gnome-screensaver starts within a KDE session

[Neil Turton]

I use KDE, but every so often I find gnome-screensaver running, not immediately after starting a session but after some time and activity. If I kill the gnome-screensaver process it goes away for a while, but starts up again some time later. As a result, I have a screensaver running which doesn't respond to the KDE screensaver configuration.

I discovered that some applications cause gnome-screensaver to start during a KDE session. Two examples are totem and neverball and I expect there are more. I suspect that these applications attempt to temporarily disable the screensaver in a way which causes gnome-screensaver to start.

For example:

neil@eagle:~$ pidof gnome-screensaver
neil@eagle:~$ totem &
[1] 8776
neil@eagle:~$ Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "overlay-scrollbar"

neil@eagle:~$ pidof gnome-screensaver
8787
neil@eagle:~$

I think gnome-screensaver should not become active due to an application attempting to suspend/resume screensaver activity, even if it is using a gnome-screensaver specific interface.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: gnome-screensaver 3.6.1-7ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-57.78-generic 4.4.35
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-57-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Fri Dec 30 16:40:15 2016
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
GnomeSessionIdleInhibited: Unknown
GnomeSessionInhibitors: Failed to acquire
GsettingsGnomeSession:
 org.gnome.desktop.session session-name 'ubuntu'
 org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay uint32 300
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-08-13 (1234 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20130213)
SourcePackage: gnome-screensaver
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[kayandus (bierfiltertje)]

This still happens in 17.10, and it is probably because a DBUS call Totem does, as deleting /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.gnome.ScreenSaver.service solves the problem.

Btw, gnome-screensaver-command -l doesn't even notify you when it didn't do anything. At least cinnamon-screensaver-command -l shows "Can't connect to screensaver!"

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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