Back in 2009, changing display settings could easily leave you in a configuration that's incompatible with your hardware. So, [gnome-settings-daemon](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon/-/commit/33eda68f8c5ccc1bce20d77533bedcf08b4dc12b) would show a confirmation dialog, and automatically revert any changes 20 seconds later.

In 2013, things were still a bit buggy and broken. And we were still on X11. So we just [moved this confirmation dialog](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/commit/02224bb5fe14baaed46853587dec88a64107a1a6) into gnome-shell.

Now in 2025 the situation is notably better. The kernel won't let you set a mode that's not supported by the hardware. Display configuration basically never fails. And gnome-control-center has protections in place to prevent the user from soft-locking themself with a valid-but-self-defeating configuration (i.e. by turning off all outputs).

Meanwhile, we've got a short timeout on a dialog. To comply with WCAG accessibility standards ([relevant snippets here](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-session/-/issues/151#note_2470129)), we'd either need to make the timeout configurable or remove it completely. I suggest we just remove it.

This already has design-team blessing: [link](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-session/-/issues/151#note_2470137)