160x1440.  But g-c-c displays them as completely different in size.  I suppose that's more of a feature request and is off topic for this bug report, but it still is  affecting this particular problem, as it randomly decides to move where the monitor is and locks it in place.  I'm solving this by ordering a second 4k screen.
Comment 8 David Britton 2017-11-01 21:52:50 UTC
Thanks leech!  That's exactly right.  If I back down to one or two monitors + the internal screen (which has a larger screen resolution), I can then move the monitors around.

So, it looks like to reproduce:

- Attach more than one monitor to computer
- make them of different max screen resolutions
- Even if the one that is not the same size is disabled, it still counts.
- open gnome-control-center
- monitor positions will not be editable.
Comment 9 David Britton 2017-11-01 21:59:06 UTC
Oops, don't know how to edit my comment.  This one should be read instead of Comment #8:

Thanks leech!  That's exactly right.  If I back down to one or two monitors + the internal screen (which has a larger screen resolution), I can then move the monitors around in gnome-control-center.

So, it looks like to reproduce:

- Attach more than one monitor to computer (3 needed in practice, 2 external + hidpi laptop is I tested with)
- one of them is hidpi max screen resolutions
- disable the hidpi resolution monitor in gnome-control center.
- Apply
- Remaining 2 monitor positions will no longer be editable.
Comment 10 Sebastien Bacher 2017-11-07 14:29:18 UTC
the launchpad bug has that screencast
https://launchpadlibrarian.net/344807406/Peek%202017-11-07%2007-02.gif
Comment 11 Rui Matos 2017-11-13 17:32:21 UTC
Created attachment 363521 [details] [review]
display: Remove automatic layout adjustments

As the comment hinted at, fixing layouts automatically to ensure their
applicability doesn't actually work in all cases and in fact may force
users to redo their layout completely after a seemingly small change.

So, let's stop pretending we can do it and instead leave it to users
to fix it manually.

--

Please try this patch and let me know if it works.
Comment 12 Rui Matos 2017-11-14 16:43:29 UTC
Created attachment 363617 [details] [review]
display: Ignore disabled and closed builtin panels in layout geometry

Extend the existing checks for this kind of outputs to the layout
geometry routines.

--

The previous patch isn't enough but together with this one it should
finally fix this, can someone confirm?

For those on F27, here's a scratch build
https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=23123071
Comment 13 Rui Matos 2017-11-14 16:44:05 UTC
*** Bug 786971 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 14 Martin Bříza 2017-11-15 10:50:04 UTC
Works for me.
Comment 15 Pavel Studeník 2017-11-15 11:36:54 UTC
Previous scratch build works better. But icons of monitor are still rather small in center panel. Look at my screenshot https://owncloud.unart.cz/index.php/s/zdYkkyLEHaZrADZ
Comment 16 Mattias Bengtsson 2017-11-15 13:46:39 UTC
Was about to file the same bug since I ran into it at work when upgrading to F27. Here's another screencast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9lTNRXN00Y
Comment 17 Rui Matos 2017-11-15 14:17:09 UTC
Attachment 363521 [details] pushed as 245f796 - display: Remove automatic layout adjustments
Attachment 363617 [details] pushed as cc32962 - display: Ignore disabled and closed builtin panels in layout geometry
Comment 18 Ian Mackie 2018-03-13 19:41:53 UTC
I'm still seeing this in 17.10 All resolutions 1920x1080 2 docked, 1 discrete.