Bug 715614 – x11-misc/arandr causes task bar to disappear when aligning monitors

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description Mark I Manning IV 2020-03-31 12:34:51 UTC]

I have attached a 4k monitor to muy 1080 laptop. When I launch X the monitors are both active but are aligned along the top edge.  I wanted them aligned on the bottom edge so I installed arandr which gives me a GUI to accomplish this.

HOWEVER, when I drag the laptops display to align its bottom edge with the bottom edge of the 4k monitor I lose the task bar on the laptop.

Worse!  If i align the laptops display to the middle of the left edge of the 4k monitor the taskbar is where the alignment is calculated - i.e. the taskbar moves up and down the laptops display depending on where I have visually located that display within arandr

..............+================+
..............|................|
+============+|................|
|............||................|
|............||................|
|xxxxxxxxxxxx||................| <-- taskbar in middle of laptop monitor
|............||................|
|============+|................|
..............|................|
..............+================+

If i move the laptop monitor up or down slightly the taskbar remains in the same place relative to the 4k monitor.

[Comment 1 Jonas Stein 2020-03-31 21:35:55 UTC]

Thank you for your comprehensive report and ASCII art. To me it sounds like 
a bug in the software provided upstream or a misconfiguration in your system [3].
Does the same source work for you on another distribution?
If it works on other distributions, but not on Gentoo Linux, I suggest to discuss this problem 
on a related mailing list, forum or IRC channel. I have had very good experience on the 
Gentoo IRC [1], of course there are also forums and mailing lists. [2]

I will close this bug here, because I do not see a relation to the gentoo ebuild or the way 
Gentoo handles this special software package. Please provide more information, if I am wrong.

[1] https://www.gentoo.org/get-involved/irc-channels/
[2] https://www.gentoo.org/support/
[3] look up the upstream forums; search in their bug tracker

[Comment 2 Mark I Manning IV 2020-04-13 12:58:36 UTC]

Ran Linux Mint for a while and was having similar issues there. If i used the built in display settings app to move the laptop monitor down to align both monitors on the bottom my taskbar disappeared.  I could get it back by unplugging the external monitor and putting it back in.
If i moved the external monitor UP to align it with the bottom of the built in laptop monitor other things went wrong but I forget what those were, everything sorted itself out if i unplugged and replugged the external monitor.

I do not know if this is a bug with xrandr or nvidia drivers or something else.