Hotplug: Turning off DisplayPort monitor also tears down its associated desktop.

[Michal Varga]

Hello,

since the recent import of XFCE 4.12 into my Linux distribution, I'm
running into an issue that kind of really breaks my traditional work
flow and I would like to find a solution for it, if someone could
explain to me what suddenly changed...

When I physically turn off any monitor connected via DisplayPort, its
entire desktop configuration is automatically removed from the running X
server, thus reshuffling the entire desktop layout (and in the process
hilariously breaking i.e. proportions of widgets depending on that
particular layout - xfce panel workspace switcher suddenly pushing
everything else out of your deskbar panel being a nice example of it).

I've been trying to find the particular component responsible for this,
or finding a configuration option to bring it back to the normal (read:
pre-XFCE 4.12 normal) behavior, but so far I had no luck, seeing nor
xfce-power-manager, nor xfwm4 alone cause this and I can't exactly
figure out what else can be listening on RandR and be responsible. My
suspicion lies somewhere in xfsettingsd, but obviously, one can't
effectively tear that one out of a working XFCE setup, so that's a
no-go.

So my question is: How can I make XFCE 4.12 stop playing "smart" with my
monitor configuration and *not* automatically remove a display that has
been powered off? I realize this may be possibly a handy feature for
laptops, which is probably why it has been introduced in the first
place, but it makes absolutely no sense on desktops (at least without
being able to turn the behavior off, which as I say I can't seem to
figure out how - unless I totally missed something obvious). There are
perfectly valid reasons for turning off some of my monitors without also
wanting their whole desktops getting torn down with it, so I'd really
like to have the former behavior back.

m.

-- 
Michal Varga,
Stonehenge

Web site: http://varga.stonehenge.sk
Crypto ID: https://keybase.io/spash

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