DisplayLink connected screens turn black every few minutes after driver update
 

I've updated to DisplayLink Driver 4.4.24 and do regret it ... every few minutes (in most cases between 2 and 15 minutes, very rarely after 4 hours) the screens connected with DisplayLink turn black. In most cases it does help to unplug the DisplayLink USB-Connector and plug it back in again ... but sometimes I need to restart my computer ... super annoying.

I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 on a Dell Insiprion 5579 with a Dell Universal Dock D6000.

I've just tried to upload another debug output right after the issue happened again, but I'm always getting the following error message:

Please let me know if there is another way I can send you this debug file

The other debug output can be downloaded here: http://ns342841.ip-37-187-167.eu/01.zip

Hi,

We are trying to reproduce the problem you're seeing, but so far without luck. An equivalent setup to yours has showed no sign of the problem in a soak test that was running over the weekend.

We do see our service being restarted in logs you sent, but it's unclear what caused it. Normally this could be caused by a device dropping off the USB bus, and reappearing again.

There are a few things you could do to help diagnosing it further.

• It looks like evdi logs are surpressed on your system. Can you reenable them by using
  Code:

  ---

  echo 5 > /sys/devices/evdi/loglevel

  ---

• are there any updates on any of the screens when you see the issue, or are the screens idle when it happens?
• it would be useful if you send us your xorg.conf - logs from X reveal quite a list of GPU drivers being loaded
• can you try replugging the docking station to another USB port, without any downstream devices (just the dock and monitors), and see if it improves the situation?

Thanks,
Michal

Thanks for looking into it

1) I'll definitely change the EVDI logging settings and upload another log file.
2) It also happens (sometimes) when the screen is in idle, but it does happen far more frequently when there are updates to the screen (i.e. switching through tabs in my IDE, looking at a photo gallery on a website, starting a youtube video, ...) and it does get far worse when I do attach a second monitor to the DisplayLink
3) Yes, will also send my xorg.conf with the next log
4) I'll try to to run the doch only with the monitors - on the laptop side I've already tried both USB 3.0 ports (without success) - I could only try the USB 2.0 port on the other side but I doubt this would be very successful?

I did disconnect everything except the screen (and the network, because I don't have a USB/Network adapter at hand right now) from the DisplayLink device. The problem did occur again after less than 30 minutes (this time with 2 DisplayLink screens attached)

The process I followed was the following:
1) startup the computer ~11:30
2) run DLSupportTool --debug
3) change EVDI support tool
4) run DLSupportTool --debug ~11:38
5) screens did turn blank at ~12:02
6) did run DLSupportTool at ~12:03 (with the screens still blank - did not connect or disconnect any USB cables)

As the upload in the forum isn't working (maybe related to the size of the file) I've uploaded it to one of my servers: http://ns342841.ip-37-187-167.eu/02.zip

I did now try it again, with the network cable disconnected and being connected to WiFi but the issue is still the same. For me it looks like something is wrong with the DisplayLink driver because

a) The light on my Dell D6000 does stay white/blue even when the screens are black

http://ns342841.ip-37-187-167.eu/IMG...122228_257.jpg

whereas it does turn red when the USB-cable is disconnected:

http://ns342841.ip-37-187-167.eu/IMG...122238_883.jpg

b) when there are other devices connected to my Dell D6000 they continue to work, even when the screens turn black

c) lsusb -t output doesn't change (when I compare the working state, with the state when the screens are black)

Attached please also find my xorg.conf files

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ is empty

attached are the contents of /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/

Hi,

thank you for sending the logs. Unfortunately we were still not able to reproduce the issue when using same machine as you have.
One more thing worth checking can be update of device firmware. Can you please update the Firmware inside the device by using the Dell Utility https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...sal-dock-d6000 (Unfortunately it is Windows only) ?
We would like to understand the issue better, thus could you inform us which monitor is affected in case of single monitor setup and which port it is connected to?

Cheers
Kamil

Hi Kamil,

thanks for your reply - it was working for me as well until I upgraded the DisplayLink drivers (to 4.4) - I've even tried going back to the old version (4.2) but it didn't help.

