Hello!

I have been using KDE as my desktop environment since I started using Fedora GNU/Linux back in 2012 (back in the KDE 4 days). I have also been using a multi-monitor setup for many years, and for the most part haven't had any problems. Recently, I started having an issue when rebooting/powering on/logging in, and while relatively minor, it is annoying as it happens on my desktop computer that I have at work.

I have two panels, one on each monitor along the bottom. The panel that goes on the left screen has an application launcher, some of my commonly used apps launchers next to that, the virtual desktop indicator, and a task manager for the tasks on that screen for the appropriate virtual desktop. The panel that goes on the right, I have a task manager that is configured to show task from the right screen for the appropriate virtual desktop, the system tray, and the digital clock. This gives the appearance of having one large default panel that spans the two screens, and allows me to more efficiently use the task managers.

When I log in, my panels will often have switched which screen they are on, or sometimes will be stacked on top of each other on one of the screens. It only takes a second to move them back to the correct screen, but often after doing that the task managers will be showing tasks on the other screen instead on the screen that the panel is on. This usually requires another log out/log in, and more dragging the panels around before the task managers are behaving as expected. Once this is done, everything works as expected, but it takes time away from work.

Before filing a bug report, I was wondering if anyone had some ideas of things to look into, even if it is simply to gather more information for the report. Here's some information about my system:

OS: Fedora 23, kernel 4.6.7
KDE Plasma 5.7.3 (problem started during the 5.6 releases)
NVidia proprietary driver v. 367.35

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Same here (Manjaro x86_64, plasma 5.7.3-1, nvidia 367.36.02)

My problem now seems to be resolved, and I'm not sure exactly what fixed it as there are a couple of things it could have been. First, there were updates to the kframeworks packages for my system, which could have potentially solved the issue, but I'm not entirely sure that's it because I was having some issues still after those updates.

The other thing, which I think may be what actually solved the problem was changing the cable configuration. At the time that I first starting using 2 monitors, I only owned one DVI cable. After initially hooking up the second monitor using a VGA cable and a DVI-to-VGA adapter, I quickly realized that the VGA driven monitor was quite fuzzy, and I couldn't handle going back and forth between the nice crisp picture on the monitor running on a DVI cable and the fuzzy picture of the one on VGA. So, I had a DVI-to-HDMI cable, and I used that to run my second monitor giving a nice clear digital picture on both. For many years that setup was fine, but then I began having the issues described above. Because the monitor that I was using as the primary display was being run off the HDMI output of my video card, while loading after logging in the monitors would go black for a second, switching from the DVI as the primary to the HDMI as the primary. In fact, at the login screen to mouse over to the monitor on the left, I would have to go all the way to the right from the monitor on the right.

So, I bought a DVI cable, and swapped it out the DVI-to-HDMI cable. This didn't have any effect at first, so I moved the cables around on the graphics card so that the monitor on the left is the one that displays all the boot up information. When I get to the login screen, the monitors already have the correct layout (e.g. the mouse move between them as expected). While loading, there is no black out, and ever since the panels have just appeared on the proper displays. In fact, this also seems to have solved and issue where I was getting a white line around my panels which was particularly noticeable when I would click on the application launcher or something in the system tray that had a slide up panel.

I would be interested in knowing if other people can solve their issues by altering their cabling configuration, as it did seem that the issues went away I changed mine. I did make all changes with the computer shut down, then booted up to see if things were working.

Hi dpearson,

I have exactly the same problem. The panel on my laptop (main monitor) switches to the external monitor on top of the other panel. You mention that you can move the panel back manually.. how? do you just drag it back to the original monitor? I can't not find how to do that

Thanks EKS


>>> doing some research I've found it. Really easy. My bad.
Panel Settings > Screen Edge > drag and drop