Hi All,

I've been struggling with this problem for weeks to no avail.
When I go into Control Center-> Display Preferences my monitor is no longer recognized.

Instead, there is a red box which says "Unknown".
This one problem is preventing me from doing just about everything I need to do my job including setting up multiple windows, using an extra VGA plug in monitor, changing screen resolution.... running X -configure, you name it.

Is there any way to reload the video card drivers in Red Hat Enterprise so that it can detect the monitor?
The only utility I've found that might help is one called system-config-display, but that apparently has a bug and won't run, no matter how many times I've reinstalled.

Anyone ever encounter this before and fixed it?
The weirdest thing about this is.... the monitor WAS recognized when I first got the laptop, now it appears to have forgotten it.
Thanks much for any help.

Have you tried to move the xorg.conf file to a different location, then booting into runlevel 3 (CLI mode only), to configure things? Sounds like the monitor geometry or card info in the xorg.conf file got corrupted somehow. Running it fresh may help you.

Also, you're using RHEL6...what has Red Hat support told you about this? Since you're using RHEL, you are paying for it, right?

Nope, its airtight.

I have RHEL through my company, who provides their own desktop support (and can't figure out the problem) their only solution is to reimage the drive. They will not give me the account ID to RHEL, they say they don't have one.
RHEL won't help me either, without an account ID.
So I'm on my own.

>>>
Sounds like the monitor geometry or card info in the xorg.conf file got corrupted somehow. Running it fresh may help you.
>>>>

How do you do this?

No idea what you mean by this
If they don't have one, then they're not paying for support, and shouldn't be using RHEL. Unless they're just lying to you, but if this is the company's machine, then you're at the mercy of the company support folks, and their solution. Unless YOU own it, you can't/shouldn't mess with it. Be very cautious, since tinkering with a company-owned machine could land you in trouble.
Did you read the sentence before that one?? Specifically:
So...move the xorg.conf file from its default location to somewhere else (even your home directory is fine). As root, type in "init 3" (that is, go into runlevel 3), and run the x configuration utility. It will create a new xorg.conf.

Apologies, I read that sentence as boot to init 3, and then "configure things"..... as in look around and figure things out, but you weren't suggesting anything in particular.


I should be so lucky, but Red Hat is beating me at every turn. The X configuration utility will not run also.
Hang on I'll try it again and let you know the error message....

>>
Be very cautious, since tinkering with a company-owned machine could land you in trouble.
>>

Okay, now you and I both know that trying to FIX a machine that doesn't work, AKA get it to a workable state, doesn't constitue 'tinkering'. So don't even go there.
I am not having fun in the least, nor am I recklessly adventuring. In fact, I'm under quite a lot of time pressure to get this working and to get back to work.........but thanks for your suggestions.

The message is:

#X -configure

Failed to load 'vmwgfx' (module does not exist, 0)
vmware: Please ignore the above warnings about not being able to load module/driver vmwgfx
(EE) vmware: Unexpected failure while loading the "vmwlegacy" driver. Giving up.
...
....
.......
Number of created screens does not match number of detected devices
Configuration failed.

Sorry, but it MAY be, in the eyes of your company and their IT policies. Again, if you don't OWN the machine and you are not a member of the support team, what you are doing COULD land you in trouble, regardless of your intentions. If your support folks are suggesting a reimage and you ignore them, they could lay the whole thing at your feet, like it or not. That's just a fact of corporate life.

Is this a virtual machine by any chance? Are you in runlevel 3? Have you removed the old xorg.conf file, and any associated .Xauthority files that you may have out there?? Also, try making a backup of your /etc/X11 directory, and remove not only the xorg.conf file, but the xorg.conf.d file too. And instead of running "X -configure", try "Xorg -configure", and see what happens.

Also, what kind of video hardware?

2 members found this post helpful.

I'm well aware of how corporations are, and frankly nothing makes me angrier than when people you work with don't want or care to help.... nobody here included..... but just want to roadblock and sit back and point fingers like a child and claim you've stepped across boundaries, broken regulations etc. Especially when your own job requires fixing the problem.

We're all adults here hopefully, and the end goal of getting a problem fixed so you can do your job effectively should be enough.... ok now that I've had my tirade (cut me some slack please, I've been struggling with this problem for weeks)

no its not a virtual machine, straight Linux. Yes- I went to run level 3 if you mean "outside" X, at a prompt.
I tried renaming those files to .SAVE, not sure why removing them would help as I'm not a Linux expert. However when I ran Xorg -configure I still got:

Number of created screens does not match number of detected devices
Configuration failed.


It seems ironic that not only can I not detect my monitor, but I can't run the configuration utility either.
I've also tried system-configure-display, and that has a bug and won't work.

Seems a perfect storm really. :/

>>>

Is this a virtual machine by any chance? Are you in runlevel 3? Have you removed the old xorg.conf file, and any associated .Xauthority files that you may have out there?? Also, try making a backup of your /etc/X11 directory, and remove not only the xorg.conf file, but the xorg.conf.d file too. And instead of running "X -configure", try "Xorg -configure", and see what happens.
>>>

TB0ne, you are awesome.
---------------------------------
ITS WORKING!!!!******************

I had already tried plenty with xorg.conf, but somehow, renaming also /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ directory, and /root/xorg.conf.new changed the Monitor Type from Unknown, to recognized.
I've been at this since 4th week of February struggling on forums.....surfing Google and been up to Level 3 support at my company.
I've also got the second monitor working, on the VGA port ((!!!!))) That was another struggle I had. It configured right up in Display preferences after the monitor was recognized.

Have a good weekend

Outstanding...glad to have helped. Sometimes just removing/renaming the x config files does the trick.

A follow-on to this thread...

I have a VM running RHEL 6.0 (VMware 8.0 workstation). I am trying to set a "global" screen size so that when the VM is used, it doesn't "bounce" between screen sizes.

What I am seeing is that I need to define the screen resolution individually for each user created on the system (kind of a pain... would be nice to inherit that value from a system level default). Then, when the users log out, the screen size changes when the login screen is rendered.

Just not sure how to solve the problem.

Thanks - Pete

Hello,
In my RHEL 6.7 external monitor suddenly has begun appearing "Unknown".
This thread has been very helpful in getting it back to normal.
The only thing I've done was: switching to "init 3", then "X -configure" from there.
This has created /root/xorg.conf.new. Because I did not find any xorg.conf on my computer, I was thinking of renaming xorg.conf.new to xorg.conf, but even that was not necessary - after reboot it's working again as it should.
Thank you all !