secondary monitor is not correctly initialized

[Riccardo Masala]

Binary package hint: xorg

Dual screen configuration was working fine with 9.10 with extended desktop. I use 2x19" monitors both set to 1600x1200.

The screen seems to have been correctly drawn (3200x1200) in the desktop chooser applet.
See picture attached to better understand.
The windows can be placed outside the right limit of the screen. But in both the monitors is drawn the same screen, like it was a mirrored setup. The monitor preferences window identifies each screen with a coloured rectangle on the upper left corner: it reports the same monitor, the VGA0, no matter what I do.

Nor " xrandr --output VGA-0 --left-of DVI-0 " neither the various visual tools seem to help

Under suggestion of one user ofubuntu forums
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1468857

I did the following:
Turn on the computer with the secondary monitor (for me the one attached to the dvi connector) unplugged.
Login and THEN plug in the DVI connector.
xrandr --output VGA-0 --left-of DVI-0

This actually works, but has to be repeated each time I turn on the computer, and isn't really practical.
It does not work if I boot with the monitors connected and unplug before login.

I'm available for whichever test you suggest.

[edit]
I noticed, when the secondary screen is enabled with the above trick:
a general degradation of the speed, it seems scattering and terribly slow with few apps open, expecially when using the extended desktop.
Videos in streaming (I tried with vlc) on the secondary screen hang and a fixed image is shown, while moving the window on the primary screen the video is correctly shown. Whenever I drag the video window on the secondary screen, it hangs, until I drag it back to the primary. Audio isn't affected.

Is there a way to downgrade to a previous video driver or similar option?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: xorg 1:7.5+5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun May 9 21:29:03 2010
DkmsStatus: virtualbox-ose, 3.1.6, 2.6.32-22-generic, i686: installed
MachineType: VIA Technologies, Inc. KM400-8235
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=7214f05c-1bea-4186-a2f7-c46d460194af ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=it_IT.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
dmi.bios.date: 07/31/2003
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
dmi.bios.version: 1004
dmi.board.name: A7V8X-MX
dmi.board.vendor: ASUS
dmi.board.version: A7V8X-MX
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: ASUS A7V8X-MX
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologies,LTD:bvr1004:bd07/31/2003:svnVIATechnologies,Inc.:pnKM400-8235:pvr:rvnASUS:rnA7V8X-MX:rvrA7V8X-MX:cvnASUSA7V8X-MX:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: KM400-8235
dmi.sys.vendor: VIA Technologies, Inc.
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: i686
 kernel: 2.6.32-22-generic

[cholt45 (cholt45)]

I have the exact same bug on my system. In same i mean they also work in mirror, screen corectly drawn, colored rectangles same ... Runing 10.04 on radeon 9200se with 2 monitors.

[sylvain.mina (sylvain-mina)]

At work, I had the same problem... I tried to change the card for a Radeon7000 (RV100) and it goes right (except the slowness of some applications such as Chrome when the window is maximized).
My colleague update from 9.10 to 10.04 yesterday...she has also the radeon 9200 se and... she has the problem too...

[cholt45 (cholt45)]

I noticed that i have a very similar motherboard. Mine is ASUS A7V8X-X

[Paco (fco-del-aguila)]

I realised in my case that dual screen works fine after awake when suspend the system. In this way you don't have to unplug the monitor in order to work around the bug.

[Riccardo Masala (raggioscuro)]

Upgraded to lucid, everything works fine, without configuring anything.
I don't know what changed, kernel, driver, other... But the general behaviour of the machine is tons better, faster, and the dual screen works correctly.

For what regards me this report is closed. ;)

[Riccardo Masala (raggioscuro)]

err... I apologize, The upgrade was from lucid to maverick!

[Martin Wildam (mwildam)]

Would be cool to know what happened because I would like to see the patch in Lucid 10.04.2 too.

[Riccardo Masala (raggioscuro)]

If I can be helpful, I'm still here!

[Martin Wildam (mwildam)]

As I workaround you could create a script that you can run from a single click. My major issue I have is slightly different (see Bug #613650) and I use a variant of such a script at gdm startup.

#!/bin/sh
#xdisplaycheck.sh
xrandr -q | grep VGA-0 | grep " connected "
# 0 is returned on success
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  xrandr --output VGA-0 --left-of DVI-0
fi

You might also want to have a look at http://it-tactics.blogspot.com/2010/08/ubuntu-1004-with-docking-station.html where I have written about my problem(s) with the external monitor.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Riccardo Masala, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xserver-xorg-video-ati REPLACE-WITH-BUG-NUMBER

Please note, given that the information from the prior release is already available, doing this on a release prior to the development one would not be helpful.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Martin Wildam (mwildam)]

Since a longer while I usually use only one monitor, either the laptop internal one or only the external one (laptop closed and attached to docking station). However, I did have several presentations lately using beamer as secondary monitor. It worked flawlessly either in mirror or non-mirror mode.

Side note: In the meantime I also switched laptop and from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04, so if this problem was related to particular motherboard or Linux Kernel, maybe the change of the laptop could have solved the issue (previously I had a Dell Latitude E5500, no I use a Dell Latitude E6530). But both were Intel graphics and not ATI.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]