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laptop display stopped working after using a new external monitor

ma flag

I've been switching back and forth between my HP Omen Ubuntu 20.04 / 20.10 (just upgraded in an attemp to fix this) laptop display and external monitor (HDMI). After using someone else's monitor via displayport, my laptop no longer offers me the built in display. It works on boot and up through when I type in the drive decryption passphrase, but as the purple Ubuntu boot message starts to display, it freezes. If I plug in an external monitor, (either one, the HDMI or displayport) those work fine. But when I list displays, the built-in display is no longer there. How do I troubleshoot this?

kanehekili avatar
zw flag
Have you looked at `/var/log/Xorg.0.log`? You might copy the crucial part into your question for better understanding
James Wetterau avatar
ma flag
Thanks for the advice. Coincidentally I found that deleting /etc/X11/xorg.conf seems to have resolved this. (As suggested in several similar cases on askubuntu.com), I don't understand why this seems to have happened at this particular time, but if it should happen again at least I know I can remove that and reboot and normal display switching behavior seems to be restored.
kanehekili avatar
zw flag
If any of the xorg.conf file have an error the X-server will not start. Usually Xorg.conf is not needed nowadays.
James Wetterau avatar
ma flag
Oddly the symptom was that only my external monitors (one on HDMI, one on displayport) were working, but they were working fine. The laptop display was not working after boot. So X was starting.
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