Crashing when screen disconnects

Larzzral

For our church setup, we have three screens where the words show up on. The front for the congregation, on the balcony for the worship team, and then a TV in the nursery for the moms. We duplicate the screens, and then have a splitter for the ones going to nursery and the balcony screen. We're hoping to have a camera on a switch, so when worship is over, I can hit the switch and the nursery can see the pulpit for whomever is speaking. Unfortunately, when we hit the switch, OpenLP crashes because of the display change, even though the display that is no longer receiving signal is run through the splitter. I am wondering if something could be figured out, so that the crash wouldn't happen do to such a display change. I will get the specific crash on Saturday, we're having a work bee that day, but figured I would post while it's on my mind, and in case someone knows what could be causing the issue. Thanks.

Currently running the newest update on Linux Mint Cinnamon. (the most recent as the entire setup is rather new)

I will be bringing a computer on Saturday, with windows 10, just to see if the problem happens on it, as well. We may just switch back to windows, as we wanted Mint to just clone to more than two monitors, but if we're going to end up using a splitter anyways, windows will allow more to volunteer.

Stuart_P

Larzzral

We've had problems when switching the Church AV system between an OpenLP computer and the presenters laptop, but never a crash. We've run both W10 and W11.
Worst issue was when Windows decided to do a graphics driver update mid service ! However you're on Linux, and I don't think you have that kind of problem.
We've gotten around our issues by using a digital splitter/switcher rather than a mechanical one. That way, the OpenLP computer is always offered a (virtual) display, even if it's not actually the one routed to the screens. A mechanical switcher effectivly pulls the plug on the OpenLP computer display - which OpenLP doesn't like !

Jamie Hockin

Stuart_P Hopefully the next release will fix this.
When we first started using a projector, we had to use a pair of HDMI to Cat-5 (and back) boxes to cover the distances we had. The box didn't provide any return for the display size, so the computer's display setting had to be fixed every week. We put an HDMI EDID Emulator between the computer and the HDMI-Cat5 sender. The emulator lets you select a display size and the computer always thinks it is connected, whether the projector / monitor is live or not.

raoul

Merged with this discussion

witterholt

I've made a possible fix for this: when the display monitor is not available anymore the live/presentation view will be turned off so it does not block OpenLP and it's dialogue window.

It will be included in the upcoming 3.1.2 release.

edwiles

@witterholt thanks very much for this fix. I've just tried OpenLP 3.1.2 and with reference to the "actual result" in the steps to reproduce (my original post above):

the laptop still shows the projected lyrics when HDMI is disconnected
if I click on the projected lyrics, it now doesn't crash i.e. no spinning mouse or not responding message.

So for me this is definitely an improvement because no crash, but I'm finding that live mode is not turned off i.e. the lyrics are still live on the laptop screen when the display monitor is disconnected. Happy to help with further reproducing if useful.

Thanks a lot!

witterholt

edwiles I made some extra improvements regarding this issue that will be included in the upcoming release.

edwiles

Thanks @witterholt - just wondered if there’s any intel about when the next release might be - we’re using it for a festival end of July and would be great to have your new code by then if possible. Thanks a lot.

witterholt

edwiles I discussed this with our team and I think it will be possible to make a new release before the end of this month.

edwiles

@witterholt may I ask how it's looking for an end of month release? 29 Jul would be great for us but no worries if not possible. Thank you, appreciate all your work!

witterholt

edwiles unfortunately the release is delayed till August.

jlgtx

Maybe all these issues are addressed in the upcoming release, but, for the record, I see the same kinds of issues in v3.1.2 on macOS, where OpenLP goes sideways if the screen configuration changes while in presentation mode, and usually requires a force-quit. Best practice is to quit OpenLP before making any screen config changes. Yet another great reason to use a black background for every screen. 😃

edwiles

@witterholt I've just upgraded to the new release 3.1.3. I retried the original steps at the start of this thread, and as far as I can see it gave the same results as for 3.1.2, namely that the laptop still shows the projected lyrics when HDMI is disconnected. I can confirm there is no hang though so definitely an improvement over 3.1.1, and in this situation it doesn't show the "screen has changed" dialog at all (or maybe it's behind the lyrics) which is also better.

It is easy enough to press Esc to remove the projected lyrics (as long as the laptop operator realises this!), but I think I'd still expect it never to show the projected lyrics on a single screen if "Display if a single screen" is off.

What do you reckon?

Thanks very much

witterholt

edwiles agreed, I have to admit that I did not focus on the single screen setting while solving this bug and would expect it did not show the presentation screen in any case when the presentation display changed. But a new issue can be made for this. I am glad it does not crash anymore though. Thanks for letting me know.

witterholt

I experienced the lost connection as well this morning. The dialog is displayed behind the presentation screen once. When ok is clicked or escape is pressed the application continues to work.
When single screen option is disabled the presentation screen should be turned off before the dialog is displayed though. Or even better, this should be always the case to make sure the dialog is always visible...

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