screensaver preferences ignores my unchecked box

[rustystpete]

Binary package hint: yelp

I do not use screen saver, until yesterdays update. Now the screen saver starts every 5 minutes. I have the box Unchecked to activate screensaver. I have the slider set on two hours. But the screensaver starts every 5 idle minutes.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Oct 31 15:27:10 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/yelp
Package: yelp 2.28.0-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: yelp
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:1849): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (gnome-settings-daemon:1849): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1892): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:1884): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed

[Stephen Cradock (s-cradock)]

This happened to me (screensaver becoming active despite preferences setting) after update in Lucid on 2009-12-02.

[Stephen Cradock (s-cradock)]

AMD64, Lucid kernel 2.6.32-6, fully updated on 2009-12-02.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Are you sure gnome-screensaver is even running? ("ps aux | grep gnome-screensaver" please)

[Stephen Cradock (s-cradock)]

Good idea! No sign of gnome-screensaver in the ps aux listing. The gnome-powermanager might be the culprit - that's there.....

Nevertheless, the screensavers appear after 5 minutes, set on Random as far as I can see, although I have the settings Blank Screen, and Activate unset. This happens if gnome-screensaver is installed, not if it is not.

[Stephen Cradock (s-cradock)]

Checked settings in gconf2;

 apps/gnome-screensaver/idle_activation_enabled is False,
 /idle_delay is 10,
 /theme is screensavers-ubuntu_theme.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Does this actually happen with gnome-screensaver running? It isn't clear from your description

[Stephen Cradock (s-cradock)]

As far as I know, the only way to stop the screensavers activating (after a delay) is to uninstall gnome-screensaver.

I don't see gnome-screensaver in the ps aux list, which means it's not running as a background process, and i am not invoking it knowingly. If I do invoke it from the terminal it appears in the ps aux list, but the unexpected screensaver activation seems to be independent of this. I'll wait for a while and see if the screensaver cuts in with g-ss running....

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

If gnome-screensaver isn't actually running, then the behaviour you describe is not a gnome-screensaver bug, and is also completely normal. Xorg has a built-in screensaver, which gnome-screensaver disables when it runs. If gnome-screensaver isn't running, you will see the built-in Xorg screensaver instead.

gnome-screensaver is running by default on a normal install. It's not running on yours because you've disabled it in Startup Applications

[Stephen Cradock (s-cradock)]

OK, that makes sense, in a way. With gnome-screensaver running (invoked from the terminal), I got no screensaver after idle for over an hour.

The sudden change still puzzles me; I certainly didn't trigger it by disabling gnome-screensaver in Startup recently, so maybe the updated version didn't get set up correctly. Or maybe I had removed it long ago and the X screensaver only just started working yesterday.....

It's also strange that uninstalling gnome-screensaver prevents the other (X) screensaver from activating. Or is that because removing gnome-screensaver also removes xscreensaver?

Anyway, thanks for the help; I'll figure out how to get things set up so that I don't have to have gnome-screensaver running just to prevent X screensaver from taking over.....

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Hmmm, there's been no change recently, and the behaviour you're experiencing has been like that for as long as I can remember. Why would you not want to run gnome-screensaver? It's required for locking the screen anyway

[Stephen Cradock (s-cradock)]

Sorry to keep asking, but is the "built-in screensaver" in X the same as/using "xscreensaver?

Because I can prevent the behavior by removing xscreensaver, but not the -gl and -data packages, which are required for gnome-screensaver.

If there is another layer as well I would like to know so that I can understand my system better.....

As for not wanting a screensaver, I don't have my machine in an environment where I worry about other people seeing what's on the screen, whereas that swirling eye-catching stuff is distracting and inappropriate in a working environment. I have no objections to other people having the ability to use a screensaver, so long as I have the ability to NOT use one.