Windows disappear on second monitor.

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Kurt_Aust
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Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by Kurt_Aust »

Mint 19.1 Cinnamon x64
MotherBoard: ASUS X99-E WS
Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX 960
Monitors: 2x HP ZR24w (1920x1200)

Both monitors are connected via Display Port cables to ports 2 and 4 (as reported by Mint) on the graphics card. They are set up as shown below so that if I run a full screen game it will take over the monitor on the right and I can have other windows open on the left monitor.

Left Monitor .. Right Monitor
Port 2 . . . . . . Port 4
Secondary . . . Primary
Taskbar

However if I drag a window onto the right monitor then more often then not it disappears as soon as I let go of it with the mouse and I'm left with the vaguest outline of where it is located on the screen (as if it had activated Predator stealth mode). If I hold onto the window's titlebar with the mouse then it comes back but usually only for as long as I hold it.

This definitely didn't happen in Mint 18.x and I don't think it happened in Mint 19.0, it doesn't matter whether the Nouveau or Nvidia drivers are used.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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roblm
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by roblm »

Sometimes during the testing of multiple monitors, I think I noticed a similar behavior. What worked for me was to rapidly move the window from the first screen to the second. Try clicking on the upper left corner of the window first and if that doesn’t work, the upper right corner.
Kurt_Aust
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by Kurt_Aust »

I'm wondering if my problem is caused by the same underlying issue that breaks seamless mode in VirtualBox and full screen mode in DOSbox.
dussty1981
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by dussty1981 »

Glad to know I am not the only one, I am having a similar problem. For me this presented dragging a window from my 1680 x 1050 DVI monitor to my HDMI connected 1080p monitor, when the window is dropped on the secondary desktop it disappears. For me if the window is left it might flicker, if it continues to flicker I will get a crash where the screens go gray and i have about a minute to REISUB to reboot before my computer completely freezes up. Sometimes if I resize the monitor on the secondary desktop it is stable, sometimes not.

I don't remember any trouble under LM18.3, noticed a little trouble in LM19 right before installing LM19.1. Tried the live disks for LM19 and LM19.1 it is doing the same thing.

I can get it to crash pretty consistently. Resize the window on 1680 x 1050 monitor, drag it to the 1080 monitor, wait > crash. This has been tested with other resolutions up to 4k on the secondary monitor with consistent results.

I hope someone can help.

My inxi -Fxz:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: rubydragon Kernel: 4.18.0-14-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
           v: 7.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.0.9 Distro: Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa 
           base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: CROSSHAIR VI HERO v: Rev 1.xx 
           serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 3502 date: 01/22/2018 
CPU:       Topology: 6-Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 
           rev: 1 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 78488 
           Speed: 1408 MHz min/max: 1550/3725 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1408 2: 1404 
           3: 1388 4: 1393 5: 1409 6: 1416 7: 1408 8: 1408 9: 1572 10: 2026 11: 1389 
           12: 1383 
Graphics:  Device-1: AMD Baffin [Radeon RX 460] vendor: XFX Pine driver: amdgpu 
           v: kernel bus ID: 0b:00.0 
           Device-2: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480] vendor: XFX Pine driver: vfio-pci 
           v: 0.2 bus ID: 0c:00.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: amdgpu,ati 
           unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon,vesa resolution: 3840x2160~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon RX 460 Graphics (POLARIS11 DRM 3.26.0 
           4.18.0-14-generic LLVM 7.0.0) 
           v: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.2 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: AMD vendor: XFX Pine driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 0b:00.1 
           Device-2: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 580] vendor: XFX Pine driver: vfio-pci 
           v: 0.2 bus ID: 0c:00.1 
           Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus ID: 0e:00.3 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.18.0-14-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Intel I211 Gigabit Network vendor: ASUSTeK driver: igb v: 5.4.0-k 
           port: c000 bus ID: 05:00.0 
           IF: enp5s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8812AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter 
           vendor: D-Link System driver: rtl8821ae v: kernel port: b000 bus ID: 08:00.0 
           IF: wlp8s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-1: bridge0 state: up speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 2.50 TiB used: 714.07 GiB (27.9%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 960 EVO 250GB size: 232.89 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD1003FZEX-00K3CA0 
           size: 931.51 GiB 
           ID-3: /dev/sdb vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 500GB size: 465.76 GiB 
           ID-4: /dev/sdc vendor: Western Digital model: WD1003FZEX-00MK2A0 
           size: 931.51 GiB 
RAID:      Device-1: md0 type: mdraid status: active Components: online: sda1~c0 sdc1~c1 
           Info: raid: raid-0 blocks: 1572601856 report: N/A chunk size: 64k 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 97.93 GiB used: 10.82 GiB (11.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
           ID-2: /home size: 1.44 TiB used: 639.17 GiB (43.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/md0 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 24.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 46.4 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 36 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 gpu: amdgpu fan: 1535 
Info:      Processes: 292 Uptime: 17m Memory: 15.66 GiB used: 1.62 GiB (10.4%) 
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.3.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.19 
           inxi: 3.0.27 
Edit/add: I disconnected my main monitor testing this problem. It is a Samsung Syncmaster 2253LW.
Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.1, kernel 5.11 on an AMD Ryzen 3600x and a Sapphire RX-5700XT Nitro
therobertsonz

Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by therobertsonz »

I am having the exact same problem. I have two dell monitors. It seemed to happen a bit under 19, but has reached annoying under 19.1. Sometimes the window dissapears so much that I can't find the border to grab it, and have to shut the program down.
jbjpayday
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by jbjpayday »

I am running Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon and I am having the same or similar issue. I had this issue with 19 and 19.2. I don't remember having this issue before version 18.

