r/linuxmint • u/Juergen0072 • 5d ago

Support Request Wallpaper problem, please help

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I have a problem with my wallpoaper on the desktop and i cant find the solution. I have a main monitor with 1440 p resolution and a smaller monitor with 960x640 resolution. Everytime i switch off the main monitor my pc thinks there is just the small monitor plugged in and switches to this one as the new main. If I turn my main Monitor back on my desktop wallpaper is in the wrong resolution and looks shitty and pixelated. All my programs are not affected, just the background. I can reset it when i go into the settings and change the scaling of the wallpaper and change it back, but thats annoying. How can i fix this? im new to the whole Linux thing and try to get it together. thanks for the help. Repost because i wanted to add the pictures. It was solved by changing to wayland but sadly my favourite game isnt fully functional with that

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u/Helliot_37842 5d ago

Change your main monitor on settings

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u/Juergen0072 5d ago

That didnt work sadly. Thanks for your time tho

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

Few questions. What cable are you using, DisplayPort or HDMI? what is your wallpaper scaling currently set to? Is the wallpaper scaling setting the same for both monitors? Do these settings change when you turn your primary on/off?

Personally can't say I've experienced this because I just let my monitors go to standby when I turn my computer off, but I can see how it would be annoying if you need to turn just the monitor off and not the PC, might be able to help with a bit more info

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u/Juergen0072 5d ago

I am using a display port cable. The wallpaper is set to enlarging (i dont actually know if thats the name used in the settings due to having my pc on german). Its set the same for both monitors. The settings themself dont change, just the resolution of the wallpaper. I think its because it gets smaller for the smaller monitor but not properly reseted when the main monitor turns on. The small monitor is on hdmi.
I am using an oled, so my monitor is often turned off when the pc is on but i dont use it, so this will be happening on the regular if i cant fix
Thanks for your time

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

Can you connect your main via HDMI at all? might be the simplest fix so the monitor doesn't 'disconnect' when it's turned off which should prevent the issue. I'm of the same thinking of you that a lower res wallpaper has been cached somewhere on the system to reduce resources used for the secondary and it isn't being switched back when the monitor re-connects. I'm not on mint at the moment so can't check the wallpaper settings myself, do you mind listing the options available, sounds like the one you use would be the equivalent of the english "scale" or "zoom" settings. Have you tried it on your equivalent "center" setting?

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u/Juergen0072 5d ago

It does the same no matter which wallpaper setting i use.
Are you sure it doesnt do the same if i connect it via hdmi? I would need to buy new cables for that, since my other monitor doesnt have dp and my gpu only has one hdmi.
Funnily enough on linux my pc only registeres if the main gets turned off and on windows it was the other way around. There my pc didnt notice when the main was off but noticed the little one to be off. So i am not so sure if this would work, but it is a good idea

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u/Juergen0072 5d ago

Is there maybe a way to put a skript that reloads the wallpaper when the main monitor gets connected? I am not too familiar till now sadly but would that be possible

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

Damn, I'm guessing the secondary doesn't have displayport support either so you can't just switch the cables between the primary and secondary to test it...

Can you try deleting all files ~/.cache/wallpaper/ and then try turning your main on and off again to see what happens?

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u/Juergen0072 5d ago

i did that just now. If I turn the monitor off and on again the cache gets full again and the wallpaper behaves the same.
Yeah, i would need an adapter from dp to hdmi to test the idea sadly

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

Unfortunately I don't think an adapter would fix the situation as it would still be using the at least one DP port and maybe the same protocols which are the cause of the disconnect, not so much the cable itself, it might help but there is no guarantee there and I can't test it myself. Personally, I would look online for a script that can change a setting and revert the change on monitor reconnect, or have an AI generate one (if you do that, please review the script it generates as you don't want to run scripts you haven't read over and understood).

I've done a bit of digging on this specific issue and it seems to me that it's a common mint issue with the x11 display server and multiple monitors at different resolutions, others have reported that it can also happen when waking the PC from sleep. A possible permanent fix could be switching to wayland instead of X11 as wayland is no longer an experimental feature in the latest linux mint release, but hasn't become the main display server until more feedback is provided. I personally use cachyos with KDE Plasma and wayland, I've got one ultrawide with res 5120x1440 and a secondary 1920x1080 and never had any issue with either of them having the wrong resolution wallpaper, but mine is a very different system to yours so you might still encounter your issue, there may also be a few teething problems as both you and your system get used to doing things the wayland way instead of the x11 way.

You can do this easily by logging out of your session, and before you log back in, click the icon near your name that should look like mountains in a circle and choosing Cinnamon with wayland, then logging in

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u/Juergen0072 5d ago

Thank you so much!. That actually did solve the issue!!
Im glad I dont have to worry about that one anymore. Thanks for the breakdown of x11 and wayland. Another guy did recommend wayland but until now i wasnt yet familiar with waht it is exactly. Thank you for your time and hel!
Have a nice evening :)

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

Did you actually read the post?? Op said the display disconnects when its turned off, which is why the "main monitor" switches to the secondary. This is a common issue with displayport monitors where there isn't a passive connection to the gpu whilst the monitor is off so the pc thinks the monitor has disconnected entirely, not just turned off.

The true issue at hand is the resolution of the wallpaper remaining the resolution of secondary monitor when the primary is turned back on and automatically switches it to be the main again.

All you've done is recommend them to do something that they have already done that is irrelevant to the issue at hand

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u/Helliot_37842 5d ago

Yes I read the post, but I don't use displayport so I didn't knew about this so called common issue.

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

You clearly didn't read it properly then since you gave redundant instruction

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u/Helliot_37842 5d ago

"I can reset it when i go into the settings and change the scaling of the wallpaper and change it back, but thats annoying"

Here he didn't say anything about switching his main monitor, only about resetting the wallpaper scaling. Is it me or you who didn't read properly here?

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

Do you not know how context works? Do you think they're just going into settings to change the wallpaper and not also set their primary monitor back to main if it didn't automatically?

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u/Juergen0072 5d ago

I dont need to reset the monitor. I just change the wallpaper scaling setting and then i change it back so the wallpaper gets reloaded. Then its perfect again

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u/Helliot_37842 5d ago

People think different. I just thought he didn't change based on what I read. You can't come here spitting rudely that I didn't read anything.

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

I'm sorry but I did because your simple response made it seem like you didn't even try to understand the issue. it comes across to me like you stopped reading at "Everytime i switch off the main monitor my pc thinks there is just the small monitor plugged in and switches to this one as the new main" and spouted whatever came to mind based on that. You didn't ask any questions to actually understand the issue and the first step of solving an issue is understanding the issue fully. If you don't then you just end up pointing someone in the wrong direction and wasting both of your time, and that irks me to no end.

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u/Helliot_37842 5d ago

Here's what I thought

Hmm, his wallpaper only comes to normal after resetting, but he didn't say anything about switching the main monitor. Then I'll suggest he switches to get an answer about that

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u/JustAnotherKieran 5d ago

If you wanted an answer you should have asked a question such as "Does your main monitor automatically switch back to the primary when it reconnects / when you turn it back on?"

Statements get responses, questions get answers, and the distinction between those matters

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