Description of problem: This might be related to bug 355461, but it seems to be significantly different in presentation so I will list it separately. The basic problem was discovered through the fact that the monitor used to access our servers had the escaping smoke problem, and as we all know everything electrical runs on smoke, and as soon as the smoke escapes it stops working. ;-) So we had to put a new display into this function. Now these all do run through a KVM switch, but I have the same problem if I take the kvm switch out of the system. Anyway the old monitor was a CRT and the new one is a LCD. So none of the xwindows displays would come up on the new display. I did go in and edit the xorg.conf file to comment out the sync lines and then I could bring back up the systems. Now I had a working xwindows system, and yes it is functional. But I wanted the "right" data in the configuration to avoid nasty future suprises. So I went into system, display, hardware to change the monitor. I found the right monitor in the display all monitors function. (A dell if it matters) I then exited and it said that it saved it. (The exact message that is in bug report 355461 shows up here to) The problem is that like 355461 no backup of the old file is created. Also the xorg.conf file has an updated modified data which corresponds to the time of the save according to the message, but no actual data including the monitor type is changed. You still have the exact same file. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): I am up to date on all of these systems as of right now. How reproducible: 100% on 8 systems of varied natures. Steps to Reproduce: 1. have a need to change the monitor 2. go to the xwindows system display settings stuff 3. go to hardware and change the monitor 4. it says it did it 5. go back in and it will not be changed 6. log out and back in and it will not be changed 7. reboot and it will not be changed.
If you run system-config-display from a gnome-terminal, and repeat the steps you gave, you should see an error message on the terminal window. What does it say?
Did this. No error message. Now lets make sure I did this right. I brought up a terminal. I typed in system-config-display as the command and hit return. The normal graphical interface to change the device settings comes up and I do the same things. All this time the cursor on the terminal is on the next line, but the command prompt has not returned. I exit. The command prompt returns in the terminal window. But that is it, no error message ---- no message at all.
Interesting. I have tried this on several more machines that I didn't have to change the monitor on, and with the same result. (Thinking that this might relate to changing the monitor and the hardware giving us a hard time. ) I can't find any fc8 machines this actually works on.
I am wondering if the problem is that the backup copy is not being given a separate name. That is the file is saved, but then the backup copy is resaved over top of it because the name doesn't actually change. Just a thought.
I played with this some more, and if you make any changes to the first tab then the those changes are saved properly. I also think that I forgot to mention that when it fails, (IE on the second tab) the backup file if it exists is not modified and the modified date doesn't change. If it does doesn't exist then it is not created. If you try something on the first page the the proper backup is also created.
Interestingly enough if you change something on the first page and then something on the second page you get this same message. The proper backup is created, but the information on the second page is not updated. But the information on the first page is.
I have been plaing with this a bunch, and it frankly seems to be a pretty wide spread problem. I have yet to find a machine on which this works and I have tried a BUNCH.
This is doing this with the current rawhide. However, it appears that when you are selecting a standard monitor and you don't have the little check mark at the bottom of the screen checked you can in fact get things to save. However under no conditions are back files created like it says that it does.
This problem still exists in fc 9 beta
OK the problem still exists on fc9 beta, but it has improved. Now it will reliability save the monitor if the check box at the bottom of the data entry screen asking to display all monitors is unchecked. If this box is checked it still will not save the monitor information.
OK interestingly enough while this problem is still occuring fc8 fc9 a fc9 b system-config-display reset works.
As of right now the system config display gui is still not working. Now the symptoms have changed since this was first reported. It is now possible to save the standard monitor types. I was able to get my acer monitor to work by selecting standard lcd monitor types 1680x1050. This is a change from the previous problem in that this would also not work previously. But if I select to display all monitor types (the check box at the bottom of the screen) and then select my acer monitor from the list, and save, no actual changes are made to the file. I would hope we can fix this before production.
Changing version to '9' as part of upcoming Fedora 9 GA. More information and reason for this action is here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping
This problem is better but still a problem in production fc9
OK the program to do this change has disappeared from the default install of fedora, but if the system-config-display program is installed then it is now working in fc10. I guess this is ready to close.
OK