# Multi-monitor on Omarchy 4
What works and what breaks with multi-monitor setups on Omarchy 4.0.4: clamshell handling, per-monitor scaling, wake failures and the fixes that hold.
> **Short answer:** Multiple displays work out of the box on 4.0.4. Hyprland auto-arranges them and Omarchy handles lid close, mirroring and DDC brightness. The sore spots are per-monitor scaling and position, which a docked-laptop poller re-asserts from monitors.lua every two seconds, and displays that stay dark after idle wake. Edit ~/.config/hypr/monitors.lua with connector-name rules rather than the Display panel.
- Applies to Omarchy: 4.0.0 and later
- Status: info
- Last verified: 2026-09-17
- Canonical: https://omarchylinux.org/hardware/multi-monitor/
_Unofficial community page. Not affiliated with 37signals or the Omacom Foundation. Omarchy is a registered trademark of 37signals LLC._

## Status on 4.0.4

Two or more displays work on Omarchy 4.0.4 without any configuration. Hyprland detects each output, brings it up at its preferred mode and places it automatically, and the Quickshell bar appears on every monitor. This page was checked against the v4.0.4 source tree, the 4.0.0 through 4.0.4 release notes and open issues as of 2026-09-17.

The problems are not with getting a picture. They are with making a layout stay put, and with monitors that go dark after an idle cycle and never come back. The displays and multi-monitor component carries 1132 issues in the tracking data, and the 4.x ones cluster tightly on those two themes.

On 3.x you edited `~/.config/hypr/monitors.conf` with `monitor=` lines. Since 4.0.0 that file is `monitors.lua` and the rules are `hl.monitor({ ... })` calls. Old guides that tell you to paste `monitor=eDP-1, preferred, auto, 2` do not apply. See [monitors.conf replaced by monitors.lua](/fix/monitors-conf-replaced-by-monitors-lua/).

## What Omarchy does automatically

The shipped `~/.config/hypr/monitors.lua` contains one catch-all rule, `hl.monitor({ output = "", mode = "preferred", position = "auto", scale = omarchy_monitor_scale })`, with `omarchy_monitor_scale` set to `"auto"` and `GDK_SCALE` set to 2. Everything else is machinery around it:

- **Clamshell.** `switch:off:Lid Switch` runs `omarchy-hyprland-monitor-clamshell`, which disables the internal panel when the lid shuts and an external output is active, and re-enables it at the remembered scale when you open it. This replaced the hand-written `bindl` lid switches people were copying from issue #427 for nearly a year.
- **A monitor watcher.** `omarchy-hyprland-monitor-watch` subscribes to Hyprland's event socket, reconciles clamshell state on `monitoradded` and `monitorremoved`, and polls every two seconds while a laptop is docked as a backstop for drift across suspend.
- **Modeless recovery.** A display that was switched off at boot hands the kernel a truncated EDID with no video modes, so Hyprland enables it at 0x0 and it stays black. Switching it on later produces no hotplug event, so 4.0.0 added `omarchy-hyprland-monitor-modeless` plus a reload loop in the watcher that backs off from 3 to 60 seconds and recovers the output without a reboot.
- **Toggle recovery.** A systemd user service runs `omarchy-hw-recover-internal-monitor` before the graphical session and clears a stale internal-disable toggle if no external display is connected, so you cannot boot undocked into a disabled laptop screen.
- **Mirroring and toggles.** `Super + Ctrl + Delete` toggles the laptop display, `Super + Ctrl + Alt + Delete` mirrors it to the first external output. Both refuse unsafe connector names, and the toggle refuses to disable your only active display.
- **Scaling.** `Super + /` and `Super + Alt + /` step through 1, 1.25, 1.6, 2, 3 and 4, rounded up to a scale Hyprland accepts in 1/120 steps. `omarchy display text size` moves shell, GTK and terminal text together without touching monitor scale.
- **External brightness.** Brightness keys drive the focused display. External monitors that speak DDC/CI are adjusted through `ddcutil`, Apple Studio and XDR displays through `asdcontrol`, and laptop panels through the kernel backlight picked by `omarchy-hw-display`.
- **Panel quirks.** `fix-asus-ptl-b9406-display.sh` adds `xe.enable_panel_replay=0` on the ASUS ExpertBook B9406, where Panel Replay holds the last frame in self-refresh and nothing short of a full modeset, such as a VT switch, repaints it. `fix-nouveau-cursor.sh` forces software cursors on nouveau, where the hardware cursor plane is invisible. `xps13-text-scaling.sh` drops text size to 11 on the 2026 XPS 13.

