Desktop continues to suspend automatically despite attempts to disable it

[Leon Smith]

Before upgrading to 20.04 from 19.10 recently, my desktop would not automatically suspend when idle. After upgrading, it started suspending automatically.

First thing I did was try to use the graphical configurator: but this continued to suspend. Then I started investigating gsettings: it turns out that the configurator was changing org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power but not com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power. So the second time I changed the latter settings using the command line.

Unless I'm mistaken, this appears to prevented my desktop from suspending as long as I don't lock the screen. However, if I lock the screen, then it continues to suspend itself even after my command-line attempt at disabling suspend.

lpsmith@kleene:~$ gsettings list-recursively | grep -i "suspend\|sleep"
org.cinnamon.desktop.keybindings.media-keys suspend ['XF86Sleep']
org.cinnamon.desktop.keybindings.media-keys hibernate ['XF86Suspend', 'XF86Hibernate']
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys suspend ['']
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys hibernate-static ['XF86Suspend', 'XF86Hibernate']
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys suspend-static ['XF86Sleep']
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-ac-action 'suspend'
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power power-button-action 'suspend'
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-suspend-with-external-monitor false
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-power 'suspend'
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-battery-action 'suspend'
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-suspend 'suspend'
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-sleep 'hibernate'
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-timeout 1200
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-type 'nothing'
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-type 'nothing'
com.canonical.unity.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-timeout 1200
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-ac-action 'suspend'
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-suspend-with-external-monitor false
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-battery-action 'suspend'
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power critical-battery-action 'suspend'
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-suspend 'suspend'
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-sleep 'suspend'
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-timeout 3600
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-type 'suspend'
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-type 'nothing'
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-timeout 1200
org.gnome.desktop.screensaver ubuntu-lock-on-suspend true
org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files initial-sleep 15
org.gnome.Music inhibit-suspend false

Honestly what I'd really like to do, eventually, is plug my desktop back into the usbconnection that my UPS provides, and don't suspend while on battery power, but rather hibernate or shutdown cleanly when the battery power becomes critically low. I didn't put a lot of effort into this previously, but I was never able to get this working on previous versions of ubuntu.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: ubuntu-unity-desktop (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-33.37-generic 5.4.34
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-33-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.2
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Thu Jun 11 08:58:38 2020
SourcePackage: ubuntu-unity-meta
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-06-01 (10 days ago)

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

Did you perform reboot after updgrade? Which graphical configurator? You change suspend option from unity-control-center->power. Note the upgrade path is not supported for Unity since it is not a official flavor. Recommend way is to re-install.

[Leon Smith (leon-p-smith-gmail)]

Yes, I did restart this desktop after upgrade. This graphical configurator: (it's not obvious to me how to determine which one this actually is: will post another screen capture of the configurator that opens up.

[Leon Smith (leon-p-smith-gmail)]

Screenshot of the graphical configurator

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

That's not unity. You are running gnome-shell. And AFAIK, interactive mode has been removed from gnome-setting-daemon. In dconf the options are still there because it is carrying those old patches for unity.