# X11 Fullscreen Issue (Serious)

**URL:** <https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243>\
**Category:** support\
**Created:** [March 4, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243 "2012-03-04T16:53:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 14\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/1 "2012-03-04T16:53:38Z")

</div>

**anonymous** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#de3d):

Hi,

I’m a new glfw user. I have compiled the latest release on by Linux box and  
have been playing around with the examples.

However, neither of the two examples that use fullscreen mode - particles &  
pong3d - work correctly.

They both exhibit the exact same problem:

Which is, they change they screen resolution and then seem to exit before  
actually drawing anything on the screen, leaving the rest of the X11 system in  
the new resolution and therefore pretty much unusable. (I’ve not had any luck  
trying to resolve the problem in the Control Centre, so I tend to end up  
logging out and logging back in again to sort it out.)

Below I will provide some hopefully helpful system information:

_General System Info_  
glfw version: glfw-2.7.3 (compiled from source)  
Linux distro: Ubuntu 11.04 (natty)  
Linux kernel: 2.6.38-13-generic  
GNOME version: 2.32.1  
X11 version: [X.Org](http://X.Org) X Server 1.10.1  
Processor: i686  
Graphics adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series

_ATI Software Info_  
Driver Packaging Version: 8.78.3-100920a-105558C-ATI  
2D Driver Version: 8.84.60  
Catalyst Control Center Version: 2.13  
RandR Version: 1.3

_OpenGL Info_  
Provider: ATI  
Renderer: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series  
Version: 3.3.10665 Compatibility Profile Context

So does anyone know what’s happening? Is this a known issue?

I hope the above information helps. Please let me know if there’s any more  
information that would prove useful in tracking this issue down. And please  
also let me know if you’d like me to try compiling and running any modified  
code examples if that would be helpful too.

Many thanks,

thoughton.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/2 "2012-03-04T17:10:39Z")

</div>

**[elmindreda](https://sourceforge.net/u/elmindreda/)** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#d1ac):

You should be able to restore the video mode using xrandr(1):

```
xrandr -s 1024x768

```

Do the examples crash or do they just exit?

Also, what happens if you run the reopen test?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/3 "2012-03-04T20:29:44Z")

</div>

**anonymous** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#1e9d):

Hi! Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes that command does restore my previous video mode - thanks very much!  
That’s really useful to know.

The examples don’t actually crash or exit. They keep running, but with no  
window displayed. Ctrl-C in the terminal they’re executed from stops them  
(but the video mode doesn’t change back).

I’m sorry, what do you mean by “run the reopen test”?

If I run the example again after pressing Ctrl-C on the previous attempt,  
whilst the video mode is still broken, then I actually do see the graphics of  
the example in that instance, but the resolution still does not look right for  
the example (strangely).

Strangest of all, on very rare occasions - possibly only after having reset  
the video mode using the xrandr command - the example actually runs and  
displays correctly, and resets the video mode back upon exit. The only thing  
that seems wrong on these (very rare) occasions is that when exiting the  
example by pressing Esc, it seems the terminal which was used to execute the  
example also gets killed.

Any additional help or advice you might have would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks,

Tom.

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/4 "2012-03-04T20:45:28Z")

</div>

**[elmindreda](https://sourceforge.net/u/elmindreda/)** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#8a91):

If you compiled GLFW from source then the test programs in the tests directory  
should also have been built. One of these programs is named reopen.

I haven’t heard of anyone else having this problem. Do other fullscreen  
applications, games especially, work as intended?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/5 "2012-03-04T20:46:18Z")

</div>

**anonymous** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#6adf):

Correction!

On those rare occasions where everything seems to work fine, it turns out the  
terminal isn’t killed when exiting the example after all, what actually  
happens is the example exits to a different workspace than the one it was run  
from! (Very confusingly.)

Tom.

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/6 "2012-03-04T21:22:58Z")

</div>

**anonymous** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#4a5e):

Ahha, thanks for pointing me towards the “reopen” test.

The first time I ran it it seemed to work fine (ie. it alternated between a  
window and full-screen). Again, the only issue I had was when it cycled from  
full-screen back to windowed mode it left me on a different workspace to the  
one I started it on.