## Known problems

| Issue | Models | Status | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [#6909](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/6909) internal panel scale snaps to 2x on every idle wake | Laptops on stock `scale = "auto"` with an external monitor | Fixed by [#7581](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/pull/7581) | 4.0.1 |
| [#7084](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/7084) clamshell watcher ignores `desc:` keyed, multi-line and `require()`d rules and re-asserts the catch-all scale over them | Any docked laptop whose internal panel rule is not a one-line connector-name rule in `monitors.lua` | Open | |
| [#8103](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/8103) scale changes not persisted when `monitors.lua` has explicit per-output rules | Dell Latitude 7420 and any laptop plus external | Open | |
| [#6673](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/6673) Display panel scale is per-monitor live but persists globally, rescaling the others | Three-display AMD Ryzen AI 9 setup, any mixed-DPI array | Open | |
| [#7326](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/7326) internal monitor position forced back to `auto` | Dell Latitude E5470, any laptop plus external | Open | |
| [#12147](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12147) monitor stays dark after wake because `dpmsStatus` desyncs to true | Hybrid Intel plus NVIDIA, LG HDR 4K on DP | Open | |
| [#12152](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12152) external-only output unusable after idle wake, atomic commits fail with EINVAL | Dell Vostro 5470, i915 plus nouveau | Open, Aquamarine fix upstream | |
| [#12180](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12180) lock surface not backed by a valid wayland output, black screen then hard freeze | Intel UHD 630 | Open | |
| [#12208](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12208) lockscreen failsafe loop during HDMI thrash | AMD Phoenix1 with Dell U2719DX on HDMI | Open | |
| [#12207](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12207) USB4 monitor EDID read fails on about half of hotplugs, stuck at 640x480 | Dell XPS 16 DA16260, Panther Lake with `xe` | Open | |
| [#12083](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12083) 4K at 120 Hz blanks for seconds on every frame after a pause | AMD Navi 33 on HDMI 2.1 | Open | |
| [#9804](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/9804) Quickshell SIGSEGV when a monitor is set to `bitdepth = 10` | NVIDIA RTX 4060 laptop with OLED external | Open, traced to a null image in Mesa's Wayland EGL path; reporter later ran 10-bit without crashes with XWayland off | |
| [#12192](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12192) and [#12198](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12198) update icon appears on one bar only | Any multi-monitor machine | Open | |
| [#2184](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/2184) Chromium crashes when moved between monitors | All, 3.x era | Fixed by [#2394](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/pull/2394), then upstream in Chromium | 3.1.0 |

## Fixes that work

Work down this list in order.

1. **Put your layout in `monitors.lua`, keyed by connector name.** Open it with _Setup > Monitors_ in the Omarchy menu. Use `hl.monitor({ output = "eDP-1", mode = "preferred", position = "auto", scale = 2 })` and a matching line per output. Connector names come from `hyprctl monitors`. Keep each rule on one line and do not use `desc:` for the internal panel on a laptop: the clamshell watcher cannot read those rules, and as soon as the catch-all holds a number (which happens the first time you press `Super + /`) it re-asserts that number over yours (#7084).
2. **If a scale will not stick, stop using the panel and the hotkeys.** Edit the value in `monitors.lua` and reload. Both #8103 and #6673 come from the same gap: the live change and the file disagree, and the docked poller re-asserts the file. Editing the file removes the mismatch.
3. **A display that is dark after wake needs to be cycled off and on, not just on.** Run `hyprctl dispatch 'hl.dsp.dpms({ action = "disable" })'` then the same with `"enable"`. `omarchy-system-wake` skips the enable dispatch when every monitor already reports `dpmsStatus` true, which is exactly the stuck state (#12147).
4. **If that does nothing, switch VT and back.** `Ctrl + Alt + F2` then `Ctrl + Alt + F1` forces a full modeset and brought the HDMI output back for the reporter of #12152. The reporter of #12208 used a second TTY the way Hyprland's failsafe screen describes, to clear the crashed lock client. Treat both as workarounds, not fixes.
5. **A monitor stuck at 640x480 with an empty description got a bad EDID read.** Check `cat /sys/class/drm/card*-DP-1/edid | wc -c`. If it is 0, re-probe a few seconds after plugging in: `echo off | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0-DP-1/status`, then `echo detect` to the same file. On the XPS 16 in #12207 the full EDID came back on every retry, and the modeless recovery above does not catch this case because the output does have a mode, just the wrong one.
6. **If display trouble started with 4.0.4, suspect the kernel.** 4.0.4 shipped `linux-omarchy` to everyone. Boot the stock `linux` entry once from the Limine menu and compare. Two AMD reporters in #12083 and the XPS 14 reporter in #12188 confirmed the stock kernel clears their problem.
7. **Chromium crashing on a monitor move is a 3.x bug that Chromium fixed upstream.** PR #2394 added `--disable-features=WaylandWpColorManagerV1` to the default flag files in 3.1.0 as a stopgap; the 4.0.4 `chromium-flags.conf` no longer carries it. If a current Chromium still crashes when you move a window, add that line to `~/.config/chromium-flags.conf` yourself.

