Bug 90246

Summary: Switching from Xorg to fglrx-updates and back loses 1 monitor
Product: xorg Reporter: Jeff Stern <jas.61803>
Component: Driver/RadeonAssignee: xf86-video-ati maintainers <xorg-driver-ati>
Status: RESOLVED NOTOURBUG QA Contact: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Severity: normal    
Priority: medium CC: jas.61803
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64)   
OS: Linux (All)   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:
Attachments:
Description Flags
screenshot of driver manager dialog box
none
Xorg.0.log
none
dmesg output
none
screenshot of driver manager dialog box (take 2)
none
dmesg output - after fix
none
Xorg.0.log2 -- after fix none

Description Jeff Stern 2015-04-29 23:44:07 UTC
Created attachment 115460 [details]
screenshot of driver manager dialog box

hi, i just updated to Kubuntu 15.04.

in System Settings -> Driver Manager:

at first, i used the X.org Xserver -- AMD/ATI display driver wrapper from xserver-xorg-video-ati (Recommended), and it recognized both my monitors.

but I thought I would try the "Video driver for the AMD graphics accelerators from fglrx-updates", for faster performance, so I switched to this.

however (separate issue), those drivers seem to have problems (even without compositor turned on) with Chromium (really messed up screen drawing on Chromium browser), so I decided to switch back to the X.org Xserver AMD/ATI display driver.

however, when I switched back from fglrx to X.org driver, now I have lost one of my two monitors. The X.org driver now seems to see only 1 monitor.

this is interesting because when I first upgraded to 15.04, and was on the X.org driver, it did see both monitors.  It was only in switching to fglrx and back to X.org driver that I lost the 2nd (dell) monitor.

I have tried switching out and back to X.org again, to no avail.  The fglrx drivers DO see and use the 2nd monitor, but the X.org wrapper driver no longer does.

My computer is a Dell Optiplex 990 (Bios revision A13)
Processor: 4 x Intel Core i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz
Memory: 3.8GiB RAM
Kubuntu 15.04
KDE Plasma Version: 5.2.2
Qt Version 5.4.1
Kernel Version: 3.19.0-15-generic
OS Type: 64-bit

"lspci -v" output on the graphics controller:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Dell Radeon HD 6350
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at e1520000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
        I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
        Expansion ROM at e1500000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci

The two displays/monitors:
ASUS VW266 25.5" (1920x1200) (the one that is always on)
Dell P2213t 22" (1680x1050) (the one that only flgrx sees)
both connected to graphics adapter via a dual DVI cable


=======================================================================
$ xrandr -q
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1600 x 1200, current 1600 x 1200, maximum 1600 x 1200
default connected primary 1600x1200+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1600x1200      77.0* 
$ _

=======================================================================

If, then, (still using the X.org driver), I switch the DVI cables to the monitors, the result is now that the system sees both monitors, BUT

a) the two displays are showing duplicate desktops, NOT an extended desktop, and

b) xrandr now looks like:

=======================================================================
$ xrandr -q
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1400 x 1050, current 1400 x 1050, maximum 1400 x 1050
default connected primary 1400x1050+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1400x1050      77.0* 
$ _
=======================================================================

What is interesting is that neither xrandr is correct. The larger screen (SUS) is 1920x1200 and the smaller screen is 1600x1050.

also, "kcmshell5 kscreen" sees only 1 display (when using X.org driver), and 2 (when using fglrx driver).

I am just guessing, but i have a hunch that what happens is that when using System Settings -> Driver Manager, switching back to X.org driver somehow forgets Screen 1, keeping only Screen 0, in the xorg.conf file, and so the driver doesn't even look for a second Screen/monitor/display

Please let me know if there is anything I can add to this report.

Thanks..

-JS
Comment 1 Michel Dänzer 2015-04-30 02:27:42 UTC
(In reply to Jeff Stern from comment #0)
> $ xrandr -q
> xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
> Screen 0: minimum 1400 x 1050, current 1400 x 1050, maximum 1400 x 1050
> default connected primary 1400x1050+0+0 0mm x 0mm
>    1400x1050      77.0* 

This looks like it's not actually using the radeon driver again, but some kind of fallback driver. Please attach the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and the output of dmesg.
Comment 2 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:16:14 UTC
Created attachment 115477 [details]
Xorg.0.log
Comment 3 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:16:43 UTC
Created attachment 115478 [details]
dmesg output
Comment 4 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:17:17 UTC
Created attachment 115479 [details]
screenshot of driver manager dialog box (take 2)
Comment 5 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:19:01 UTC
hey michel, thanks for the quick response. okay, attached are the two files you requested.

