How to Fix Fedora 25 4.10.10 login screen on wrong monitor

asked 2017-04-22 11:10:07 -0600

steve99
41 ●1 ●5 ●7

updated 2017-07-27 09:51:51 -0600

After update from Fedora 25 4.10.9-200 to 4.10.10-200 the login screen changed to the wrong monitor. Fedora 25 is on a Dell M2800 laptop on a Dell ePort Plus docking station. All prior versions of Fedora for years have worked fine with the login screen on the desktop monitor. With this update, the grub boot menu and the boot process messages display on the desktop monitor, but, the Fedora login screen displays on the closed laptop screen (I checked this by opening it) and the Desktop monitor has a blank screen. If I hit return and type in the login password and hit return again, Fedora logs in and comes up on the desktop monitor. I tried a boot with 4.10.9-200 and the login screen comes up correctly on the desktop monitor. I've looked through all the settings in both versions and they are the same. What is wrong with Fedora 25 4.10.10-200 and why did this change??? Am I missing something or is this a bug in this release???

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

UPDATEs: Fedora 25 4.10.10.11 update has the same problem. Fedora 25 4.10.10.12 update also has the same problem. FedUser1975's answer below solved the problem, at least for the current Fedora update or until the Fedora developers resolve the root cause of the problem. The problem has remained fixed with FedUser1975's fix below now for several Fedora updates. FedUser1975 also said below that he would dig deeper and try to understand what changed. Still need the root cause to be addressed by the developers.

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I have the same issue. The most previous version of F25 provided the login screen on the correct page. 4.10.10-200 puts the login screen on the laptop monitor and not my external monitor. To login, I hit "Enter" and then type in my password. Main Gnome desktop then shows up on my external monitor. Looking in settings, I see that the laptop monitor is "Off" and my primary monitor is my external monitor.

Cheers! Mike

MikeF ( 2017-04-24 08:14:54 -0600 )edit

I have tried a number of options to see if I can get this to work like it did with F25 4.10.9-200. First, I noticed that the login screen has the displays setup in extended mode. My laptop monitor being the primary and the external monitor being the secondary. Obviously, when docked we would prefer the login screen on the secondary monitor. Once logged in, I explicitly set the laptop monitor as the secondary and the external monitor as the primary and rebooted. Login was still on the laptop monitor. I then explicitly turned off the laptop monitor and rebooted. Login screen on laptop.

MikeF ( 2017-04-24 08:27:01 -0600 )edit

Problem exists whether using x.org or wayland.

MikeF ( 2017-04-24 08:42:06 -0600 )edit

MikeF, Thanks for your comments above. I just installed the new Fedora 25 update: 4.10.10.11 and it still has the same problem. I had looked at the things you mentioned and saw the same settings and tried changing some of them also. Nothing helped. I hope this gets fixed by the Fedora team or that someone posts a workaround. This was never a problem in the past and I have been using Fedora in multi-boot (with Windows) on my laptop for many years.

steve99 ( 2017-04-26 11:08:20 -0600 )edit

Is this a DisplayLink docking station, by chance?

zomegagon ( 2017-04-26 18:56:17 -0600 )edit

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2 Answers

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answered 2017-04-28 04:16:36 -0600

FedUser1975
46 ●1 ●3 ●4

updated 2017-04-28 05:32:44 -0600

I have just found the solution for this bug. (I still don't know, how it has been created…) Let's assume, that you work with the GNOME display manager and you experienced the problem with the docking station's monitor.

Go to your home directory to the folder ~/.config. There is a file “monitors.xml”. This file contains the monitor settings all of the devices you use or used before.

Set the docking station's monitor as primary monitor somehow like this (It depends your own configuration, this is my own):

<monitors version="1">
  <configuration>
    <clone>no</clone>
    <output name="LVDS1">
      <vendor>AUO</vendor>
      <product>0x313c</product>
      <serial>0x00000000</serial>
      <width>1366</width>
      <height>768</height>
      <rate>60.098445892333984</rate>
      <x>1024</x>
      <y>0</y>
      <rotation>normal</rotation>
      <reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
      <reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
      <primary>no</primary>
      <presentation>no</presentation>
      <underscanning>no</underscanning>
    </output>
  </configuration>
  <configuration>
<clone>no</clone>
    <output name="VGA-1">
      <vendor>PHL</vendor>
      <product>Philips 170C4</product>
      <serial> HD  006588</serial>
      <width>1280</width>
      <height>1024</height>
      <rate>75.025177001953125</rate>
      <x>0</x>
      <y>0</y>
      <rotation>normal</rotation>
      <reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
      <reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
      <primary>yes</primary>
      <presentation>no</presentation>
      <underscanning>no</underscanning>
    </output>
  </configuration>
</monitors>

So You have to set an xml tag like this for your desktop screen: <primary>yes</primary>. The laptop's screen has to be <primary>no</primary>.

Now, here comes the second thing to do:

You have to copy the edited monitors.xml file to the folder ==> “/var/lib/gdm/.config” (You have to be “root” to do this.)

After doing this I have the login screen on my desktop display when my laptop is connected to the docking station. (The Philips monitor)

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Hi FedUser1975,

THIS WORKED!! My monitors.xml file had the correct monitor set as the primary, but the file was not in the /var/lib/gdm/.config directory. I copied it there without making any changes to it and now the Fedora login screen is on the correct monitor.

How did you find this? Was this file in that directory in prior versions of Fedora, or is this a work-around for another problem? Will this file need to be copied with future updates of Fedora until they fix the root cause of the problem?

Thank you very much for your efforts in this solution!!

steve99 ( 2017-04-28 17:04:10 -0600 )edit

This workaround is based on the booting proccess of fedora. The home direc torys config files are loaded after you logged in. Before your login the system dosent know your personal config, thats the reason why the system looks for the config of the gdm library as a general "starting point".

FedUser1975 ( 2017-04-29 11:18:02 -0600 )edit

OK, your explanation makes sense, but what do you think changed with the Fedora update to cause the login monitor to change? Did there used to be a monitors.xml file in /var/lib/gdm/.config which was deleted, or is this just a work-around to solve the problem because something else changed somewhere else in the update? Will monitors.xml be deleted by future updates and have to be put back after the update? I haven't tried booting Fedora out of the docking station with just the laptop screen - Will the login screen come up on the laptop with this file in place? Again, thank you very much!!!

steve99 ( 2017-04-29 18:18:18 -0600 )edit

I'm going to check this issue to know what exactly did happen with the old, working setup after the incriminated update. You will have my Answer maybe next week. It will be a bit complicated forensic job with source code reading.

FedUser1975 ( 2017-04-29 23:02:36 -0600 )edit

Thanks a lot, that worked for me!

Dilguis ( 2017-05-07 10:41:14 -0600 )edit

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answered 2017-04-27 09:41:38 -0600

Max Lambertini
1

I have a bad feeling that my issue -- all of a sudden I lost hw acceleration despite having an intel video card -- and this issue are somewhat related, because even if I have a single monitor, all Xorg message are logged by ./local/share/xorg/Xorg.1.log instead of Xorg.0.log .... weird

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