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elementary / switchboard-plug-display

Switchboard Displays Plug
https://elementary.io
GNU General Public License v3.0
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lost wingpanel completely with dual monitor setup #231

Open leepeffer opened 4 years ago

leepeffer commented 4 years ago

I have an external monitor connected to my Razer 15 (2018) and would like to only use the external monitor. I am aware that the "don't use this display" feature is currently not working properly. But that isn't my main issue. After a while, usually if I full screen an app or sometimes it seems to happen randomly, I'll completely lose the wingpanel.

"Super + Space" makes the top bars of the apps wiggle but doesn't produce a search field.

Making the apps run in windows also doesn't return the wingpanel.

The only solution seems to be to do a complete restart of the system.

Any ideas?

jeremypw commented 4 years ago

Are both internal and external monitors active? Mirrored? Which is the primary?

I assume the dock is still visible? Has wingpanel crashed? (Run htop or system monitor to see whether the process is still running) If not what happens if you restart wingpanel in a terminal? What happens if you use Switchboard/Displays to reset the primary monitor?

leepeffer commented 4 years ago

I had fixed the issue but now have been able to recreate it:

Two monitors, both active. One is built-in display for the laptop and anther is an external Hp monitor. They are extended, not mirrored. External monitor is primary (set by clicking the star, right?). The star GUI can be confusing, a lot of the time I don't know when it is enabled or disabled.

I am trying to replicate my original problem where the wingpanel completely disappeared and was completely un-accessible. I will report back if it happens again. How do I restart the wingpanel from terminal?

But I can replicate the following oddity: With the external monitor as primary (or maybe its not primary, the star is confusing) with wingpanel, I turn off "Use this Display" for the built-in monitor and the wingpanel disappears from the external monitor and goes to the built-in monitor.

For others who may be reading this, I have stumbled over a solution for using a laptop with an external monitor with the laptop's monitor completely off. If you cycle through pushing "Super + P," you'll eventually find a configuration there that is laptop monitor off and external as main and only display. I'm not sure why I can't find that option in the GUI though.

jeremypw commented 4 years ago

You can launch wingpanel in the terminal with wingpanel to see any debugging messages in the terminal (wingpanel will close again when terminal is closed) or you can fork the process with (wingpanel &) & in which case wingpanel should keep running after closing the terminal. If wingpanel is crashing you can get a backtrace by running gdb wingpanel in a terminal and, after it crashes typing bt. The output will be more useful if you first install the wingpanel-dbg package.