Lockscreen doesn't turn off the screen

[Mateusz Stachowski]

[ATTENTION] This bug report is strictly for lockscreen. When user activates lockscreen with Ctrl+Alt+L or Super+L shortcut or from indicator-session the screen should blank off after a couple seconds.

The new Unity lock screen doesn't turn off the monitor screen.

I can wait as long as 10 minutes after activating the lock screen and the monitor still doesn't turn off. Then when I unlock the screen and don't use mouse or keyboard monitor will turn off (it's about 5 seconds after unlocking).

[Andrea Azzarone (azzar1)]

Is gnome-screensaver installed? Make sure it's also updated.

[Nekhelesh Ramananthan (nik90)]

I was unable to reproduce the bug. For me the screen turns blank. Not exactly sure after how long but definitely within 10 minutes.

[Andrea Azzarone (azzar1)]

Default is 5 mins.

[Mateusz Stachowski (stachowski-mateusz)]

Yes I have gnome-screensaver installed.

apt-cache policy gnome-screensaver
gnome-screensaver:
  Zainstalowana: 3.6.1-0ubuntu11
  Kandydująca: 3.6.1-0ubuntu11
  Tabela wersji:
 *** 3.6.1-0ubuntu11 0
        500 http://ftp.vectranet.pl/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Default for screen blanking is 5 minute and I didn't change that setting. In my description I meant that screen didn't blank off even after 10 minutes of waiting on lock screen.

NOTE: I'm not the only one experiencing this problem. There were comment in reddit about that: http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/2065c9/new_unity_lockscreen_coming_to_ubuntu_1404/cg0uhc3

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Which package implements the new lock screen? The regression is in this package.

The old screensaver (gnome-screensaver?) used to power the monitor off as soon you manually activate the lock screen (eg when you press the key combination to lock the screen).

The new 14.04 screen locker (which package implements this?) does NOT power the monitor off when you manually activate the lock screen. Additionally, it blocks the monitor powering off indefinitely (apparently: I've tested it for more than three hours to show that the monitor does not turn off) until you enter the password and press the enter key. At this point, the lock screen restores the normal screen, and shortly thereafter the monitor is powered off briefly (by gnome-screensaver?) before immediately turning back on.

If, however, you leave the screen for the configured time before it powers off, the monitor *does* power off. The regression is only when you activate the lock screen manually.

[Mateusz Stachowski (stachowski-mateusz)]

@Rocko Marco Trevisan is a Unity developer so he knows what he's doing. This apparently means that the bug is in gnome-screensaver.

[Nick Moffitt (nick-moffitt)]

I wonder if this is related to bug 1291365

[Mateusz Stachowski (stachowski-mateusz)]

@Nick your bug is different. I don't get a second lock off the screen after unlocking.

In this case the screen doesn't blank off at locked screen and when I unlock it after the normal timeout it goes to blank off mode.

The turning off the screen happens even if I used my mouse or keyboard. However I don't need to unlock the screen twice.

[newuser (newuser)]

I think this bug apparead after this change:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/3.6.1-0ubuntu10

[Doug Smythies (dsmythies)]

I use a different screen blank time and lock time. The screen does go blank at the correct time, but then it come on again at the additional "lock" time, and stays on thereafter. For me this started a couple of days ago (~2014.03.12).

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Reading the changes from https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/3.6.1-0ubuntu10 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/878836, it looks like the unity-greeter is now being used to implement the lock screen (not gnome-screensaver), so unity-greeter is blocking the power off. Hence I suspect like the bug should be assigned to unity-greeter.

The bug is very easy to reproduce: just manually activate the lock screen. Or wait for the screen to power off and then show the lock screen by pressing a key or moving the mouse. In both cases, the screen no longer powers down.

I would classify this bug as high or critical, since manually activating the lock screen is considered a high-use function (witness the recent design decision to implement super-L as a lock shortcut) so if it can't be fixed it would be better to revert the change until it works properly.

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Is there a way to disable the unity-greeter screen locker and revert back to the old gnome-screensaver screen locker? Much as I like the look of the unity-greeter screen lock, I prefer the power saving obtained by turning the screen off while it's locked.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

It affects a non-essential hardware component (removable network card, camera, web-cam, music player, sound card, power management feature, printer...).

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

It affects the monitor. Is the monitor really non-essential?

And is there a way to use the old screen locker until this is fixed? It's a pretty big regression.

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

> And is there a way to use the old screen locker until this is fixed?
> It's a pretty big regression.

No, unless you don't go back to previous gnome-screensaver version.

BTW if you've set to lock the screen by default when screensaver
starts, just running:
  gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.ScreenSaver --object-path /
--method org.gnome.ScreenSaver.SetActive true

Will turn off the screen and lock.

