6 Responses to Fixing the black external monitor after login in Linux Mint

  1. Orlando C says:

    I tried to follow the steps but there’s no file in .config/monitors.xml. I tried searching for it in various dir but couldn’t find it. Also does the change in the grub remain or does it clear out after it boots? Reason I ask is when went back to check, my changes didn’t appear. I’m a novice btw

  2. Sparrow says:

    Greeting Orlando,

    The .config/monitors.xml file is created by the Gnome monitor settings program. If you do not have the file, don’t worry, just keep going with the instructions. I just rename it to make sure Gnome (or, in this case, Cinnamon) creates new settings, and doesn’t load the old, corrupt ones.

    Either way, did it work for you? Could you get the monitor working after the login? The grub change is temporary. If the change works for you, you can set it to default by doing the step I just added to the post above! I forgot about that!

    If you have any more troubles, please say so!

    Cheers!

    • Orlando c says:

      Hi sparrow,

      It didn’t work but I starting looking around the logon screen and clicking on available items. The one item that actually fixed it for me was this little icon next to the country flag (mine being USA) it had an icon that looks like an upside down V. When I click on it, it gave me options to select. I saw Mint and selected that. Walla! my desktop is back! Not sure if that’s the right thing to do but everything appears to be working. by the way, the icon changes to an M.
      I’m not sure if I accidentally changed this or if it was done by the latest updates but I never really looked at that icon before. So I don’t know if it was always this way (upside down V).
      Thanks for your tip anyways! Hope it helps someone else.

      • Sparrow says:

        You’re talking about the Desktop Environment list. You probably had the choice to load the last used DE, which usually is listed as an λ.

        Glad you fixed your problem!

  3. leigh says:

    Thanks so much for posting this!

    I have an HP 840g that I recently installed Mint 17.3 ‘Rosa’ on.
    I had this same problem occurring over the VGA port (also DP2 on my laptop) after I tried to connect to a projector.

    Deleting the offending `~/.config/monitors.xml` allowed the VGA to be used with my DisplayPort monitor again.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.