Unmaximized windows that are moved to the second monitor are unstable. Sometimes they disappear immediately. Sometimes they only disappear when I move the mouse cursor to the second monitor to interact with the window and then the window disappears or displays only the outline of the window when the cursor moves over the window.

This appears to only happen to unmaximized windows placed on the second monitor.

I can regain access to the window by right-clicking on the app in the window list on the taskbar and then opt to move the app to the primary monitor.

This is really annoying. However, as long as the app window is maximized on the second monitor, I can use it without issue.

I hope this helps out some. I know it is a repeat of the same symptoms, but maybe someone can regain control of their app windows by using my described method to move the window to the primary monitor.
jbjpayday
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by jbjpayday »

Okay. I just tried something new to see if this would help narrow down the problem.

I tried booting into Cinnamon (Software Rendering) as my windows management system on sign-in.
So far, I have not had the issue repeat, but the system feels a little sluggish.

Does this mean that the issue could be a driver issue in the area of rendering? (could be if the rendering is now handled by software and resolves the issue on my end)

And, since this is an issue for those with or without special graphics cards, is it a problem with the open-source driver that most people use, even for NVIDIA cards since (in my experience) all of the proprietary NVIDIA drivers crash the display system on Linux Mint.

I am using NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 graphics card and using xserver-xorg-video-nouveau version 1:1.0.15-2.

The issue with the disappearing windows on a secondary monitor does not seem to occur or has not occurred on my system since the use of Cinnamon (Software Rendering) as my windows management.

Can someone else please verify (duplicate) this and verify the driver that is being used?
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roblm
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by roblm »

I just did some testing on a PC with the same GeForce GT 730 card as you have, using Mint 19.1 Cinnamon and 2 connected monitors.

With the nouveau driver, moving Firefox to monitor 2 makes it disappear. If I click on monitor 1 or double click on monitor 2, then it reappears. If I open Firefox and right click on the tab on the panel and select Move to other monitor, then it doesn’t disappear.
If I log out and switch to software rendering, then the problem doesn’t happen but I see other graphical glitches. This setting is not desirable because the CPU is doing more of the graphics rendering.

Also, the problem only happens if the setting Disable compositing for full-screen windows was set to ON in System Settings > General. Interestingly, when I set it to OFF and then back to ON, the problem did not re-appear.

I then installed nvidia-driver-440 (need to add graphics-drivers PPA first). Firefox did not disappear when moved to monitor 2, but there was considerable screen flickering. Changing the Disable compositing for full-screen windows setting had no effect. The same for nvidia-driver-390. I removed the flickering by opening Nvidia Settings to the OpenGL Settings page and disabling the setting Allow Flipping.
min-wage_developer
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by min-wage_developer »

I think I have the same problem.
Sometimes, when Firefox is on second display, some or all of desktop image shows(flickers) on top of it.
Sometimes if text editor(xed) is on second display, it will disappear(no flickering, just completely invisible).
The graphical errors respond to mouse movement, in the case of Firefox the pattern changes when hovering it, and for xed, it becomes visible/invisible.
I don't have any problems with first display.

*Edit: It seems to only happen if either the program opens to the second screen, or if it is on second screen and shrunk to the taskbar(panel?) icon and then opened again.
If it is initially on first screen, and dragged across, then it won't have graphical errors as far as i can tell.
*Edit2: Should probably have mentioned, I never had this problem on windows 7(switched to Linux last week).

Linux mint cinnamon 19.3 64bit
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660,
Driver version: 435.21
kevinfishburne
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by kevinfishburne »

This problem has plagued me for a while and I think I roughly figured it out. I'm using a desktop with a discrete/dedicated NVIDIA graphics card, the binary/proprietary NVIDIA driver (nvidia-driver-460), two 1080p monitors (one HDMI, one DVI), and Mint 20.1 amd64. In System Settings under Effects you can toggle off Window effects as a workaround to resolve the issue. If you like your window effects, you can keep them on but change the type/animation as a workaround. The ones which make your windows disappear seem to be Cinnamon and Move. The others seem to work well. Obviously someone, somewhere, should file a bug report against Cinnamon, but I am busy at the moment... =P
dbrsseau
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Re: Windows disappear on second monitor.

Post by dbrsseau »

kevinfishburne wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:10 pm In System Settings under Effects you can toggle off Window effects as a workaround to resolve the issue. If you like your window effects, you can keep them on but change the type/animation as a workaround. The ones which make your windows disappear seem to be Cinnamon and Move. The others seem to work well. Obviously someone, somewhere, should file a bug report against Cinnamon, but I am busy at the moment... =P
Does this issues has been reported ? I'm using the latest Mint 20.2 and still facing this problem. @kevinfishburn you've just save me from the hassle of looking for a quick fix for hours. Thanks man ! I don't know how to report this as an issue, but someone should do it. If anyone knows how and willing to show me, I can do it.
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