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

@Marco, thanks, I went back to gnome-screensaver 3.6.1-0ubuntu9 and this restores the proper monitor dpms behaviour. The new screen locker does look nicer, though, so I'm looking forward to when it handles dpms properly.

[Jim Raredon (decoy-umd)]

To claim this bug is of a non-essential piece of hardware is ridiculous. The monitor, both on desktops and laptops, and it's associated power management is nothing less than critical. This should be changed back to "critical." A regression this glaring and visible is very inappropriate to leave unfixed for an LTS release.

[Charles Profitt (cprofitt)]

I agree with Jim - this is a critical component IMHO. I will not upgrade to this version unless the issue is fixed. This is especially true in an LTS release.

[Pausanias (pausanias)]

Is there a workaround?

Better question: is there any hope of GNOME developers *not* breaking critical functionality from release to release? After 12 years with Ubuntu, I can come up with a huge list of extremely frustrating and sometimes downright dangerous regressions, almost all of them in GNOME, and almost all of them affecting a feature that was working perfectly well in a previous release.

/rant

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

I think I have a handle on what is occurring here.

1. The idle timeout occurs (in X?) and is detected by GNOME Session. This causes the "status" on org.gnome.SessionManager /org/gnome/SessionManager/Presence to change from 0 (active) to 3 (idle).
2. This is detected in GNOME Screensaver and triggers the screensaver to activate
3. GNOME Screensaver fades out the screen and shows a lock dialog
4. GNOME ScreenSaver exports it is active on D-Bus and emits ActiveChanged
5. GNOME Settings Daemon (power module) picks this up and does the screen blank.

I *think* what is happening is because we intercept step 3 to show GNOME screensaver showing if we are using the Unity lock screen then the ActiveChanged signal is not being generated and picked up by GNOME Settings Daemon.

Notes:
You can set the idle timeout to 1s for testing with the following command:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay 1

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

You can confirm the ActiveChanged signal is not being emitted by GNOME Screensaver by doing the following:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay 1
$ gdbus monitor --session --dest org.gnome.ScreenSaver

If you wait for one second and then the fade to complete you will see the ActiveChanged signal when the monitor blanks. If you lock the screen first with alt+ctrl+L you don't see any fade or signal.

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

I wasn't able to work out how to fix it today but the bug seems to be in gnome-screensaver debian/patches/33_unity_lockscreen_on_lock.patch in the gs_listener_set_active () functions that were added. This must be set to TRUE when the Unity screen lock is active to make gnome-settings-daemon do the screen blank.

We really need to kill gnome-screensaver entirely and just have Unity listen to GNOME Session and provide the GNOME screensaver interface.

[Andrea Azzarone (azzar1)]

Yeah killing gnome-screensaver would be the best solution. ActiveChanged is not emitted during locking.

[Charles Profitt (cprofitt)]

I just updated my testing box and the behavior now is that the screen locks with inactivity for the specified time limit, but no screen blank. This is a regression to the original state reported in this bug.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Maybe upon lock, you can take note of the user's settings and the issue this command after a time out occurs:
xset dpms forceoff

[Tim Ogilvy (tim-ogilvy)]

This appears to be closed, but I'm all up to date, and having this problem still. What's the story?

[Miguel (xadrezmiguelpires)]

Same problem to me.

[Brett Johnson (linuxturtle)]

For me, the screen blanks, then the monitor goes into low-power mode when it's supposed to. But then, at some point later (I haven't pinpointed exactly when), the monitor comes out of powersave mode, and stays on. The screen stays blanked, but the monitor is on full-power mode.

[Doug Smythies (dsmythies)]

Behavior for me is still identical to what I posted in #10 above.

[Mateusz Stachowski (stachowski-mateusz)]

Doug what you describe in comment #10 is a different bug. This bug was for situation when you locked the screen with Super+L or Ctrl+Alt+L and while you had the lockscreen the monitor never blanked off.

BTW I tested the situation described by you in comment #10 and didn't have any problems.

I set the screen blanking to 1 minute and screen locking to 2 minutes and the screen didn't turn on even after 5 minutes.

[Federico Dami (federico-dami)]

I still have the same problem described at #30.

[Giuliano Vescovi (gpvescovi)]

+1 with similar problem as described in #30.

In my case (dual monitor setup - one on DVI, one on VGA) after 10 min (as configured) both screens go off, but then one of the screen (on the VGA cable) goes gradually from off (ie. dark) to fully on (ie. white)

[Bob Wanamaker (rlw-nycap)]

I'm running both Unity and Cinnamon in 14.04 with lightdm. That way unity-greeter takes over on logout from both.
To get display power off to work on my desktop I added (username) and root to lightwm in the /etc/group file.

lightdm:x:111:(username),root

Then I added the executable script /usr/bin/dpms-start :

#!/bin/sh
#
/usr/bin/xset +dpms
exit

In the /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/ directory I added the 50-dpms.conf file :

[SeatDefaults]
display-setup-script=/usr/bin/dpms-start

A bash script may also work by changing the user to lightdm before executing "/usr/bin/dpms-start" :

sudo xhost +SI:localuser:lightdm
sudo su lightdm -s /bin/bash <<HERE
/usr/bin/dpms-start
exit
HERE

You then don't have to modify the /etc/group file. Hope this works for others still having trouble.

