Gnome suspends or blanks external monitor when laptop is docked

[Martin D. Weinberg]

In the default configuration, resuming my T440s on the Lenovo ultradock results in not detecting the external monitor followed by a suspend.

If I open the lid while on the dock, gnome detects the external monitor and blanks the laptop display. Then, closing the lid results in suspend.

As a work around, using tweak tool (or UPower) to ignore the lid, does prevent the suspend. But it is not automatic; each time, one must bring up the gnome control panel->devices->displays and manually select single display. Then the lid may be closed without suspend.

This worked fine in 17.04, so I'm hoping that the provides enough clues that this can be fixed easily.

Thanks! I am enjoying the new Ubuntu 17.10 generally, but this situation is annoying.

System details:

linux magpie 4.13.9-041309-generic #201710211231 SMP Sat Oct 21 16:32:44 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'm trying a kernel from mainline, just to see if that matters; it doesn't. Same behavior on stock 17.10 kernel.

Software version:

Package: gnome-settings-daemon
Versions:
3.26.1-0ubuntu5 (/var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_artful_main_binary-amd64_Packages) (/var/lib/dpkg/status)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-settings-daemon 3.26.1-0ubuntu5
Uname: Linux 4.13.9-041309-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Nov 4 12:32:43 2017
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-05-06 (546 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160420.1)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-settings-daemon
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to artful on 2017-10-20 (15 days ago)

[Martin D. Weinberg (martin-weinberg-5)]

Just to make sure, I again repeated the sequence of events outlined above on the stock 17.10 kernel:

Linux magpie 4.13.0-16-generic #19-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 11 18:35:14 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The behavior is identical to that reported above.

One minor elaboration: when I open the control panel->Devices->Displays with the lid action set to "ignore", I have to toggle the external monitor, even if it is currently selected, in order to prevent the lid close from blanking the display.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[Martin D. Weinberg (martin-weinberg-5)]

I refiled the bug at bugzilla.gnome.org as bug 790040.

The link is:  https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=790040

I'm really surprised that there are not more complaints about this.  To
be fair, the dock+external monitor setup has NOT worked perfectly in any
release Ubuntu release, including 16.04.  Although, before 17.10,
trouble only arose when moving the laptop between docks with different
monitors, so it was tolerable.

I sure hope this can be fixed.  I suppose I could cook up some sort of
udev script to handle dock changes for my situation but that is horrible
kludge, not a fix.

On 11/07/2017 05:13 PM, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
> Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it
> would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers
> of the software by following the instructions at
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please
> tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a
> bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.
>
> ** Package changed: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu) => gnome-shell
> (Ubuntu)
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-shell (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided => Low
>

--
Martin Weinberg
6 Grass Hill Rd
West Whately, MA
010039

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 1722725, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[John C Fowler (jcfowlerca)]

Will there be an option for a laptop being docked? A do nothing setting when docked?