However, the next time I ran the test it was much less successful - sometimes  
it correctly switched to fullscreen mode, but other times it exhibited the  
exact same issues as I experienced with those fullscreen examples. It would  
switch back to a windowed display properly eventually, but usually after a few  
attempts as sometimes the screen would just go black when it attempted to do  
so.

Regarding other fullscreen games, I’ve just tried the following and they all  
worked perfectly:

Anomaly Warzone Earth  
Aquaria  
Defcon  
EDGE  
Jamestown  
Osmos (actually the menus were broken on this, but it worked fine earlier!)  
World of Goo

Thanks,

Tom.

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 9:40pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/7 "2012-03-04T21:40:24Z")

</div>

**[elmindreda](https://sourceforge.net/u/elmindreda/)** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#3413):

I would very much like to see the config.log file from the root directory of  
the GLFW source tree. Also, do you have the xorg-dev package installed?

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/8 "2012-03-04T21:54:50Z")

</div>

**anonymous** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#de3b):

Ok, here’s the config.log:

```
This file contains any messages produced by compilers while
running ./compile.sh, to aid debugging if ./compile.sh makes a mistake.
./compile.sh: checking whether we are using GNU C
./compile.sh: cc -E conftest.c
./compile.sh: Checking for X11 RandR support
./compile.sh: cc -c conftest.c 1>&5
./compile.sh: Checking for pthread support
./compile.sh: cc -o conftest -pthread conftest.c -lGL -pthread 1>&5
./compile.sh: Checking for sched_yield
./compile.sh: cc -c -pthread conftest.c 1>&5
./compile.sh: Checking for clock_gettime
./compile.sh: cc -o conftest -pthread conftest.c -lGL -pthread 1>&5
./compile.sh: Checking for glXGetProcAddress variants
./compile.sh: cc -o conftest -pthread conftest.c -lGL -pthread 1>&5
./compile.sh: Checking for sysconf
./compile.sh: cc -o conftest -pthread conftest.c -lGL -pthread 1>&5
./compile.sh: Checking for sysctl support
./compile.sh: cc -E conftest.c
./compile.sh: Creating ./lib/x11/Makefile.x11
./compile.sh: Creating ./examples/Makefile.x11
./compile.sh: Creating ./tests/Makefile.x11
./compile.sh: Creating ./lib/x11/libglfw.pc.in

```

I checked in Synaptic Package Manager and I _do not_ have "xorg-dev"  
installed.

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/9 "2012-03-04T22:10:19Z")

</div>

**[elmindreda](https://sourceforge.net/u/elmindreda/)** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#e8ef):

If you install the xorg-dev package and rebuild like this:

```
make x11-dist-clean
make x11

```

Does it work any better?

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/10 "2012-03-04T22:33:05Z")

</div>

**anonymous** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#44f0):

I tried it but it didn’t make any difference unfortunately.

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 10:38pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/11 "2012-03-04T22:38:06Z")

</div>

**[elmindreda](https://sourceforge.net/u/elmindreda/)** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#99cd):

I don’t know what could be wrong, then.

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/12 "2012-03-04T22:46:08Z")

</div>

**anonymous** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#7277):

Oh ok, thanks very much for helping anyway! It’s much appreciated.

Do you know how I could get this registered as an “official” bug so it could  
be looked into further?

Thanks again,

Tom.

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/13 "2012-03-04T22:53:10Z")

</div>

**[elmindreda](https://sourceforge.net/u/elmindreda/)** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#c213):

Right here on [SF.net](http://SF.net). Select the GLFW bug tracker in the menu above.

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/glfw/original/1X/b8cdefe6b61b8d5aee6c43b2c56e9cf5eabecfe4.svg) [@system](https://discourse.glfw.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://discourse.glfw.org/t/x11-fullscreen-issue-serious/243/14 "2012-03-04T23:06:51Z")

</div>

**anonymous** wrote on [Sunday, March 04, 2012](https://sourceforge.net/p/glfw/discussion/247562/thread/de1e3bfa/#9b7c):

Thanks, I’ve logged a bug here: [[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&](https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&)  
aid=3496867&group\_id=72569&atid=534938]([https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func](https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func)  
=detail&aid=3496867&group\_id=72569&atid=534938)