[Vincent Jaubert (0-contact-7)]

I'm on 14.10 Utopic AMD64, with latest updates, and i have this same problem. Monitor never turns off although it should after 5 minutes.

[david6 (andrew-dowden)]

I am running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (64-bit), fully updated. Unity version is: 7.2.3+14.04.20140826-0ubuntu1

I just changed monitors, and also from DVI to DisplayPort (due to higher resolution).

The screen does not 'turn off', after screen locked (or timeout). Screen is black (with white mouse cursor), but still fully backlit. This does not change after many hours.

This may not be the SAME bug (as original post), but has identical symptoms.

NEW BUG ?

Any advice / suggestions ?

[Ray N. (nogueras-r)]

Ditto!
Same issue here. Newly installed, updated and "upgraded" Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
Monitor ASUS 27" through HDMI.
After the established timeout, screen does blank out, and monitor detects the "poweroff" and starts powering off. But then the lock screen comes up with request to log in password, and monitor comes back up again and stays on infinitely.

I'd say this definitely looks like a bug, because the monitor does detect the shutdown sequence. It looks like a bug (or missing monitor shutdown sequence) on the lock/login screen.

[Christer Barreholm (christer.holmer)]

Same issue as #40. Laptop display is blank, but second monitor, via displayport, shows the login screen.

[Mateusz Stachowski (stachowski-mateusz)]

As I mentioned earlier this bug was for situation when you locked the screen with Super+L or Ctrl+Alt+L or from indicator-session monitor never blanked off.

It is now fixed and when you lock the screen with any of the above mentioned methods monitor blanks off after 2 seconds.

Any problems with multimonitor setups or screensaver not blanking the screen should be reported as new bug.

[sds (sds-gnu)]

I still observe this on 15.10

[Bent Haase (bent-haase)]

Still observed in Ubuntu 16.04

[Patricio (patriciov)]

It's fixed for my setup, as described below. Thanks

---
I have 16.04 LTS on a Dell XPS13 (L321X) and an external LG display connected.

I set it up to: -dim the screen -turn screen off when inactive for 10 minutes -lock ON -lock screen as soon as screen turns off -require password when waking from suspend

Problem is that after 10 minutes, both displays get turned off but right after come back on showing the lockscreen. They don't stay off.

This is a fresh 16.04 install.

With my previous installed version, 12.04, this did not happen.
---

[Arup (arup-chowdhury)]

Same issue here on 16.04.1 as #45 and earlier. On my desktop with external AOC monitor attached to HDMI of my Nvidia 610 card, monitor would not turn off but go to lock screen and stay there. This happens after initial suspend of monitor but when I come out of full system suspend, monitor goes to Unity greeter that requires password to login but never shuts off. Driver is 361.42 from drivers applet.

[Mateusz Stachowski (stachowski-mateusz)]

To all the users with multi monitor systems still having problems please open a new bug report about this issue.

This bug is fixed and it will not get any attention from developers.

Bug reports have a very narrow scope. So one bug can't cover all the configurations and multi monitor systems aren't a common thing. Most users use only one monitor.

So if there isn't already a bug report for multi monitor systems please open it and give the link here so all the other users affected can mark it as affecting them and provide any additional info.

[lunix (bob-l-lewis)]

Please see Bug # 1612010

[david6 (andrew-dowden)]

Please see Bug #1292695 (which is NOT a duplicate of this NOW CLOSED bug).

[fugounashi (fugounashi+launchpad)]

This bus is still present in 16.04.

Single monitor
System Settings, Brightness and Lock, Turn screen off when inactive for: 10 minutes.

dpms activates after 10 minutes of inactivity

activate Lock from menu or Ctrl+Alt+L
dpms never activates

[fugounashi (fugounashi+launchpad)]

here is a work around: https://askubuntu.com/questions/248972/how-can-i-disable-backlight-when-i-lock-the-screen

[bekou (bekou)]

The bug is still present for me in 16.04 as well.

Dual monitor - ctrl-alt-l or turn screen off when inactive do not turn off the screen.

The workaround suggested from fugounashi works i.e., xset dpms force off but it is not permanent.
The problem will come back after a while.

[Colin 't Hart (colinthart)]

Still getting this on 17.04 too. Running XFCE now, but was previously running Unity. Two monitors, one on VGA, one on DVI, both stay on when display is locked.

