No change in screen color

[nvhilliard]

Read This First!

This seems to be an upstream problem, e.g. https://forum.justgetflux.com/topic/2373/sorry-we-only-support-8-and-10-bit-displays-right-now/17, and I don't think there's anything we can do in fluxgui. So, marking as "won't fix". But if this issue is affecting you then please "thumbs up" this issue here, and comment over there at the justgetflux forum.

Check If You're Experiencing This Issue

To check if you are experiencing this issue, try running xflux manually with

xflux -l 0 -g 0 -k 3400 -nofork

If you get an error about

Sorry, we only support 8 and 10-bit displays right now.

then you're experiencing this issue!

Consider Trying -r 0 With Newer xflux Binary And Reporting Back

Looks like we may be able to fix this now by using the new xflux11 binary or xflux12 binary and passing -l 0 -g 0 -r 0, e.g.

./xflux12 -l 0 -g 0 -r 0 -k3400 -nofork

For some people this will work, but for others (such as @ntc2) it just causes a different error, e.g.

Found 1 screen.
Display 1 has 0 size
Sorry, we only support 8, 10, 11, and 12-bit displays right now.

See forum thread here: https://forum.justgetflux.com/topic/2373/sorry-we-only-support-8-and-10-bit-displays-right-now. Not sure if the -r 0 will cause other problems, so perhaps the conservative thing to do is start without -r 0, detect the problem, and then restart with -r 0?

Consider Using Redshift Instead Of xflux

The fluxgui app now supports Redshift as the backend, in preference to xflux. If you're having issues with xflux, then try using Redshift instead, either via fluxgui, via the redshift-gtk indicator app, or via the command line. For example, you can use

redshift -v -t 4500:2500

to set day time color temp to 4500 and night time color temp to 2500. This is what I use on my work laptop, which has a fancy graphics card that is unsupported by Flux.

Original Issue Report

I'm running Xenial with Gnome desktop. As the title says, when I run either the gui or xflux from command line, there is no change in color. If I run the gui I get some useful messages, however.
Here is my terminal:

nate@nate-UX305:~$ fluxgui
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/fluxgui/fluxapp.py:75: GtkWarning: Cannot transform xsetting Net/IconThemeName of type gchararray to type GdkColor

  gtk.gdk.screen_get_default().get_setting('gtk-icon-theme-name')
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/fluxgui/fluxapp.py:75: GtkWarning: Cannot transform xsetting Net/IconThemeName of type gchararray to type gint

  gtk.gdk.screen_get_default().get_setting('gtk-icon-theme-name')

[x-ji]

I also seem to have the same issue. Redshift has also stopped working for me although it was working fine a few weeks ago. Is it due to a change in some upgraded system package?

[x-ji]

Turns out it has something to do with the newest kernel 4.4.0-34. Using 4.4.0-31 solved the issue. See https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2333398. I filed a bug report at https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/1617686

If you still want to use kernel version 4.4.0-31 just to use xfluxgui regardless of the side effects, run this - sudo apt-get install linux-image-4.4.0-31-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-31.

or use the latest kernel version instead for Ubuntu (at the moment 4.4.0-36)

one liner: sudo apt-get install linux-image-4.4.0-36-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-36.

[holocronweaver]

This issue is still present on the pre-release Ubuntu kernel 4.4.0-38-generic, which I tried after 4.4.0-36-generic failed to fix the issue. So currently there appears to be no fix available if you use newer kernels.

[ntc2]

People who are having this issue might try RedShift instead. E.g. redshift -v -t 4500:2500 to set day time color temp to 4500 and night time color temp to 2500. This is what I use on my work laptop, which has a fancy graphics card that is unsupported by Flux.

[holocronweaver]

Nice find @ntc2! redshift works on Ubuntu kernel 4.4.0-38-generic with an Nvidia GTX 970m.

[ntc2]

@holocronweaver : haha, small world:

$ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM204M [GeForce GTX 970M] (rev a1)

People who are having this issue might try RedShift instead. E.g. redshift -v -t 4500:2500 to set day time color temp to 4500 and night time color temp to 2500. @ntc2

Can I ask, is that also a way to set daytime with bluelight filter, or should I change 4500 value to 2500 too to make daylight filter color same as night?

[x-ji]

@itsabear The easiest way to set the color you want is redshift -O 2500 for example. -O means "oneshot" and it doesn't differentiate on time of the day. It just sets the screen color immediately.

@x-ji I tried that, and the program returns using method randr. The screen goes to that temperature in a split second, and gone back to normal. How to fix this?

[x-ji]

@itsabear That's because you have a previous redshift process running. Close that process first, otherwise it will control the temperature continuously. -O does what it says, it adjusts the temperature at once and doesn't keep a redshift process running, so in your case the previous process overrode this setting.

@x-ji That's worked. Thanks. By killing running fluxgui in the background did it. So if anybody else also wanna try redshift, don't forget to kill other process of redshift or fluxgui in the background. You can search for the process with ps aux | grep "fluxgui" or ps aux | grep "redshift"and using killall <process ID> to kill the background process.

or again

If you still want to use kernel version 4.4.0-31 just to use xfluxgui regardless of the side effects, run this - _sudo apt-get install linux-image-4.4.0-31-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-31_

and just hope for next version of kernel release will stop this major issue from haunting this project.

-o-

we had to dive into the code and adapt it to suit itself with every latest kernel release.

[ostaszewskik]

I also had problem with non-working flux after some Ubuntu 16.04 upgrade. The solution for me was a downgrade of nvidia drivers from version 367.57 to 361.42.

Running on GeForce GTX 670 with AMD processor. Kernel 4.4.0-45

[synthor]

Even with the lastest 367.57 it doesn't work. Am on Ubuntu 14.04.5 x64 with 4.4.0-45 kernel. Card is a GT 430.

Will try 361.42 now...