Comment # 4 on bug 1184866 from teo teo

I get a black desktop SYSTEMATICALLY every time I boot with my laptop open.

Let me explain.

I have a laptop and I use an external monitor. I have it configured so that the
external monitor is my only screen. Additionally, I usually keep my laptop
closed, i.e. with the lid closed. (yes, I also have an external keyboard)

Usually when I boot I restart. When I do, the computer boots with the lid
closed since the start, and everything works fine.

Occasionally, however, I turn off my computer. Now this laptop, as most laptops
I've seen, has a pretty stupid design flaw, in that the on/off button is on the
top of the keyboard, and hence cannot be accessed with the lid closed (because
yeah, who needs to turn on the laptop with the lid closed? External monitors
and keyboards are not a thing, right?).

So, when my computer is turned off and I need to turn it on, I open the lid and
I boot. Then I close the lid.

In these cases, I invariably end up with a black empty desktop.

There's another issue that happens 100% of the times when the desktop is black
at boot: the notifications that normally show up at the bottom-right corner of
the screen (e.g. the mail client notifying me that I have new messages), now
show up in the middle of the screen. I guess it's the position that would be
the bottom-right corner of some arbitrary-sized smaller screen (perhaps the
builtin laptop screen at some of its possible resolutions).