Desktop reflow when monitor goes to sleep

[curtis]

I've had this issue since the 14.04 update.
I'm running a dual monitor desktop with AMD Catalyst drivers. Both monitors work fine for normal use after boot, but when one enters power save mode (not the screensaver, the monitor goes into a low power mode) or is turned off, it causes the desktop to reflow to use just the remaining monitor. This reflow causes the secondary monitor to wake up, causing yet another reflow, This usually (not always) messes with the screen resolution and causes artifacts to appear. In addition, sometimes the background comes out black on the secondary monitor and widgets are never returned to their original locations.
Before the update if one monitor was powered off, the desktop would just continue as if there were two, which was a lot more desireable than this reflowing.

Does anyone know if there is some setting I can change to revert it to the old behaviour or have the second monitor sleep/wake up properly?

I have not found anything relavent in /var/log/, but I'm not exactly sure where to look.

[Teunis]

The remedy will probably depend on the video card and driver you use.
Like is it Intel, AMD or nVidia, do you use the proprietary driver or not?

[curtis]

I'm using an AMD Radeon 7790 HD and the proprietary Catalyst drivers.
I looked through the settings, but didn't see anything that seemed to be related to the issue.

[Teunis]

Sorry, I have nothing (and no experience) with AMD and dual screen...

[curtis]

Alright, I'll keep digging. Thanks for stopping in

[oshunluvr]

I've been using dual monitors for over a decade (although with nvidia graphics) and have never seen a dual monitor setup where one monitor will sleep on a different schedule than the other. How exactly is that happening? I can't even see how to configure dpms to do that, unless you're using a custom xorg.conf and have them set up as independent displays - which would include separate desktops so you wouldn't get this behavior.

Clearly, powering a monitor off is causing it to be detected as dis-connected, as one might expect. Likely, this only worked for you before because your older driver or version of xorg didn't handle the disconnect the same way.

Are these some sort of super high-powered devices? I ask that because most monitors use very little electricity so why turn one off? I know that's not an answer, but I'm trying to understand your setup and the motivation behind it.

[curtis]

The monitors are not on a different schedule, but they are different makes, and the secondary monitor takes less time to get into the power save mode. The issue triggers just before the primary turns off.

I figured it must be something like that, but I'm not sure what to do/where to look to find out what specifically is causing the problem.

They are just regular monitors, and I want them to be able to enter power save mode mostly because it emits less light. I don't normally turn either off, but when testing I found that the power off caused the same symptoms as sleeping while being much faster to work with.

[oshunluvr]

Yeah, I get the light issue. My desk is outside the bedroom and the light is annoying when it's time for bed.

I presume you're not using an xorg.conf file? I ask because I wonder if creating one would make it behave better. Instead of xorg scanning for devices, it would rely on the config.

[curtis]

When I looked, I found that there was a xorg.conf file in /etc/X11/. So I removed it to see what would happen, and the symptoms are looking less severe. I tried to make a new one, in case what was there is for an old setup or something, but xorg -configure is seg faulting, so I'll need to figure that out to try your idea.

[oshunluvr]

What does the old xorg have in it? I would make one with both monitors and your video card properly defined.

[curtis]

Here's the old xorg.conf

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
    Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    Option        "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
    Option        "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "0-DFP6"
    Option        "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
    Option        "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
    Option        "PreferredMode" "1600x1200"
    Option        "TargetRefresh" "60"
    Option        "Position" "1600 0"
    Option        "Rotate" "normal"
    Option        "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "0-DFP7"
    Option        "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
    Option        "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
    Option        "PreferredMode" "1600x1200"
    Option        "TargetRefresh" "60"
    Option        "Position" "0 0"
    Option        "Rotate" "normal"
    Option        "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    Option        "Monitor-DFP6" "0-DFP6"
    Option        "Monitor-DFP7" "0-DFP7"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
    Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Virtual   3200 1920
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

I don't really know much about what it all means. I tried making a new one with

Xorg -configure

but it gives a seg fault. I think the xorg.conf idea will work, but I haven't been able to test it because of the error. I'll give another post if I can figure out how to try the idea.

[oshunluvr]

So you have 3 monitors?

[curtis]

I have 2, but I used to have a different secondary monitor which might be appearing in the conf file.
I don't think that would cause any trouble by being there, but I could definitely be wrong.

[oshunluvr]

Wouldn't hurt to remove that extra monitor section. but I doubt that's the cause. I'm still trying to figure out why your monitors are reacting to dpms differently. What are the brands/models of the monitors and I'd like to see the output of xset dpms -q and xrandr -q

[curtis]

Before the update, they would go to sleep at the same time, but the primary monitor had a longer power down sequence. So I don't think the secondary monitor is actually turning off first, I just think that I don't see the primary monitor start before the issue comes up. One is a Samsung, but I don't know about the other one, they're both second hand and don't have much written on them.

~> xset dpms -q
Keyboard Control:
  auto repeat:  on    key click percent:  0    LED mask:  00000000
  XKB indicators:
    00: Caps Lock:   off    01: Num Lock:    off    02: Scroll Lock: off
    03: Compose:     off    04: Kana:        off    05: Sleep:       off
    06: Suspend:     off    07: Mute:        off    08: Misc:        off
    09: Mail:        off    10: Charging:    off    11: Shift Lock:  off
    12: Group 2:     off    13: Mouse Keys:  off
  auto repeat delay:  660    repeat rate:  25
  auto repeating keys:  00ffffffdffffbbf
                        fadfffefffedffff
                        9fffffffffffffff
                        fff7ffffffffffff
  bell percent:  50    bell pitch:  400    bell duration:  100
Pointer Control:
  acceleration:  20/10    threshold:  4
Screen Saver:
  prefer blanking:  yes    allow exposures:  yes
  timeout:  0    cycle:  600
Colors:
  default colormap:  0x20    BlackPixel:  0x0    WhitePixel:  0xffffff
Font Path:
  /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,built-ins
DPMS (Energy Star):
  Standby: 0    Suspend: 0    Off: 0
  DPMS is Disabled

~> xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3600 x 1200, maximum 16384 x 16384
DFP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP4 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP5 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP6 connected 1680x1050+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 474mm x 296mm
   1680x1050      60.0*+
   1400x1050      60.0  
   1280x1024      60.0  
   1440x900       60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1280x800       60.0  
   1152x864       60.0  
   1280x768       60.0  
   1280x720       60.0  
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.0  
   640x480        60.0  
DFP7 connected 1920x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 518mm x 324mm
   1920x1200      60.0*+
   1920x1080      50.0  
   1600x1200      60.0  
   1776x1000      50.0  
   1680x1050      60.0  
   1400x1050      60.0  
   1280x1024      60.0  
   1440x900       60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1280x800       60.0  
   1280x768       60.0  
   1280x720       50.0  
   1024x768       60.0  
   1152x648       50.0  
   800x600        60.0  
   720x576        60.0  
   720x480        60.0  
   640x480        60.0  
CRT1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Here are the outputs you asked for.