Enabling/disabling secondary screen is flaky/unstable

[David Henningsson]

I've been enabling/disabling a secondary screen a few times back and forth and the result is rather flaky/unstable. This is what happens when I press "apply":

 * In best case, I get a strange screen (artifacts all over) for ~15 seconds, then the real screen reappears, asking me whether I want to confirm or return to previous settings (and the usual timeout).

 * Sometimes I get a strange screen for all 30 seconds and then it reverts.

 * Sometimes nothing happens at all.

 * Sometimes the computer locks up hard with a black screen.

 * One time I also got an error saying that it failed to set "Metamode 1920x1200 on Xscreen 0".

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: nvidia-settings 280.13-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-10.16-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-10-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Sep 5 14:51:15 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Alpha amd64 (20110802.1)
SourcePackage: nvidia-settings
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Bobby Smith (bobby-smith)]

I'm also having the same issue, using a Dell Latitude e6510 with 280.13 on a NVS3100m. Sometimes it works, and sometimes I get a screen full of artifiacts for about 13 seconds with 2 seconds left to respond to the toast, after which sometimes it seems compiz crashes (with no core left that I can find) with an assertion error somewhere in the boost library.

I'll try to get some more details and attach them.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hey diwic,

Hi, thanks for reporting this issue during the development period of
Ubuntu.

I notice there's not been further comments to the bug report since the
release came out, would you mind updating us on the status of it in the
release?

Are you still able to reproduce the issue? If not, do you think the bug
report can be closed, or do you think we should continue tracking it?

[Christoph Buchner (bilderbuchi)]

Well I haven't measured the exact durations he mentions, but since upgrading to Oneiric, my experience with secondary screens shows most of the symptoms the OP describes.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for nvidia-settings (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]