pretty serious bug in nvidia-settings with nvidia driver and monitors and TV

[23dornot23d]

Nvidia-settings - creates a xorg.conf .............. ( and the user can add it as they please it even shows that ) no problem

nvidia-xconfig - creates a xorg.conf .............. ( here again the user knows as the user runs that command to create it ) no problem

What becomes a problem is when the system generates the xorg.conf from a running process that repeatedly puts the wrong
xorg.conf into place ( this was from what I could determine nvidia-prime - which does not get indicated as creating anything in the xorg.conf ) and the user can try all they like to delete or to alter the xorg.conf in this scenario ........

only for the system to over rule the new xorg.conf ......*( which works )

nvidia-prime does not like it so it replaces it with one that does not work ...... only when in this loop do you start wondering
what keeps over ruling the new good xorg.conf that the user puts into place .

The user gets into the loop of trying to work out how to get the graphics working - and if they do not realize that the system is
over ruling their own decisions ...... then it gets very frustrating .

The idea of xorg.conf ............. originally it used to set a lot of things up to do with input and out put devices.

But now ........ ? ( the system has been changed so much - I am not sure what can be changed in there that works any more )

xorg.conf

Was very useful when it worked as we expected it to work ..........

( it is not very useful - if the system over rules us to put one in place that no longer gives us a display )

I do not like battling with the computer for control of my screens.

At the moment I have 2 screens the laptop and the TV ......... the software that detects my screens keeps telling me I have
one screen and it is the TV and supposedly it is built in to my laptop.

I cannot get out of the loop though - I tell it its wrong - it says not bothered lets set it as a 32 inch screen in a laptop.

__________________________________________________ __________________________________

The question should be - how or what was built into the code to get out of this loop - when it is found to be wrong.

at what point can the user input - I have this screen and this screen

__________________________________________________ _______________

The computer says no ........ you have a 32 inch TV and that is all ...........

laptop:~$ xrandr
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1280 x 720, current 1280 x 720, maximum 1280 x 720
default connected primary 1280x720+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x720        0.0*

laptop:/home/keith# get-edid | parse-edid
This is read-edid version 3.0.1. Prepare for some fun.
Attempting to use i2c interface
Looks like no busses have an EDID. Sorry!
Attempting to use the classical VBE interface

    Performing real mode VBE call
    Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f00 bx=0x0 cx=0x0
    Function supported
    Call successful

    VBE version 300
    VBE string at 0x11100 "Intel(R)Sandybridge Mobile Graphics Chipset Accelerated VGA BIOS"

VBE/DDC service about to be called
    Report DDC capabilities

    Performing real mode VBE call
    Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f15 bx=0x0 cx=0x0
    Function supported
    Call successful

    Monitor and video card combination does not support DDC1 transfers
    Monitor and video card combination supports DDC2 transfers
    0 seconds per 128 byte EDID block transfer
    Screen is not blanked during DDC transfer

Reading next EDID block

VBE/DDC service about to be called
    Read EDID

    Performing real mode VBE call
    Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f15 bx=0x1 cx=0x0
    Function supported
    Call successful

EDID claims 1 more blocks left


*********** Something special has happened!
This happens a lot with TV's, and other devices
with extension blocks. If you have a TV, don't bother.
Otherwise, please contact the author, Matthew Kern
E-mail: pyrophobicman@gmail.com
Please include full output from this program (especially that to stderr)



Reading next EDID block

VBE/DDC service about to be called
    Read EDID

    Performing real mode VBE call
    Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f15 bx=0x1 cx=0x0
    Function supported
    Call successful

EDID claims 1 more blocks left
EDID blocks left is wrong.
Your EDID is probably invalid.
Looks like VBE was successful. Have a good day.
Checksum Correct

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "ORION"
    ModelName "ORION"
    VendorName "ORN"
    # Monitor Manufactured week 0 of 2007
    # EDID version 1.3
    # Digital Display
    DisplaySize 160 90
    Gamma 2.20
    Option "DPMS" "false"
    Horizsync 14-46
    VertRefresh 47-61
    # Maximum pixel clock is 80MHz

[sdowney717]

He is probably using the Save to X Configuration File button.

yes.

And I would let nvidia-settings generate the xorg.conf.
Look at in preview window.
Copy it.

Open a sudo gedit
Paste it into xorg.conf
Reboot
And it is ignored.

The display settings properties overrides xorg.conf
In 12.04, a change to xorg.conf, on a reboot, it is used because the changes you made were kept.

I got it to work using display settings, but it is confusing, and I spent quite a bit of time on it.
So maybe people should be made aware of this.

You may have a lot of people who cant figure this out when it is finally released.

[sdowney717]

The main problem is that the programmers have not identified what is creating the xorg.conf .......

