With multiple monitors, live sessions and the installer should use clone mode, not spanning.

[George White]

The installation system comes up expecting 2 displays and the window decorations are in the non visible screen as is the control panel for performing the install. By bringing the cursor to the active screen (it starts out far left off screen), I can start a terminal from the menu and then start gnome-control-center to fix the display and then the installation can proceed.

I've seen this reported as a freeze, but it's not and just an issue with the display. Perhaps because it fails to detect the proper monitor (mine is an ASUS VS22). I also have an LG monitor, but this has a different problem by returning bad config info (the screen size is reported incorrectly)

This occurred when installing the current 18.04 desktop distribution and behaves the same for EFI or BIOS boot.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: xorg 1:7.7+19ubuntu7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-generic 4.15.17
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
BootLog: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/boot.log'
CasperVersion: 1.394
CompositorRunning: None
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Thu Jun 21 08:52:56 2018
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: bionic
DistroVariant: ubuntu
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation Device [8086:3e91] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device [1458:d000]
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426)
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 004: ID 13fe:5400 Kingston Technology Company Inc.
 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0c45:7605 Microdia
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1bcf:053e Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc.
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. H370M-D3H
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=C.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/username.seed boot=casper quiet splash ---
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 02/13/2018
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: F2
dmi.board.asset.tag: Default string
dmi.board.name: H370M D3H-CF
dmi.board.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: x.x
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Default string
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Default string
dmi.chassis.version: Default string
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrF2:bd02/13/2018:svnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:pnH370M-D3H:pvrDefaultstring:rvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:rnH370MD3H-CF:rvrx.x:cvnDefaultstring:ct3:cvrDefaultstring:
dmi.product.family: Default string
dmi.product.name: H370M-D3H
dmi.product.version: Default string
dmi.sys.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
version.compiz: compiz N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.91-2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 18.0.0~rc5-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 18.0.0~rc5-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:18.0.1-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20171229-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.15-2

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

You do indeed seem to have 2 monitors plugged in.

If the LG is known to be faulty then please unplug it, and this is not a bug.
If the LG is expected to work, then this is a bug.

Do you find any difference/improvement in logging into "Ubuntu" (Xorg) vs "Ubuntu on Wayland"?

[George White (co2isnotevil)]

Yes, there was a cable plugged in to the other port, but the monitor on
the other end was set to a different input and I expected it to have
been ignored.  The 'bug' is that during installation, there's no need to
set up multiple screens, except as clones of each other, so that the
installation will work from any screen.  If you're looking at the
'wrong' monitor,  the initial symptom is indistinguishable from the
installation hanging which makes the source of the problem harder to
track down.  Part of the illusion is because the mouse was so far off
screen, it seemed like it was frozen as well.

On 06/21/2018 07:21 PM, Daniel van Vugt wrote:
> You do indeed seem to have 2 monitors plugged in.
>
> If the LG is known to be faulty then please unplug it, and this is not a bug.
> If the LG is expected to work, then this is a bug.
>
> Do you find any difference/improvement in logging into "Ubuntu" (Xorg)
> vs "Ubuntu on Wayland"?
The only issue was trying to track down logs for diagnosis.
>
> ** Package changed: xorg (Ubuntu) => xorg-server (Ubuntu)
>
> ** Changed in: xorg-server (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Unfortunately an inactive monitor that is connected is usually still detected as a monitor. So the system can only try to do the right thing and try to use it.

I agree with your suggestion that the live session and installation should use clone mode to cover this and other potential arrangement problems. So this is not a bug, but now an enhancement request.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Further to comment #4, last I checked (when working on Mir) it was impossible to distinguish between a plugged in monitor that is on and one that is off. In software we can't tell the difference. It's detected all the same :(