(i had switched the cables back to the previous configuration, so that again, the only screen that's on is the ASUS 1920x1200 screen).
Comment 6 Alex Deucher 2015-04-30 15:25:36 UTC
The open radeon driver is not loaded.  You are ending up with with the vesa driver which is a generic fallback driver.

[    0.497744] vesafb: mode is 1600x1200x32, linelength=6400, pages=0
[    0.497744] vesafb: scrolling: redraw
[    0.497746] vesafb: Truecolor: size=0:8:8:8, shift=0:16:8:0
[    0.497761] vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xffffc90004800000, using 7552k, total 7552k
[    0.497829] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 200x75
[    0.497850] fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device

Also, the fglrx kernel driver is still installed:

[   19.374964] fglrx: module license 'Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY' taints kernel.
[   19.374967] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[   19.378341] fglrx: module verification failed: signature and/or  required key missing - tainting kernel
[   19.387574] <6>[fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 3747 MBytes.
[   19.387650] <6>[fglrx]   vendor: 1002 device: 68f9 revision: 0 count: 1
[   19.387815] <6>[fglrx] ioport: bar 4, base 0x3000, size: 0x100
[   19.387980] <6>[fglrx] Kernel PAT support is enabled
[   19.387991] <6>[fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 15.20.2 [Feb 27 2015] with 1 minors

Which is probably means the radeon driver is blacklisted so it's not loading.  You need to fully remove the fglrx driver.
Comment 7 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:30:08 UTC
okay, thanks, alex.  please pardon my ignorance, but then, how do i fully remove the fglrx driver?  is there a HOWTO on this somewhere? thx
Comment 8 Alex Deucher 2015-04-30 15:38:14 UTC
Follow the instructions here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/68306/how-do-i-remove-the-proprietary-ati-drivers
Comment 9 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:50:56 UTC
WOW. that definitely did the trick, ***thank you*** you just made my day.

okay, just by way of confirmation, i am attaching new dmesg and new Xorg log.

also,

=====================================================================
$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3600 x 1200, maximum 8192 x 8192
DVI-0 connected primary 1920x1200+1680+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 550mm x 340mm
   1920x1200      60.0*+
   1680x1050      59.9  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   640x480        75.0     72.8     66.7     60.0  
   720x400        70.1  
DVI-1 connected 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 473mm x 296mm
   1680x1050      60.0*+
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1024x768       75.1     60.0  
   800x600        75.0     60.3  
   640x480        75.0     60.0  
   720x400        70.1  
=====================================================================
Comment 10 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:51:32 UTC
Created attachment 115480 [details]
dmesg output - after fix
Comment 11 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:51:56 UTC
Created attachment 115481 [details]
Xorg.0.log2 -- after fix
Comment 12 Jeff Stern 2015-04-30 15:56:22 UTC
So now that my own immediate problem is solved, should I ask, how did this happen?  And (c.f. screenshot of Driver Manager KDE dialog) shouldn't clicking on the Xord driver option have reverted to the Xorg driver correctly?  Where would I post the bug?  bugs.kde.org?  Or is there a deeper script it might be calling which is broken? thx
Comment 13 Michel Dänzer 2015-05-01 01:10:53 UTC
(In reply to Jeff Stern from comment #12)
> And (c.f. screenshot of Driver Manager KDE dialog) shouldn't
> clicking on the Xord driver option have reverted to the Xorg driver
> correctly?  Where would I post the bug?  bugs.kde.org?

I'd start with Kubuntu.
Comment 14 Jeff Stern 2015-05-01 03:26:16 UTC
thanks michel and alex. VERY much appreciate all your great help.

just fyi i have posted a bug under the kubuntu-driver-manager package at

   https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kubuntu-driver-manager
Comment 15 Jeff Stern 2015-05-01 03:27:01 UTC
duh, sorry that link should have been

   https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kubuntu-driver-manager/+bug/1450694

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