## Report it

Collect a bundle with `omarchy-debug`. It writes `/tmp/omarchy-debug.log` with `inxi -Farz`, dmesg, this boot's warnings and errors, and the package list. Use `omarchy-debug --no-sudo` to skip dmesg, and `--print` to print instead of upload. Three reporters on 4.0.4, in #12147, #12180 and #12207, found that `omarchy debug` through the CLI wrapper was not available on their install even though the source tree lists it, so run the hyphenated command directly.

For a display bug, add these by hand, since the debug log does not carry them:

- `hyprctl monitors all -j`, which shows disabled outputs, mirrors, scale and `dpmsStatus`.
- The connector state: `cat /sys/class/drm/card*-*/status` and the size of the matching `edid` file.
- Your `~/.config/hypr/monitors.lua`.
- The Hyprland log lines around the failure. `atomic drm request: failed to commit: Invalid argument` is the line both #12147 and #12152 turn on.
- Whether the same thing happens on the stock `linux` kernel.

Say which connector, which monitor make and model, and whether the machine was docked. If you have a machine that works well, add it at [hardware submit](/hardware/submit/).

## Related

- [Multi-monitor layout not saved](/fix/multi-monitor-layout-not-saved/)
- [monitors.conf replaced by monitors.lua](/fix/monitors-conf-replaced-by-monitors-lua/)
- [Fractional scaling blurry or huge apps](/fix/fractional-scaling-blurry-or-huge-apps/)
- [Hybrid GPU laptops](/hardware/hybrid-gpu/) and [suspend and sleep](/hardware/suspend-sleep/)
- [Thunderbolt docks](/hardware/thunderbolt-dock/)
- [Lock screen will not unlock](/fix/lock-screen-wont-unlock/) and [black screen after login](/fix/black-screen-after-login/)
- Omarchy manual chapter on [monitors](https://omarchy.org/manual/monitors/)

## Sources

- [Omarchy manual: Monitors](https://omarchy.org/manual/monitors/)
- [PR #7581: Leave an auto-scaled internal panel alone in clamshell recovery](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/pull/7581)
- [Issue #6909: [Quattro] eDP-1 monitor scaling forces 2x reset on mixed-monitor array with Quickshell navbar](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/6909)
- [Issue #6673: [Quattro] Display panel scale is per-monitor at runtime but persists globally, rescaling other monitors on reload](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/6673)
- [Issue #7084: Clamshell watcher ignores desc: rules for the internal panel and overwrites its scale every 2s](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/7084)
- [Issue #7326: Internal monitor position cannot be made to stick: clamshell watcher and Display panel scaling both re-apply position = "auto"](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/7326)
- [Issue #8103: omarchy-hyprland-monitor-scaling doesn't persist scale on outputs with explicit per-monitor rules in monitors.lua](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/8103)
- [Issue #12147: LG display stays off after wake: dpmsStatus desyncs true while panel has no signal](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12147)
- [Issue #12152: External-only HDMI display becomes unusable after idle lock/DPMS wake with eDP-1 disabled](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12152)
- [Issue #12207: linux-omarchy 7.2.5 (xe, Panther Lake): USB4 monitor's EDID read fails on about half of hotplugs](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12207)
- [Issue #12180: Black screen / full hang on unlock after idle screensaver: lock surface fails to attach](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12180)
- [Issue #12208: Lock screen dies during HDMI/display thrash, Hyprland lockscreen failsafe loop](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12208)
- [Issue #12188: linux-omarchy kernel breaks screen backlight and USB audio volume on Dell XPS 14 (Panther Lake)](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12188)
- [Issue #12083: 4K@120 HDMI screen blanks for seconds on every new frame after linux-omarchy 7.2.5-3 (AMD Navi 33)](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12083)
- [Issue #12192: System-update icon only appears on one monitor (checkupdates race)](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12192)
- [Issue #12198: Update icon appears on only one monitor: concurrent omarchy-update-available runs race inside checkupdates](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/12198)
- [Issue #9804: Quickshell crashes with SIGSEGV in QSGRenderThread when Hyprland monitor is set to 10-bit](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/9804)
- [Issue #2858: Add a better display configuration tool](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/2858)
- [Issue #427: Disable Internal (Laptop) Display on Lid Close](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/427)
- [PR #2394: fix: prevent Chromium crash when moving windows between monitors](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/pull/2394)