GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 674641
Windows sometimes jump between displays/screens
Last modified: 2012-11-23 13:37:03 UTC
On a dual-head setup (a laptop where the laptop display and external display are used simultaneously), windows will jump to the laptop display. The external display is configured to be the primary display (i.e. it has the GNOME toolbar at the top). This happens consistently in two situations: * Maximize an Epiphany/Web window on the external (primary) display. It maximizes appropriately. Type anything into the address bar. On the first keypress, the window jumps to the other display. * Maximize an Epiphany/Web window on the external (primary) display. It maximizes appropriately. Go into the Shell Overview and drag the window to another workspace on the external display. The window jumps to the other display. In the first case, the issue can be avoided by maximizing the window, unmaximizing it, and maximizing it again. After that, keypresses don't cause it to jump to the other display. The second case does not have a similar workaround. This has been happening since at least GNOME 3.2.
This problem has actually gotten worse with 3.4. It seems to happen a lot more often with Web/Epiphany windows than other applications. Now, instead of jumping to the other display on keypress, sometimes it happens when a page reloads. Not sure why reloading the page would cause it, but it's happening.
This also happens sometimes when clicking "Send" in Evolution - the new message window jumps to the other display. Increasing importance because this seriously affects usability. Windows jump to the other display more often than they show up on the correct display and jump back even after being moved manually.
Note that the issue seems to happen more often when the window in question is maximized.
I have similar symptoms, with mutter 3.4.1-4 and gnome-shell 3.4.1-8 from Debian. My display configuration is the same as the reporter (diagram not exactly to scale): +----15:41---+ | | +--------+ | | Laptop | External | | | | +--------+------------+ When a new window opens on the external monitor (which is substantially higher-resolution than the laptop's monitor), it sometimes immediately warps to the laptop screen, where it is maximized. This seems to be triggered by the new window being almost as large (or larger) as the laptop screen. It can easily be reproduced using Firefox, which opens new windows at the same dimensions as the most recently used existing window. 1. On the primary, external monitor, press Activities, and open a Firefox window. 2. Make sure it is unmaximized, resize it to fill about half of the area of the laptop screen, and move it to the external monitor. 3. Hit control-N. A new Firefox window will appear on the primary monitor, at the same size as the existing one, and stay there. 4. Close one Firefox window. 5. Resize the remaining Firefox window to be as large as or larger than the laptop screen, but keep it on the external monitor. 6. Hit control-N. A new window will appear on the external monitor, and then immediately jump to the laptop monitor, where it is maximized. Here is a video: http://willthompson.co.uk/misc/shell-firefox-warp.webm Chrome has similar behaviour. Epiphany 3.4 does not exhibit this behaviour for me, but gEdit sometimes behaves as the reporter describes, warping to the other screen after a keystroke or two.
*** Bug 687212 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 556696 ***