[gst (g-starck)]

also affected by this. being on 16.04.3

If I manually lock my session then the screen(s) turn off and stay off (though one is keeping the mouse pointer visible but appart from that the screen is black at least).

but when system goes idle and automatically lock the session then the screen(s) turn off (really) but a moment after they turn back on and then stay on.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

This bug needs to be reopened.

I'm using a freshly installed and updated Ubuntu 16.04.4, with a laptop and an external monitor.

When the Brightness & Lock timeout occurs, my monitors do go off at first, but my laptop's built-in monitor wakes backup up permanently to the ubuntu login screen.

I'm worried that it is going to eventually ruin my monitor. Due to this bug, I'm going to have to create a cron job to run this command routinely:
xset dpms forceoff

Please mark this bug as NOT FIXED!

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

sudo crontab -e

0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * /usr/bin/xset dpms force off

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Please open this bug back up. It is not fixed!

All monitors go off initially, but as soon as the lock-screen happens, my laptop's built-in monitor comes back on and stays on forever. This is an expensive 4K monitor and this bug is burning it up.

The only work-around I've found is to turn off screen-lock, which is not acceptable from a security perspective.

Please help!

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Maybe lock screen should always happen before the screen turns off?

Or, anytime lock screen happens it should also turn off the monitors?

Is there any work around that I can apply?

My cron job trick no longer works:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/505488/ubuntu-16-04-5-ruining-monitors-by-never-turning-them-off

[Stephane Lapie (stephane-lapie)]

I have also been hit by this bug. Extremely irritating.

[Digulla-hepe (digulla-hepe)]

Same problem as everyone else: Locking the screen with Win+L turns off the monitors (I get "Signal lost" warnings on them) but after a minute or so, something turns them back on.

xset q reports:

DPMS (Energy Star):
  Standby: 0 Suspend: 0 Off: 0
  DPMS is Enabled
  Monitor is On

Note: The same happens when I force the monitors to turn off with

xset dpms force off

In the journal, I see these entries after shutting off the monitors at 13:57:51:

Jun 21 13:58:16 linux01 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[2471]: (II) modeset(0): EDID vendor "HWP", prod id 12816
Jun 21 13:58:16 linux01 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[2471]: (II) modeset(0): Using hsync ranges from config file
Jun 21 13:58:16 linux01 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[2471]: (II) modeset(0): Using vrefresh ranges from config file
Jun 21 13:58:16 linux01 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[2471]: (II) modeset(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
Jun 21 13:58:16 linux01 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[2471]: (II) modeset(0): Modeline "1920x1200"x0.0 154.00 1920 1968 2000 2080 1200 1203 1209 1235 +hsync -vsync (74.0 kHz eP)
...
Jun 21 13:58:19 linux01 gnome-shell[2611]: STACK_OP_RAISE_ABOVE: sibling window 0x54017c3 not in stack
Jun 21 13:58:19 linux01 gnome-shell[2611]: STACK_OP_RAISE_ABOVE: sibling window 0x54017c3 not in stack
Jun 21 13:58:19 linux01 gnome-shell[2611]: STACK_OP_RAISE_ABOVE: sibling window 0x54017c3 not in stack

[Digulla-hepe (digulla-hepe)]

Possible duplicates: Bug #1612010 and Bug #1594989

[Janghou (janghou)]

Ubuntu 19.04

- xset dpms force off

will turn monitors off, but somehow they wakeup in 10 seconds again.

So not sure if this is a bug in screensaver, but it is a nasty and COSTLY bug.

It will burn 100 watts (3 monitors) and lower lifetime of my monitors.

What's the use of a screensaver or power mode, when it doesn't power off monitors.

[Janghou (janghou)]

I found a workaround in my case:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1167445/monitors-do-not-enter-powersave-sleep-mode-after-screen-blanking/

Changing the input setting from *auto* to *hdmi* on my AOC monitor fixed the problem.

It seems monitors can *poll* the graphic card (CEC?): that way the computer somehow responds by waking up all monitors.

I consider this stil a bug. Not sure if this is a gnome-screensaver bug, but it is a nasty one (wasting energy).

IMHO Ubuntu should be able to turn of monitors (powersdave mode) with default factory setting.

[Guram Savinov (guram-savinov)]

Same problem on 16.04.5 with HP Elite Display E240.
Thanks to @Jaghou for workarond: set 'Auto-Switch Input' to off on display settings resolved the issue.

[Mike Chelen (mchelen)]

This is still occurring on 20.04 with:
AMD® Radeon rx 5600 xt
Dell U3219Q
Connected by DisplayPort

#50 describes reproduction steps
#63 describes workaround

Despite workaround, the bug *still exists* in 20.04 with single monitor and there do not seem to be any open bugs tracking this issue.