After installing proprietary video drivers, my second hdmi monitor no longer works

[waxy]

Hi,
In an attempt to solve the a problem with VLC Video player's inability to play many files, I read that installing a proprietary video driver would likely fix the problem. I let Manjaro Hardware Detection install a proprietary ATI driver. After rebooting, my second monitor now simply mirrors my main monitor.

When I used the free video drivers, upon bootup I could choose how the displays would work. Now upon bootup, no such option is provided. Also, when I choose "Displays- Manage and Configure Displays", there is no option use both displays separately.

When I tried to remove the proprietary driver, an error message appeared:
'xorg-server'

Error: pacman failed!
Error: script failed!

I do hope someone can help me get out of this mess. How can I get my wonderful dual monitor system back and running?

[bogdancovaciu]

@waxy

I let Manjaro Hardware Detection install a proprietary ATI driver.

AFAIK there is no ATI proprietary driver. Revert to the one you had before and start investigating, fixing from there.
Provide the:
inxi -Fxxxz

@waxy

VLC Video player’s inability to play many files

You could disable hardware acceleration to VLC ...

[waxy]

Sorry for being such a noob. in the Hardware Detection, the proprietary driver icon looks like it says ATI on it. I've included a screenshot.

I hope I can revert back to the original driver asap.

Here is the output from:

[ray@GiantRaffy ~]$ inxi -Fxxxz
System: Host: GiantRaffy Kernel: 4.14.81-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.2.1 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.14.3
tk: Qt 5.11.2 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine: Type: Desktop System: Gigabyte product: Z170X-Gaming 5 v: N/A serial:
Mobo: Gigabyte model: Z170X-Gaming 5 v: x.x serial: UEFI: American Megatrends v: F21 date: 03/06/2017
Battery: Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Anywhere MX serial: charge: 35% rechargeable: yes status: N/A
CPU: Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-6700K bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake-S rev: 3 L2 cache: 8192 KiB
flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 64152
Speed: 1471 MHz min/max: 800/4200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1300 2: 1300 3: 1300 4: 1300 5: 1300 6: 1300 7: 1300
8: 1300
Graphics: Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Barts PRO [Radeon HD 6850] vendor: XFX Pine driver: fglrx_pci v: N/A
bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1002:6739
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.17.4 driver: fglrx compositor: kwin_x11 tty: N/A
OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series v: 4.5.13399 Core Profile Context 15.201.1151 compat-v: 4.5.13399
direct render: Yes
Audio: Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-H HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3
chip ID: 8086:a170
Device-2: AMD Barts HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6790/6850/6870 / 7720 OEM] vendor: XFX Pine driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 chip ID: 1002:aa88
Device-3: Arkmicro Webcam Carrefour type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo bus ID: 1-6.4.4:12 chip ID: 18ec:3299
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.14.81-1-MANJARO
Network: Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: Gigabyte driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: f000 bus ID: 00:1f.6
chip ID: 8086:15b8
IF: enp0s31f6 state: down mac:
Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Gigabyte driver: alx v: kernel port: d000
bus ID: 0d:00.0 chip ID: 1969:e0a1
IF: enp13s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac:
Device-3: Realtek RTL8192CU 802.11n WLAN Adapter type: USB driver: rtl8192cu bus ID: 1-10:7 chip ID: 0bda:8178
serial:
IF: wlp0s20f0u10 state: up mac:
Drives: Local Storage: total: 15.60 TiB used: 11.80 TiB (75.7%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST4000VN0001-1SF178 size: 3.64 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm
serial: rev: AN02 scheme: GPT
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST4000VN0001-1SF178 size: 3.64 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm
serial: rev: AN02 scheme: GPT
ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: Seagate model: ST4000VN0001-1SF178 size: 3.64 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm
serial: rev: AN02 scheme: GPT
ID-4: /dev/sdd vendor: Seagate model: ST4000VN0001-1SF178 size: 3.64 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm
serial: rev: AN02 scheme: GPT
ID-5: /dev/sdf type: USB vendor: Generic model: USB3.0 CRW -SD size: 15.12 GiB serial: rev: 1.00
scheme: MBR
ID-6: /dev/sdh vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 500GB size: 465.76 GiB speed: 1.5 Gb/s serial: rev: 2B6Q
scheme: GPT
ID-7: /dev/sdi vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 500GB size: 465.76 GiB speed: 1.5 Gb/s serial: rev: 3B6Q
scheme: GPT
ID-8: /dev/sdj vendor: Samsung model: SSD 830 Series size: 119.24 GiB speed: 1.5 Gb/s serial: rev: 3B1Q
scheme: MBR
RAID: Hardware-1: Marvell 88SE9485 SAS/SATA 6Gb/s controller driver: mvsas v: 0.8.16 port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.0
chip ID: 1b4b.9485 rev: c3
Partition: ID-1: / size: 423.19 GiB used: 269.29 GiB (63.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdh2
ID-2: swap-1 size: 34.51 GiB used: 512 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdh3
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 256 Uptime: 1h 29m Memory: 31.37 GiB used: 16.30 GiB (52.0%) Init: systemd v: 239 Compilers: gcc: 8.2.1
Shell: bash v: 4.4.23 running in: konsole inxi: 3.0.27
[ray@GiantRaffy ~]$

[BS86]

Congratulations, you borked your system.

The proprietary driver is so old and unmaintained that mhwd can't handle it anymore.

