Unity update broke screen rotation

[Mark Shaw]

After the latest Unity update, rotating the screen causes a big black bar to appear which applications can't be seen over. (See screenshot)

Does not occur Ubuntu classic, does not occur on original 11.04.

Happens on my thinkpad X61 Tablet with Intel graphics.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue could be due to the patch on bug #753971

[Daniel Manrique (roadmr)]

Mark:

Can you confirm whether the problem occurs when rotating the screen 180 degrees? (upside down). I was able to duplicate this problem but only on left or right rotations.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I reported this as bug 733594 and as far as I know the big black bar always appeared throughout Natty's development process.

[Mark Shaw (notmarkshaw)]

Daniel: Yup, exactly like you say, the problem only occurs on left or right rotations but not upside-down (180 degree) rotations.

The reason I put that it's a regression is because this does not occur on a 11.04 live CD or new install.

[Mark Shaw (notmarkshaw)]

Also downgrading to the previous version fixes it in the sense that now if a black bar appears it goes away when dragging applications near it:
sudo apt-get install unity=3.8.10-0ubuntu2 unity-common=3.8.10-0ubuntu2

[Nikolay Kukushkin (n-kukushkin)]

This problem also occurs in unity 3.8.12 (not in classic mode) when connecting an external monitor in full resolution, in single or dual monitor mode (does not affect mirrored screens). In either case, the only visible area corresponds to the size of the original laptop screen (see attachment). Downgrading to unity 3.8.10 also solves the problem (the black area is still there, but disappears on mouse click).

[Rodrick Yu (rodrickyu)]

I've had this problem occur after an update like everyone else. In the black bar area, unity things like the side bar and the top menu bar can draw in the area but nothing else can.

The downgrade as noted by Mark fixed it in the same way for me as well.

[Rodrick Yu (rodrickyu)]

Downgrading to 3.8.10 reintroduced a bug where Xournal's xinput based pen input is offset by some weird amount, so I've reverted back to 3.8.12. As a different workaround for this bug I rotate the screen, logout, then log back in for left or right rotations. This results in a black bar on the right side on normal and upside-down rotations, which I once again fix by logging out and logging back in.

[Victor Tuson Palau (vtuson)]

I think this bug maybe related to
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/753971

[Rodrick Yu (rodrickyu)]

@Victor

That bug was mentioned in comment #2. I agree with Sebastien that the bug might be a result of the patch for that bug. More specifically, it might be due to the patch for bug #795454 that bug #753971 refers to.

[Mark Shaw (notmarkshaw)]

This seems to be completely fixed in Unity 3.8.16 (natty-proposed). :-)