gnome screensaver locks again shortly after unlocking

[Nick Moffitt]

When I unlock my screen, I sometimes get only a few seconds of interaction with my desktop before the screen inexplicably locks itself again. I believe this only happens when I manually lock it with my ThinkVantage key that I have bound to the lock-screen shortcut, but I can't be sure of that.

I've seen this for a while now, but assumed it was some bug caused by either a borked compiz or some kind of delay catch-up happening because gnome-screensaver took too long to swap in. But I just upgraded to the latest trusty compiz that has tons of bugfixes, and the new lock screen keeps gnome-screensaver swapped in nicely.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: gnome-screensaver 3.6.1-0ubuntu10
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-17.37-generic 3.13.6
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.13.3-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed Mar 12 13:13:43 2014
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
GnomeSessionIdleInhibited: No
GnomeSessionInhibitors: None
GsettingsGnomeSession:
 org.gnome.desktop.session session-name 'ubuntu'
 org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay uint32 600
SourcePackage: gnome-screensaver
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-02-25 (14 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Nick Moffitt (nick-moffitt)]

Other folks in the office have seen this, and it seems to happen when you manually lock the screen and leave the lock-screen up long enough for the lock-screen timeout. That is, once you log in the system notices that the lock-screen timeout has passed and doesn't account for the fact that the screen was actually locked the whole time.

[Nick Moffitt (nick-moffitt)]

bug 1292041 seems like a duplicate of this

[bp (badpazzword)]

As a result of this bug (the screensaver is not meant to trigger as the user is trying to actively use the system), it might happen that the screensaver fails to acquire focus properly as it fades in. As a result you can type in characters, but the keystrokes are sent in underneath windows... such as an IRC client.

[Ali Najafi (alinajafi)]

I tried some different conditions with Screen Turn-off time-out and Lock settings, and I found the problem is not for the lock delay time, but for screen turn-off.

When you manually lock the screen and thescreen turn-off time-out passed, you will get the blank screen after unlocking; because the Unity lock screen has prevented the screen to go blank.
So if you have “never” for screen turn-off, or unlock before the time-out reaches, you won’t see the bug.

[Ali Najafi (alinajafi)]

If we can call it workaround, one simple is here to prevent re-lock:

DISABLE “lock screen after screen turns off” or as the matter of security SET A TIME-OUT instead.
(As you know it’s possible through System Settings > Brightness and Lock)

After then you WILL face the blank screen after unlocking, but NOT the lock screen again.

[Mikhail V. Golubev (mvgolubev)]

<a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1299719">bug 1299719</a> looks like a duplicate of this one

[Rob (bobsmart)]

Reproducable from the Trusty Tahr Beta 2 Mac Image.

[Mateusz Stachowski (stachowski-mateusz)]

Nick and others affected by this bug today landed fixes for several bugs in Unity lockscreen. For example Bug #1292041 has been resolved by this branch which lists other resolved bugs.

https://code.launchpad.net/~unity-team/unity/gs-dbus-interface/+merge/214507

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/trusty/+source/unity/7.2.0+14.04.20140410-0ubuntu1

Maybe this bug is also resolved now.

[Ara Pulido (ara)]

Confirming this is Fix Released with latest dist-upgrade