Adjusting screen resolution lead to a black screen

[Linux-Rob]

I finally received my PBP. And broke it already... I run the default linux Open Sesame, as it comes from the factory.

As I could barely read the small letters with the HD / 1920x1080 resolution, I choose to reduce the resolution.

I changed it from the display settings from 1920x1080 to something like 1360x786 or so.
I clicked apply system wide, and apply.

After a reboot, I get the login prompt. When I login, the screen goes blank and stays blank.

How can I restore the original settings, or boot to rescue mode, or reset factory defaults, without having the GUI? From the console prompt? Or any other option?

[PineFan]

Received PBP a couple days ago and love it although it has several quirks that people seem to be working through quickly. Appreciate all the good work occuring on this project.

Wanted to offer moral support and register that my PBP has had problems changing the resolution as well. I have not successfully changed the resolution with the Control Center's-Hardware-Displays.

**** Note that I have not run the system updates so this may be part or all of the problem in my case. ****

My experience:

1. Goto Control Center =.> Hardware => Displays=> Monitor Preferences
2. From 'Resolution' drop-down list change from the default 1920 x 1080 to say 1024 x 768.
3. Screen turns black and stays black but eventually screen flickers and returns to normal. I repeatedly hit
the 'Escape' key which may or may not be hastening the screen's return to normal.

Note that after attempting to change the resolution, I have not left the screen black and immediately rebooted or I might be in your pickle rather than my
pickle of not being able to change resolution.

One thing you might consider once you have a working display again is to do the following:
1. Go to Control Center =.> Hardware => Appearance=> Appearance Preferences
2. Select the fonts tab and increase/change font size

Regards and good luck. Sorry to not be much help but no doubt someone will show up on their white horse.

[hmuller]

I finally received my PBP. And broke it already... I run the default linux Open Sesame, as it comes from the factory.

As I could barely read the small letters with the HD / 1920x1080 resolution, I choose to reduce the resolution.

I changed it from the display settings from 1920x1080 to something like 1360x786 or so.
I clicked apply system wide, and apply.

After a reboot, I get the login prompt. When I login, the screen goes blank and stays blank.

How can I restore the original settings, or boot to rescue mode, or reset factory defaults, without having the GUI? From the console prompt? Or any other option?

I am unable to replicate your issue. Like @PineFan I am also unable to change resolution system wide. It remains 1920x1080.  But when I select "apply" instead of "apply system wide" the screen does indeed go blank. This condition does not survive reboot however on my system.

You should be able to get to a console by entering Ctrl-Alt-F1. Then you can find Xorg errors using the following after logging in:

$ grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log

That is a zero and not a capital o

[Arwen]

In general, you don't want to change the builtin display's resolution.

If things are too small, (and I have a similar issue), use larger font's or other appearance tweaks to increase the size of the items, (icons, font's or window decorations). This has 2 effects, 1 is that the screen is running native resolution, (always better), and 2, the items, (fonts, icons, and window decorations), are made up of more pixels, so are actually easier to view.

Anyone who remembers the bad, old days will understand what I mean. We had poorly formed characters because there were not enough dots in the font's foot print.

[Linux-Rob]

Thanks for the tips so far...

However, I will use them, once the PBP works again. For now, I do not have a GUI.

Anyone an idea how I can get met GUI back to work again? I can only access the console, anything graphical does not work.

How can I "reset" the x-config back to default, or set the whole PBP back to factory settings?

[mfritsche]

Hmm, have you tried logging in on console (CTRL+ALT+F2), then
cd .config
mv monitors.xml monitors.xml.bak
=> reboot?

I can't replicate the black screen, so it's a shot in the dark.

[Linux-Rob]

It was system wide, so all users had the same issue.

But I solved this problem by installing Ubuntu. That was my goal anyhow.

Still strange, that changing the screen resolution can brick your device...

[hdk]

Love UBUNTU

[andytough]

I encountered a similar problem. I changed my resolution to 1024 x 768, but I jsut selected 'Apply', I did not apply system wide. This resulted in a blank screen that persisted after a reboot.

By using the console (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and entering
xrandr -d :0 -q

I got the current settings and the other available settings
1920x1080 59.99+
1024x768 60.32*
(Thanks to this post for getting me to that stage: https://askubuntu.com/questions/281509/how-do-i-change-the-screen-resolution-using-ubuntu-command-line)

I was able to return things to a working state editing:
~/.config/monitors.xml

The lines to change were
<width>1920</width>
<height>1080</width>
<rate>59.99</rate>

[tophneal]

Since several people posted about it, I figured it might be helpful for new users to know that they can use MATE Tweak to adjust HiDPI scaling, instead of messing with fonts as a poor quickfix.