Note: Couldn't find 4.8.3 in the version list. Rated 'critical' severity as my desktop is largely useless, please do correct as necessary. Running xfce display settings either via the settings manager in xubuntu or from the command line crashes out with the error dialogue: Unable to start the XFCE Display Settings with no further information echoed to the command line. This started after trying to get dual monitors working using the NVidia X Server Settings application to detect the second monitor and write the xorg.conf, as XFCE display settings did not recognise the extra monitor. NVidia X Server Settings produced the following xorg.conf: # nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings # nvidia-settings: version 280.13 (buildd@rothera) Thu Aug 11 17:28:49 UTC 2011 Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "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 "LG Electronics L1717S" 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 "Acer V173" HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device0" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce 9800 GT" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 0 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device1" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce 9800 GT" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 1 EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0" Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: 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 "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0" Option "metamodes" "CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection `lspci -v | grep nVidia` generates: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G92 [GeForce 9800 GT] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) xrandr generates: xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default Screen 0: minimum 320 x 240, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1280 x 1024 default connected 1280x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm 1280x1024 50.0* 51.0 1280x960 52.0 1152x864 53.0 54.0 55.0 56.0 1024x768 57.0 58.0 59.0 960x600 60.0 960x540 61.0 840x525 62.0 63.0 64.0 65.0 832x624 66.0 800x600 67.0 68.0 69.0 70.0 720x450 71.0 700x525 72.0 73.0 680x384 74.0 75.0 640x480 76.0 77.0 78.0 79.0 512x384 80.0 81.0 400x300 82.0 320x240 83.0 84.0 The second monitor now works, the mouse cursor moves between the monitors correctly, but right-click menus are now broken, the second monitor displays a copy of the desktop icons without wallpapers, and I can't move windows to the second monitor (nor launch them there). I've been forwarded here after making a post to the xfce forum ( http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=24381#p24381 ) by Nick. xfce4-display-settings --version returns: xfce4-display-settings 4.8.3 (Xfce 4.8) Copyright (c) 2004-2011 The Xfce development team. All rights reserved. Please report bugs to <http://bugzilla.xfce.org/>. Thanks
Hi, Xfce4-display-settings checks the number of screens when starting. If it's greater than 1, it usually indicates that a proprietary driver is in use, i.e. fglrx or nvidia, and they have their own X server settings applications (and use different setups and terminology [screen vs. output], e.g. Xinerama uses several screens, while XRandR usually uses one screen with several outputs, afaik). NVidia X Server Settings created a xorg.cong for you with two screens, and that is why xfce4-display-settings errors out, because it doesn't support that. Now, you wrote that you did that because Xfce4-display-settings didn't recognize the extra monitor, so it could be useful to revert to your previous setup (no xorg.conf generated by nvidia settings), and run xrandr to check that your two outputs are detected.
Backtrace: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=533808
(In reply to comment #2) > Backtrace: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=533808 Wrong bug report sorry.
Sorry, I forgot about this bug. There was https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9389, also nvidia related, fixed by http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-settings/commit/?id=430b46f6c5ed382fb1a2560efb6bdd291011b169 (freeing uninitialized structs). But without stacktrace, I can't tell for sure.
We have improved support for Nvidia's proprietary drivers a lot meanwhile and xorg.conf is no longer used by most, so I don't think this bug is still around. Please feel free to comment or reopen the bugreport in case you can still reproduce it with a recent version of Xfce (ideally >=4.11).
I can firm that this is still a bug with xfce4-display-settings 4.12.0 (Xfce 4.12) I ended up writing my own xorg.conf for my 2-head nvidia setup because xfce consistently got confused as to which was the primary and secondary monitors, but I found that I couldn't tweak things with xfce4-display-settings because it refused to run.
Confirming Stirling's findings. I'm running two cards to drive four displays: jbevren@epicfail:~$ lspci |grep VGA 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK106 [GeForce GTX 650 Ti] (rev a1) 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 610] (rev a1) jbevren@epicfail:~$ xrandr -v xrandr program version 1.5.0 Server reports RandR version 1.5 jbevren@epicfail:~$ DISPLAY=:0.0 xrandr |grep connected VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DVI-D-0 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 435mm x 239mm DVI-D-1 connected 1920x1080+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 435mm x 239mm jbevren@epicfail:~$ DISPLAY=:0.1 xrandr |grep connected DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DVI-I-2 connected 900x1440+900+0 right (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 408mm x 255mm DVI-I-3 connected 900x1440+0+0 right (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 408mm x 255mm HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) For some context, I use separate X screens to work around some badly written proprietary software that's hard to not have to use these days (cough flash cough). Due to a bug the vendor's apparently not interested in fixing, having multiple screen widths causes issues with some functionality. While it may be understandable that the display settings might not support such a configuration, it also works with some features of the display that are unrelated to randr, such as screensaver timeout. I'm familiar with using xset to set the blackout timer, but perhaps the display settings application should either omit the randr tabs when finding an unsupported display configuration or at least provide some form of useful output indicating the display configuration is unsupported so that the user isn't left guessing and ultimately consuming developer time with help requests in fringe cases like mine. If anyone needs additional information I'm happy to add some. :-)