11.10 nvidia Gnome Classic with secondary monitor showing white background.

[earthmeLon]

UPDATE
A bug has been filed, as this is affecting multiple users:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...us/+bug/885989
There is a working patch and the dev team is aware of the problem and solution.
You will have to compile Nautilus from source, or wait until the fix gets added to your repo.

This gent, marcelo_gomes, explains how to patch Nautilus so that it will resolve this issue ( http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...0&postcount=16 )



I recently upgraded my desktop from 10.10->11.04->11.10 x64. I installed the recommended nvidia drivers for my GeForce 8800 GTX through Restricted Drivers and gnome-shell so that I could get the classic look with Cairo Dock, Compiz and Emerald.

sudo apt-get install --reinstall gnome-shell
sudo apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar liboverlay-scrollbar3-0.2-0 liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2-0
sudo apt-get remove appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt

My secondary monitor was not responding, so I ran nvidia-xconfig and then nvidia-settings, setting up "Separate x screen" and resolution.

On reboot, the secondary monitor worked. However, at login it was filled completely with white. Clicking on the white gets rid of it, showing the desktop. The cursor on the secondary monitor is a big X. Right and left clicking shows no menu or anything. I am able to use 'DISPLAY=":0.1" mplayer blah.mkv' to get programs to use the secondary monitor, but I am unable to interact with them. (In this example, I am unable to focus the movie in order to pause/play or use other keybindings.)

After every reboot when I open nvidia-settings, it forgets that I set the secondary monitor to above and it shows "Separate x screen (reboot required)", which makes me think it's not set to separate x screens somewhere. I believe if the current settings were separate x screens, it would show "reboot required" under the OTHER settings.

I have since:
*sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*
*sudo rm -rf /etc/X11/xorg.conf*
*Rebooted into recovery, downloaded latest drivers script and ran said script.
*Set up nvidia-settings
*Still get the white screen / weird X cursor


It seems a similar issue has been CLOSED here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11290226, but unfortunately cariboo907's solution hasn't worked for me.

sudo lshw -c video

  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: G80 [GeForce 8800 GTX]
       vendor: nVidia Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a2
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
       resources: irq:18 memory:fd000000-fdffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:fa000000-fbffffff ioport:bc00(size=128) memory:fe8e0000-fe8fffff

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 285.05.09  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-02.nvidia.com)  Fri Sep 23 17:55:42 PDT 2011

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 768
    Screen      1  "Screen1" Above "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "DELL E228WFP"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "LG Electronics LG TV"
    HorizSync       31.0 - 100.0
    VertRefresh     48.0 - 88.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 8800 GTX"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          0
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 8800 GTX"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Device1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP-0: 1280x768 +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Any help getting my secondary monitor working properly would be greatly appreciated

[wildflower1975]

I had the same white screen with my NVIDIA card.

I enabled Xinerama in the nvidia config GUI and after a reboot it started working.

Hope this helps

[earthmeLon]

I had the same white screen with my NVIDIA card.

I enabled Xinerama in the nvidia config GUI and after a reboot it started working.

Hope this helps

Thank you, but it is my intent to keep separate x screens and not use any of the alternatives.

[earthmeLon]

It seems the white window is nautilus. When I get it to close, my desktop disappears. Running nautilus brings my desktop as well as the big white window back.


dmesg | tail
[ 383.277073] nautilus[2824] general protection ip:7f0556640f40 sp:7fffaacee4c8 error:0 in libgobject-2.0.so.0.3000.0[7f055660e000+4e000]

[earthmeLon]

I have since formatted my / (root) partition and installed 11.10 fresh (keeping my /home partition in tact)

Still experiencing the white screen that crashes nautilus (removing my desktop) when closed.

[RobertSwipe]

Same problem here, using a Dell M1210 laptop with NVidia graphics card.

On logging in, the second display briefly shows my desktop background, then clears to white blank display. Right clicking on this causes the desktop background to show again, but I can't get any applications to run in it at all.

If I select "Home folder", the second display once again blanks out.

Changing to Gnome Shell gives a bit more of a clue. Although the same effect occurs (white blank display), the primary screen shows the Nautilus menu bar when I click on the blank second display.

I've upgraded from 10.10 to 11.10 via 11.04 (I didn't actually use 11.04 on this laptop to wait for Unity and Gnome Shell to settle down!). After upgrading, I also upgraded the NVidia driver to 280.13 (nvidia-current).

[mbutash]

So what was the actual resolution, if any? I see [solved], but not catching what it was aside from not closing Nautilus.

I have an ati card with split framebuffers (same as dual twinview under nvidia), and get very strange behavior *like* this, but not exactly...

When I launch 11.10 with unity after setting up monitors (6 monitors, 3 per DISPLAY, DISPLAY=:0.0 and 0.1), the second display set will get the white screen effect with a generic x mouse overlay. If I click on it, I get a background then, but no right click or windowing. If I then do "DISPLAY=:0.1 compiz --replace" and launch a dockbar like Cairo, I can then interact with the display normally. If I launch nautilus, it brings back the white window as you said that I can't see anything but Cairo, but clicking on the white kills the white desktop AND nautilus. I get the same protection errors as you.

I've tried this with simply two monitors in separate framebuffers, and it does it irregardless of vendor or driver - it's a compiz/gtk problem not setting up the second (or more) displays properly. Unity and presumably gnome3 need to account for multiple framebuffers to run, composite, and manage each individually. Unity can't run on the second monitor to give me a file menu, so had to uninstall that appmenu nonsense to make it usable.

This was the same in Natty that Unity did not setup properly the secondary framebuffers, requiring me to script launch compiz and dockbars on each myself. Wayyyy too much manual hacking and setup finish to make this a production release - please test and q/a with multiple displays and framebuffers!

[earthmeLon]

There is a working patch and the dev team is aware of the problem and solution.


You will have to compile Nautilus from source, or wait until the fix gets added to your repo.

[marcelo_gomes]

There is a working patch and the dev team is aware of the problem and solution.


You will have to compile Nautilus from source, or wait until the fix gets added to your repo.

Sorry to reopen this old thread, but how can I apply the patch and compile Nautilus manually? I really need to get those two monitors running, but I have no idea how to apply the patch.

PS:nvidia-settings just give the option to use separate X, it doesn't allow me to set twinview, for instance.

Thanks,
Marcelo.

[earthmeLon]

Sorry to reopen this old thread, but how can I apply the patch and compile Nautilus manually? I really need to get those two monitors running, but I have no idea how to apply the patch.

PS:nvidia-settings just give the option to use separate X, it doesn't allow me to set twinview, for instance.

Thanks,
Marcelo.

Check the links on the status of the update. Not sure if you'll have to make a patch or if they've put the code into the source yet.

Otherwise, the solution if found was to use Debian