On Wed, 8 Jan 2020, E. Liddell wrote:

> On Wed, 8 Jan 2020 16:38:32 +0100 (CET)
> Felmon Davis <moelmoel2714@...> wrote:
>
>> greets!
>>
>> I was trying to get a second monitor (a tv) to work using xrandr. I
>> noticed that the screen on the laptop would suffer severe, almost
>> 'psychedelic', effects if I hit a certain setting.
>>
>> unfortunately I don't recall the setting but the ill effect was
>> consistent and rendered the disply nearly unreadable. and the only
>> solution was to end the session.
>>
>> then by accident I hit the 'save this configuration' key and now the
>> setting is permanent.
>>
>> btw I created a second user and it doesn't suffer from the problem.
>>
>> I cannot find a way to restore the proper display setting.
>
> My guess is that you did something awkward to the color profile or
> gamma correction.  No idea where that information is stored, though--I'd
> probably resort to grepping through likely directories looking for
> "[Cc]olor".  If it affects only a specific user, then the setting is probably
> in your home directory, since most distros don't like mingling user settings
> with general system settings.
>
> E. Liddell

As David Wright and Dan Ritter have said, I was on a false track 
with seeking configuration files for xrandr. (I assume - haven't 
checked - tderandrtray is some kind of front-end for xrandr though.)

As it turns out, I'd tried yesterday to make sense of things via 
xgamma and the gamma utility in tderandrtray (aka xrandr?), to no 
avail, that is, I can improve aspects of the display but not restore 
it.

I'm on the hunt now for where color profiles are stored, the hunt will 
be undertaken tomorrow unless I decide to just stick with the new user 
setup. (incidentally it has fixed some font size issues I had.)

f.


-- 
Felmon Davis

Verbum sat sapienti.