I’m having a very peculiar issue with an external display plugged to my laptop. I’m running Manjaro with Plasma. Here are “steps to reproduce”.
- Start the laptop and log into my account with the display unplugged.
- Connect the display.
- The display is detected. It is used to extend my desktop to the right of my laptop’s screen.
- I open “Configure Display Settings…” to rearrange my displays and make the external one primary.
- Now I unplug the external display and plug it again.
What happens next looks like the system and the display can’t get to grips with each other. My external display just repeatedly flashes the message that it detects an input, but can’t display anything. My laptop’s display shows my desktop that flickers between two layouts: with the external display or without it. If I manage to get a glimpse of “Display Configuration” window it shows a message at the top: “An output has been removed, settings reloaded”. So it looks like something rapidly retries to connect to the display.
When that happens I found two ways to get out of that situation. One is to reboot with the display connected. After reboot and logging in it works as before, with my chosen arrangement. Another is to disconnect the display again, clear display settings by running rm -rf ~/.local/share/kscreen and connecting again. This resets the settings so I have to rearrange the displays again.
Now some observations:
- The event that triggers this situation could be anything that forces Plasma to reorient itself in the available displays. Could be unplugging and plugging again like I said above and that is the most reproducible. Sometimes it could also be closing the laptop’s lid, or waking from sleep.
- If I switch out of xorg session with
Ctrl+Alt+F2then everything is replicated on both displays as you’d expect. - The first screen of SDDM, the “choose account” screen after boot up, is not affected. If the external display is connected during boot up, it will use both displays. If I plug it after boot up while I’m already on this first screen, it will not use it.
- The second screen of SDDM, the lock screen, is just affected as normal desktop.
- I have a dual boot with Windows 11 on this laptop. There are no such problems with the same display on Windows.
- There is no such problem when using the same laptop with a different monitor.
I’m completely in the dark as to where to even start looking so I welcome any suggestions.
The laptop is ASUS TUF Gaming and the display is Samsung C27JG5X.
neofetch:
██████████████████ ████████ su@laptop
██████████████████ ████████ ---------
██████████████████ ████████ OS: Manjaro Linux x86_64
██████████████████ ████████ Host: ASUS TUF Gaming F17 FX706HCB_FX706HCB 1.0
████████ ████████ Kernel: 5.15.89-1-MANJARO
████████ ████████ ████████ Uptime: 55 mins
████████ ████████ ████████ Packages: 1495 (pacman), 6 (flatpak)
████████ ████████ ████████ Shell: bash 5.1.16
████████ ████████ ████████ Resolution: 1920x1080, 2560x1440
████████ ████████ ████████ DE: Plasma 5.26.5
████████ ████████ ████████ WM: KWin
████████ ████████ ████████ Theme: Breath Light [Plasma], Breeze [GTK2/3]
████████ ████████ ████████ Icons: [Plasma], breeze [GTK2/3]
████████ ████████ ████████ Terminal: konsole
CPU: 11th Gen Intel i5-11400H (12) @ 4.500GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile
GPU: Intel TigerLake-H GT1 [UHD Graphics]
Memory: 3640MiB / 31842MiB
xrandr output, with display connected and working:
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 4480 x 1440, maximum 16384 x 16384
eDP-1 connected 1920x1080+0+360 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 382mm x 215mm
1920x1080 144.03*+ 60.01 59.97 59.96 60.01 59.93
1680x1050 59.95 59.88
1400x1050 74.76 59.98
1600x900 59.99 59.94 59.95 59.82
1280x1024 85.02 75.02 60.02
1400x900 59.96 59.88
1280x960 85.00 60.00
1440x810 60.00 59.97
1368x768 59.88 59.85
1280x800 59.99 59.97 59.81 59.91
1152x864 75.00
1280x720 60.00 59.99 59.86 59.74
1024x768 85.00 75.05 60.04 85.00 75.03 70.07 60.00
1024x768i 86.96
960x720 85.00 75.00 60.00
928x696 75.00 60.05
896x672 75.05 60.01
1024x576 59.95 59.96 59.90 59.82
960x600 59.93 60.00
832x624 74.55
960x540 59.96 59.99 59.63 59.82
800x600 85.00 75.00 70.00 65.00 60.00 85.14 72.19 75.00 60.32 56.25
840x525 60.01 59.88
864x486 59.92 59.57
700x525 74.76 59.98
800x450 59.95 59.82
640x512 85.02 75.02 60.02
700x450 59.96 59.88
640x480 85.09 60.00 85.01 72.81 75.00 59.94
720x405 59.51 58.99
720x400 85.04
684x384 59.88 59.85
640x400 59.88 59.98 85.08
576x432 75.00
640x360 59.86 59.83 59.84 59.32
640x350 85.08
512x384 85.00 75.03 70.07 60.00
512x384i 87.06
512x288 60.00 59.92
416x312 74.66
480x270 59.63 59.82
400x300 85.27 72.19 75.12 60.32 56.34
432x243 59.92 59.57
320x240 85.18 72.81 75.00 60.05
360x202 59.51 59.13
360x200 85.04
320x200 85.27
320x180 59.84 59.32
320x175 85.27
HDMI-1 connected primary 2560x1440+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 597mm x 336mm
2560x1440 144.00*+ 120.00 99.95 59.95
1920x1080 60.00 50.00 59.94
1680x1050 59.88
1600x900 60.00
1280x1024 75.02 60.02
1440x900 59.90
1280x800 59.91
1152x864 75.00
1280x720 60.00 50.00 59.94
1024x768 75.03 70.07 60.00
832x624 74.55
800x600 72.19 75.00 60.32 56.25
720x576 50.00
720x480 60.00 59.94
640x480 75.00 72.81 66.67 60.00 59.94
720x400 70.08
DP-1-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-1-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
