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Whenever I restart the X session, either from a suspension or a screen lock, the screen is a mesh of lines where I can not even see the mouse. To make it work I switch to another session (say, Ctrl+Alt+F1) and then go back to the X session (Ctrl+Alt+F7). After a few seconds where nothing responds to the mouse the session becomes active again and all fine. This workaround has allowed me to keep working but it's not ideal. A permanent solution to this would be great.

I have an ATI Radeon HD 8600M and I'm using Xubuntu 14.04, with the ATI drivers (fglrx). If I use open-source drivers (X.org) the problem dissapears. However I'm not happy with this solution because I need propietary drivers to run some Matlab functionalities and other applications.

Another interesting info is that when I use two screens (laptop + external Dell monitor via HDMI) the problem only affects the laptop screen.

So I have the weird combination of, yes, it is the ATI driver, but only for the laptop screen....what could it be?

2 Answers2

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I had the same problem as you mate. I also have ATI Radeon 8600M on my Dell laptop. I came up with two workarounds for this problem that I will describe, so you do not have to bang your head.

I know what I am going to propose you is not direct solution for the problem. It is the best workaround that I have found so far from my experience. I will be very happy if someone manages to solve the problem the proper way.

I have searched all over the internet for a proper solution, but I could not find one.

I have discovered that the source of the problem is deep into the LightDM locker and the fglrx drivers. There is some conflict that I could not tarce down and did not find any solution. Evrytime I close the Lid of my laptop and it suspend, after I open it up I see either black screen or the system freezes completely or my screen showed only color lines.

First soltuion that I have tried and it worked was to remove LightDM and replace it with xscreensaver. And it worked - no more black screens or freezes after suspend.

To remove light-locker and install xscreensaver, execute this in terminal:

sudo apt-get purge light-locker light-locker-settings
sudo apt-get install xscreensaver

But for me xscreensaver looks very ugly, so finally I have uninstalled Xubuntu and installed Ubuntu 14.10. I have no problems with unity so far.

The other solution is to remove fglrx, and use xorg opengl drivers. I found that if I am using this driver the problem does not occurs. But I needed fglrx to run wine games so that was not solution for me ...

If you can not unsintall fglrx can you open the terminal and type:

sudo apt-get purge fglrx*

Paste any error output in you question.

Sh1d0w
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This problem was solved when upgrading to 16.04. Screen has no single glitch. Suspend works fine. The open-source radeon driver works flawlessly! No need to miss fglrx.