It doesn't matter to which port I connect the screen(s) - if only one is connected the issue does happen no matter on which of the two Display Ports it is connected to. If two screens are connected, they are both turning black at the same time, when the issue does occur.

As for the firmware update - I'll have to take the dock home with me - as we only have Macs and Linux computers in the office, but I do have a Windows PC at home where I could do the firmware upgrade - will probably be able to do that at the weekend and give you an update on Monday.

Is there anything strange in the logs? Unfortunately the DisplayLink logs are encrypted, so I can't look at them ...

Hi Kamil,

I did try to do a firmware upgrade of the D6000 on one of my windows computers, but it told me that it already has the latest firmware installed. Are there any additional logs or increased logging outputs I could enable for you, to find the issue?

Hello,

thank you for checking the Firmware in your device.
Are you using DP++ adapter to connect monitor (Benq G2420 has only DVI and VGA inputs)? I guess Samsung S27D850 is connected using DP cable.
We have look on your logs and it looks like that they are cut off just before issue happened. The reason for this might be OS has data in buffer and not yet send them to /var/log.
Next time when issue happen could you please just before gathering logs execute "sync" http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...n8/sync.8.html command ?

As well if this will be possible for you could you please (when having dock unplugged):
- have evdi logging enabled (the same way as you did before),
- have debug enable for DispalyLink logs,
- clean /var/log/displaylink directory (including hidden files),
- reboot machine.
After this please just use your machine normally with dock connected etc. and when issue happen could you please execute sync command and gather logs?

Cheers
Kamil

Hello Kamil,

yes - I can try that when the problem does happen again I also did some searching and I cam across this post yesterday: https://displaylink.org/forum/showpo...3&postcount=15

Even though this post ist for Ubuntu 17.04 and I'm on 16.04 I gave it a try - I've applied the same settings to my system (obviously changed to use my display names) and since then the issues hasn't happened again.

I will keep monitoring it for a few days, but since this issue first occurred this is the longest time without it happening again.

Maybe these settings do give you a hint what might be going wrong here and if it might just be a coincidence with the driver update?

I haven't tried those settings individually so I can't tell you which one actually fixed it for me (at least for new) the only one I can rule out is
TLP USB_AUTOSUSPEND=0 as this was already set beforehand.

And to answer your question - yes the BENQ is connected with a DP to DVI adapter cable (Amazon Basics cable), but I can rule out this cable as root-cause because the issue does also happen when this cable (and the BENQ monitor) are not connected to my Dell D6000.

PS: I did just google every single log message in the seconds before this issue happend together with Displaylink and the log line "usb 2-2.1: Disable of device-initiated U1 failed" led me to the article mentioned above.

I'm experiencing the same problem on Ubuntu 18.04 Dell Inspiron 15
 

I'm on a Dell Inspiron 15, and I'm experiencing the same problem. Random blackouts on the monitors. Unplugging and plugging the dock back solves the problem but it is annoying.

Any solutions?

Hello,

Peda if you will encounter issue again please notify us about it.

Adin your issue looks very similar to the author of this thread.
Could you please follow instruction posted in another thread https://displaylink.org/forum/showpo...3&postcount=15 and start from Disabling Display Power Management ? However in your case monitor names are "DVI-I-2-2" and "DVI-I-1-1", which could be read from xrandr.txt file.

Cheers
Kamil

Hello Kamil,

the issue isn't re-appeared since I changed the settings. It looks like this did solve the issue - would be great if you could include this in the driver installer or at least the installation instructions.

Hi Kamil,

Thanks for your answer. I've been testing for a day and it seems stable now. I need to disable the sound too to make it work, though. Only adding the monitors to Xorg didn't work. I haven't test if disabling the xorg works too.

maintain your driver
 

I find it sad that you have to reference a post I previously made to get things working properly under linux for some people. How about you actually start maintaining your linux driver or make it open source so the community can maintain it? I've seen no real improvement to your linux driver in years and it's hardly ever updated. What do you plan to do when ubuntu eventually switches from xorg to wayland?