With the most recent update of KDE, screen management is acting up. I have a desktop with 3 monitors. Expected behavior: If no hardware has changed, I should be able to log into KDE and the layout of everything remains as it was when I last logged out. The arrangement of the 3 monitors in particular should be the same (left, middle, right). Actual behavior: Each time I log in, the arrangement of the 3 monitors has changed. For example, the middle monitor becomes the left monitor. The desktop wallpapers get mixed up, and sometimes the panel placement gets mixed up too. In more detail, here are some things I have observed: 1. I get a popup asking me about laptop display options. I'm on a desktop, not a laptop. Furthermore, the options presented are confusing. None the selections I have picked have actually worked, and neither has doing nothing. I do not want this dialog every time I log in when my attached screens have not changed. More importantly, I do not want my settings lost on each login. 2. As stated, the arrangement of my screens has changed (e.g., the screen that should be in the middle is arranged on the left or right, etc.) 3. the primary display may have changed too. Other settings may be lost or changed too, such as the locations and settings of my panels. That appears to be a consequence of the screen arrangement being screwed up. As far as I can tell, this started with plasmashell 5.13.2. This computer, running the same hardware with Arch and KDE has worked correctly for the last 2 years until this recent update. Here are my versions: Linux 4.17.3-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Jun 26 04:42:36 UTC 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux plasmashell 5.13.2 dolphin 18.04.2 kate 18.04.2 QMake version 3.1 Using Qt version 5.11.1 in /usr/lib My monitors are: left: DELL U3415W Expected Geometry: 3440x1440+0+0 middle: ELL U3415W Expected Geometry: 3440x1440+3440+0 right: Acer K272HUL Expected Geometry: 2560x1440+6880+0 I am in touch with a friend running KDe on a laptop with 2 external monitors and they are experiencing what sounds like the same issue.
Further updates. I tested two more different systems today, both laptops with multiple external monitors connected. With this testing, I observed several new behaviors. 1. The problem is not exactly the same on all user accounts on the same system. Under plasma5, some user accounts have severe problems with Display & Monitor (and panel and desktop configuration) settings getting lost and other user accounts are less adversely affected. 2. The display layout (I guess this is also called screen geometry) as well as some panel and desktop settings can be lost by logging out and logging back in (without any hardware changes. 3. The same settings can also be lost by undocking and re-docking without logging out for that entire process. 4. In a user account that has a problem with some displays not being enabled (by kscreen), logging out to sddm results in sddm showing all the connected displays properly. 5. Sometimes, after logging in or connecting to the dock, Plasma5 fails to show any desktop at all (just blank black screens). A normal, non-sudo user cannot recover from this except by rebooting as far as we know. It can become a very serious problem. However, one workaround we found for privileged users is to switch to a different virtual console (CTRL-ALT-F2 in Arch for example) and run sudo systemctl restart sddm. In terms of the differences in user accounts, one user account we tested never remembers all 3 connected displays. It also loses the primary display setting. After adding the missing display (which had been configured previously), it doesn't remember the correct placement (geometry/layout). It loses one panel. It loses a desktop background too. This user account has this problem every single time docking or logging in (even if never undocked after logging out). This user account on this system did not have any of these issues until the recent plasma5 updates a couple weeks ago. Another user account on the same machine has much fewer problems. We did see a few display issues, but we also had several successful undock-dock sequences where the display and related configuration was remembered. Obviously more testing is needed due to the inconsistencies observed, but we can definitely say that there are important differences per user account. Can anyone suggest any user configs or user settings that might be related to this behavior. We will test further is someone suggests some steps.
I have to withdraw some (but not all) of what I said in my last comment. After further testing, even the user profile we assumed was "better" is not really better. It simply worked better a couple times. But on further testing, this user proves just as problematic as the other user profile. We find that both user profiles on this machine have all the problems described in the earlier comments.
Is it possible to disable kscreen (without uninstalling) so that all screen management can be done by xrandr? As a test, I removed packages libkscreen and kscreen and used xrandr with very good results. The problem is that I also had to remove powerdevil. I don't think I want to manage power settings on a laptop without powerdevil, therefore, I cannot leave libkscreen and kscreen uninstalled. But I would like to know if there is a way to tell kscreen to stop managing screens so that I can do it myself with xrandr. I do not want to compile any packages, apply any patches, etc. Alternatively, can I control kscreen manually the way I would use xrandr? I see that a binary called kscreen-doctor exists, but I don't see a manual entry for it and I don't see any mention of it on the Arch Linux wiki (or anywhere else).
Very similar to 376341 and 401581. Anyhow, I say, this should even be put into the #15-minute-initiative
Thank you for the bug report. Unfortunately we were not able to get to it yet. Can we ask you to please check if this is still an issue with Plasma 5.25 or 5.26? If it is, please change the status to CONFIRMED when replying, and paste the output of `kscreen-doctor -o` when it's working properly, and also then immediately after you notice it's gone wrong. If the issue is fixed or you no longer use this setup and can no longer try to reproduce the issue, you can change the status to RESOLVED WORKSFORME. Thanks a lot!
Dear Bug Submitter, This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 15 days. Please provide the requested information as soon as possible and set the bug status as REPORTED. Due to regular bug tracker maintenance, if the bug is still in NEEDSINFO status with no change in 30 days the bug will be closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME due to lack of needed information. For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the wiki located here: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging If you have already provided the requested information, please mark the bug as REPORTED so that the KDE team knows that the bug is ready to be confirmed. Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!
This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 30 days. The bug is now closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME due to lack of needed information. For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the wiki located here: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!