Those commands are needed to switch back to free:

sudo mhwd -r pci $(mhwd -li | grep "video-" | awk '{print $1}')
sudo pacman -Rnc catalyst-input catalyst-server catalyst-utils catalyst-video
sudo rm "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
sudo pacman -Sy xf86-video-ati "xorg-server>1.19"
sudo mhwd -i pci video-linux

@philm : Yet another victim of the catalyst - driver and it's missing warnings (or of the fact that catalyst should not be offered any more).

[bogdancovaciu]

Ok, i wasn't aware about that because i knew that Catalyst driver is deprecated

[Illyria] Manjaro XFCE v18.0-beta9 online now!

mhwd is offering me deprecated proprietary catalyst-video drivers (15.201.115) on this test machine install even though they won't work with the current xorg-server which is at 1.20. from the driver release notes: Xorg/Xserver 7.4 and above (up to 1.17) Linux kernel 2.6 or above (up to 3.19) Hardware is a Radeon HD 6770 PCI-E card in this machine and it works fine with the standard opensource radeon modules. I believe the ability to install this package should now be removed from mhwd as ke…

Thanks @BS86 for clarifying to OP what is going on!!! Cheers!

[waxy]

Hahaha.. I always laugh when I read the word "borked"!
Is it actually "borked" or will it recover after I run those commands?

I'll wait till you confirm. I don't want to bork it beyond repair.

[BS86]

the commands will fix it.

[waxy]

Thank you very much. I'll run them now

[tbg]

@BS86

Yet another victim of the catalyst - driver and it’s missing warnings (or of the fact that catalyst should not be offered any more).

This is not a failing of Manjaro, this is totally on this user not doing any research before installing the wrong video driver. What do you expect to happen if you blindly install the incorrect video driver.

What next, should every driver install have a warning:

Please ensure you are installing the correct driver on your system before committing to this driver install. Failure to ensure you are installing the correct driver could result in "borking" your system.

Has it really come to this?

[BS86]

mhwd promises to offer noob-friendly driver installation and in general, only displays the drivers that work with your hardware. And it also looks like switching back is as easy as installing another driver.

The thing with catalyst is unique in mhwd, because with catalyst, mhwd also downgrades xorg to 1.17 - which it can't resolve on the way back. That should be mentioned in a warning because it breaks the whole mhwd - philosophy of offering a simple noob-friendly GUI.

[tbg]

Unix was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.

Doug Gwyn, in Introducing Regular Expressions (2012) by Michael Fitzgerald

[BS86]

those "stupid things" should not be possible in a GUI in a distribution aimed at being newbie-friendly. Things like that drive interested people back to Windows.

[waxy]

@BS86, Very good of you to stand on the side of the newcomers. I had no idea that changing the video driver would have caused a problem like this. Years ago when I ran Sidux, I switched between a proprietary video driver and open source drivers several times without problems. I will certainly be more careful, but no one should expect a newcomer to research every single change they make.
Mistakes will happen.

[waxy]

@BS86, I totally agree "stupid things" should not be possible in a GUI. TBG needs to chill a bit in alluding to new users as stupid. Maybe watch a comedy and laugh a bit.

[tbg]

@waxy

no one should expect a newcomer to research every single change they make.

Well video drivers are pretty much the most important driver on your system, so you should definitely not blindy install the most important component on your system and not expect there could be negative results.

[tbg]

@waxy

TBG needs to chill a bit in alluding to new users as stupid.

Waxy perhaps if you looked before you lept, you would not have so many help requests on the forum. That in no way means you are stupid. It means you would rather rely on the community to fix your errors, than actually do some research on your own to ensure you are doing things correctly.

[c00ter]

@tbg

Unix was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.

My favorite related quote. It relieves me of personal responsibility for sins errors I might commit. Ees no' mine!

[waxy]

@BS86

the commands will fix it.

I ran the commands you sent to switch back to free.
The original problem is now fixed! Thanks! My display stretches across both monitors as it did before.

Here is the output of inxi -Fxxxz

$ inxi -Fxxxz
System:    Host: GiantRaffy Kernel: 4.14.81-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.2.1 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.14.3 
           tk: Qt 5.11.2 wm: kwin_x11 dm: startx Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: Gigabyte model: Z170X-Gaming 5 v: x.x serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends v: F21 
           date: 03/06/2017 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-6700K bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake-S rev: 3 L2 cache: 8192 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 64152 
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Barts PRO [Radeon HD 6850] vendor: XFX Pine driver: radeon v: kernel 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1002:6739 
           Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: none compositor: kwin_x11 tty: N/A 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD BARTS (DRM 2.50.0 / 4.14.81-1-MANJARO LLVM 7.0.0) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.2.5 compat-v: 3.1 
           direct render: Yes

The problem now is that during bootup, only a command line appears. I have to log in with password. I started the GUI with startx. What should be done to prevent this and have Manjaro boot up directly?

I just checked the Hardware Config Manager GUI - it appears to be "borked". Will this fix itself with running release updates? Is it something to be concerned about?
Hardware%20Config%20Manager|575x414

[Yochanan]

Both mhwd-catalyst and mhwd-db-amdgpu-experimental need to be removed.

[BS86]

@waxy

I started the GUI with startx. What should be done to prevent this and have Manjaro boot up directly?

Not sure why that happens. @anon35400795 any help?

@waxy

Is it something to be concerned about?
Hardware%20Config%20Manager|575x414

I can't view the image.

@Yochanan

mhwd-db-amdgpu-experimental

that one is not present per default. You need to install it in pacman or some other tool to make it available.