screen resolution dialog couldn't enable external display

[Dag Rende]

Binary package hint: gnome-control-center

I connect an external display (Viewsonic VE710b),
Open the System>Preferences>Screen Resolution
No external display rect is visible, but after clicking the laptop display rect the external one appears
I click Apply, but external display get no signal

I try clicking the Clone Screens checkbox, and clicks Apply again. Now my laptop screen turns black with no signal to the external display, and I have to reboot to get laptop display working again.

I use Ubuntu 8.04.
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 type 6460-8NG with an Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M 512MB.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report. what videodriver do you use?

[Dag Rende (dag-s)]

How do I see which driver I use? With the new X server version, the /etcX11/xorg.conf doesn't show this any more. See lsmod result below:
dag@tp:~$ lsmod|sort
ac 6916 0
acpi_cpufreq 10796 2
af_packet 23812 2
agpgart 34760 1 intel_agp
ahci 28420 2
arc4 2944 2
ata_generic 8324 0
ata_piix 19588 0
battery 14212 0
bay 6912 0
bitblit 6784 1 fbcon
blkcipher 8324 1 ecb
button 9232 0
cdrom 37408 1 sr_mod
cfg80211 15112 1 iwlwifi_mac80211
container 5632 0
cpufreq_conservative 8712 0
cpufreq_ondemand 9740 1
cpufreq_powersave 2688 0
cpufreq_stats 7104 0
cpufreq_userspace 5284 0
dock 11280 1 bay
e1000 125760 0
ecb 4480 2
ehci_hcd 37900 0
evdev 13056 9
ext3 136712 1
fan 5636 0
fbcon 42912 0
font 9472 1 fbcon
freq_table 5536 3 acpi_cpufreq,cpufreq_ondemand,cpufreq_stats
fuse 50580 3
i2c_core 24832 0
ieee1394 93752 2 sbp2,ohci1394
intel_agp 25492 0
iptable_filter 3840 0
ip_tables 14820 1 iptable_filter
ipv6 267780 12
iTCO_vendor_support 4868 1 iTCO_wdt
iTCO_wdt 13092 0
iwl4965 105844 0
iwlwifi_mac80211 219108 1 iwl4965
jbd 48404 1 ext3
joydev 13120 0
libata 159344 4 pata_acpi,ata_generic,ahci,ata_piix
lp 12324 0
mbcache 9600 1 ext3
mmc_core 51460 1 sdhci
Module Size Used by
nvram 9992 2 thinkpad_acpi
ohci1394 33584 0
output 4736 1 video
parport 37832 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
parport_pc 36260 0
pata_acpi 8320 0
pci_hotplug 30880 1 shpchp
pcmcia 40876 0
pcmcia_core 40596 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
pcspkr 4224 0
ppdev 10372 0
processor 36872 4 acpi_cpufreq,thermal
psmouse 40336 0
ricoh_mmc 4352 0
rsrc_nonstatic 13696 1 yenta_socket
sbp2 24072 0
sbs 15112 0
sbshc 7680 1 sbs
scsi_mod 151436 5 sbp2,sg,sd_mod,sr_mod,libata
sdhci 19076 0
sd_mod 30720 3
serio_raw 7940 0
sg 36880 0
shpchp 34452 0
snd 56996 17 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_hwdep,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
snd_hda_intel 344728 3
snd_hwdep 10500 1 snd_hda_intel
snd_mixer_oss 17920 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc ...

[James Westby (james-w)]

On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 09:10 +0000, Dag Rende wrote:
> How do I see which driver I use? With the new X server version, the /etcX11/xorg.conf doesn't show this any more. See lsmod result below:

Hi,

Your /var/log/Xorg.0.log should tell you. Please attach
it to the bug report.

Thanks,

James

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you also attach your .xsession_errors to the bug after getting the issue? it's replaced at login to you need to copy it from a command line before restarting your session
does use esc or waiting for the timeout after applying the setting work? it should bring you back to the configuration you were using before applying the changes

[Dag Rende (dag-s)]

ok, here is first /var/log/Xorg.0.log without any error logging.

[Dag Rende (dag-s)]

News: it works now. The issue described above was just after installing 8.04. After having the problem above, I enabled the nvidia restricted driver.
Then when you asked about driver and log, I disabled the restricted driver again and tried this, and now it just worked.

Still some annoyances:
1. I don't get both external and internal at the same time - only external OR internal.
2. Cloned works, BUT only at a lower resolution - internal is 1680x1050 and external is 1280x1024, but cloned get only 1024x768 at most. Why not scale or crop the internal so that I can look at my screen when demonstrating something on the wall.

Anyway, I can use the default driver and a projector now.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you read bug #220563, it seems to be the issue you are having220563

[Dag Rende (dag-s)]

Ok, the trick in bug #220563 made it possible to get signal on both internal and external display, so thats fine now.

But the original problem was that screen resultion dialog didn't work at all in my newly installed 8.04.
But we should be able to reproduce that problem before taking my report too seriously.

Thank you anyway! Now I can cope without the nvidia restricted driver and all many bugs (makes firefox crash X11, disables suspend and hibernate etc).

Regards,
Dag

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

what did you change to fix the issue?

[Dag Rende (dag-s)]

To fix the original issue (to get any picture at all on the external display) I just installed restricted nvidia driver and then uninstalled it, both using the System>Administration>Hardware Drivers dialog.

To fox the other problem: to get picture on both internal and external display, I followed the description in bug #220563.

Regards,
Dag

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

seems to be a driver issue and not a gnome bug