A simple commented line in the xorg.conf showing what has created it would help to identify what is creating
these automatically placed configs into place. ( xorg.conf ) was always a help - but when the system keeps creating it wrong then it soon becomes a pain.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?clie...CgBQ&gws_rd=cr


( a few days back I identified that nvidia-prime was one culprit for my own setup ......... if you have this installed - it may be worth removing it to see if the problem still exists ........... seems it is only required for optimus setups ......... which is ( intel and nvidia combined in laptops for battery/power saving which is what I have - but I think you have a desktop machine with a nvidia 8400 gs ) so that file is not needed if it is there.


Seems you have another thread on a similar subject and solved it here
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2207389

Or do a test and if nvidia driver is installed with nvidia-settings, then use the xorg.conf not the monitor xml file.

[23dornot23d]

Have you or anybody else here found any program that lets you know exactly how this new Ubuntu 14.04 picks up
the monitors and sets them up.

Something reasonably simple showing the edid information it knows for each monitor

then

A brief description of the settings it has chosen to use ......

These are the only thing I can find in the repos ......... read-edid / decode-edid / lib-parseperl-edid

But it is not finding my Asus Laptop screen/monitor for some reason - if the computer is not getting
the edid information to set itself up - what does it use ?

( can a user see this through a command line entry similar to the one I used here below ? )
laptop:/home/keith# get-edid | parse-edid

[sdowney717]

Have you or anybody else here found any program that lets you know exactly how this new Ubuntu 14.04 picks up
the monitors and sets them up.

Something reasonably simple showing the edid information it knows for each monitor

then

A brief description of the settings it has chosen to use ......

These are the only thing I can find in the repos ......... read-edid / decode-edid / lib-parseperl-edid

But it is not finding my Asus Laptop screen/monitor for some reason - if the computer is not getting
the edid information to set itself up - what does it use ?

( can a user see this through a command line entry similar to the one I used here below ? )
laptop:/home/keith# get-edid | parse-edid

In all my turmoil with xorg recently with 14.04, I noticed sometimes the edid from my Samsung monitor was missing.

The fix was
close nvidia-settings
turn off the monitor
turn on the monitor
then run nvidia-settings again.

[23dornot23d]

Cheers - but not going to help in my case as I cannot turn the laptop monitor off ......

There must be a way of getting the edid information off of it though .......

I have both monitors working now - just that they both display exactly the same screen
arandr used to allow me to use both ....... but not now after the latest upgrade.

keith@keith-laptop:~$ arandr
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/screenlayout/xrandr.py:58: UserWarning: XRandR wrote to stderr, but did not report an error (Message was: 'xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default\n')
  warnings.warn("XRandR wrote to stderr, but did not report an error (Message was: %r)"%err)

I did the opposite though and disconnected the TV ..... then it found the edid info - so now it should be a case of using that in the xorg.conf

presuming that the xorg.conf still gets used for some things ......... ( who knows what - where is the documentation after all the automation )

root@keith-laptop:/home/keith# get-edid | parse-edid
This is read-edid version 3.0.1. Prepare for some fun.
Attempting to use i2c interface
Looks like no busses have an EDID. Sorry!
Attempting to use the classical VBE interface

    Performing real mode VBE call
    Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f00 bx=0x0 cx=0x0
    Function supported
    Call successful

    VBE version 300
    VBE string at 0x11100 "Intel(R)Sandybridge Mobile Graphics Chipset Accelerated VGA BIOS"

VBE/DDC service about to be called
    Report DDC capabilities

    Performing real mode VBE call
    Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f15 bx=0x0 cx=0x0
    Function supported
    Call successful

    Monitor and video card combination does not support DDC1 transfers
    Monitor and video card combination supports DDC2 transfers
    0 seconds per 128 byte EDID block transfer
    Screen is not blanked during DDC transfer

Reading next EDID block

VBE/DDC service about to be called
    Read EDID

    Performing real mode VBE call
    Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f15 bx=0x1 cx=0x0
    Function supported
    Call successful

Looks like VBE was successful. Have a good day.
Checksum Correct

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier ""
    ModelName ""
    VendorName "LGD"
    # Monitor Manufactured week 0 of 2010
    # EDID version 1.3
    # Digital Display
    DisplaySize 340 190
    Gamma 2.20
    Option "DPMS" "false"
    Modeline     "Mode 0" 70.00 1366 1402 1450 1492 768 771 776 782 -hsync -vsync 
EndSection
root@keith-laptop:/home/keith#

Maybe this will not effect people that do a completely clean install ....... we will see on launch day.

Maybe I will run a thread on failed upgrades again .......

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1858475

12/04 ....... 2 years passes so quickly ........

as it seems that proved beyond doubt that things repetitively go wrong on upgrading - and
often graphics and people getting black screens is a major problem.

[GDPR-ohya4wai4eiJ]

He is probably using the Save to X Configuration File button.

Ah thanks, I have not really noticed this button before