laptop with external monitor - desktop doesn't resize when disconnet

[strycat]

At work I connect an external monitor to my laptop. I use both the laptop screen and the external monitor for desktop space (the monitor is to the left of the laptop screen). When I disconnect the external monitor kubuntu does not seem to realize anything has changed and leaves everything on the space that use to be the external monitor and makes them completely inaccessible from the gui.

I was under the impression that it should realize that the monitor is gone and move everything to the laptop screen.

Anyone know what I can do to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: One other thing. If I boot without the external monitor the background that belongs on the external one takes up 90% of the laptop screen and the background that belongs on the laptop screen is squished into about 10% of the screen.

Edit: I'm giving up on this. I bought a 2nd external monitor so this issue is no longer relevant to me.

[SecretCode]

What graphics card do you have and do you use a proprietary driver for it?

My external monitor is at home rather than at work ...
I use the NVIDIA driver and I don't know of any way to automate changing the layout when the monitor is plugged in (though it does get detected); I have to go into NVIDIA Settings and enable it. And disable it when removed.

My bootup experience is different from yours: it always boots up in single monitor mode with my primary wallpaper. When I activate the second monitor that gets my primary wallpaper and widgets and the built-in screen gets a different wallpaper (I can also set it the other way round with the primary output being the built-in monitor). But I never get part of the background or parts of both backgrounds - it's always exactly aligned.

In System Settings > Display & Monitors > Multiple Monitors, do you have all the options enabled?

[KillaW0lf04]

I have the exact same problem as this post. Was there a solution to this? Gnome seems to provide this functionality so i cannot seem to understand why KDE is lacking it?

[oshunluvr]

I totally agree that KDE has failed in this regard. I don't use laptops often and almost never with external monitors so I've never had to deal with this directly.

There are several possible solutions, none of them automatic, but with a little research and typing you should be able to do it.

One way: Define what configurations you want or need to support. Then test and record the required xrandr mode commands to set the configurations correctly. Then decide how best to activate those modes - like with a manual script attached to an icon or a servicemenu or automatically via detection.

In theory, you could activate a script using a udev rule to detect hotplugging of an external monitor, but I have never been able to get a custom udev rule to work using Kubuntu.