Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 -- Display Idle Time Out

[Luke J Militello]

Hello, I've recently upgraded a few machines to Karmic, three to be exact, and all are showing the same signs when it comes to the idle time out turning off the displays. Basically, the screen saver is working fine as expected, however the power manager idle time out for the displays is rather random. I have the screen saver set to engage after 15 minutes of idle time, which it does. The display idle time out is set to 30 minutes. If I allow the screen saver to start on its own, 15 minutes later (the delta between the timers) sometimes the displays shut off, but more so, they do not. I've had the screen saver running for over two hours once before I intervened to see what was going on. This problem is also there if I manually lock the desktop, which starts the screen saver, and 30 minutes later, the displays are still on. Again, occasionally it will work as it should. I've researched this I found some statements that say the timer is based on keyboard activity, mouse activity and system load. For the most part, my system is idle and I still have this display issue. The specific system in question of the three has ran Hardy, Intrepid and Jaunty with the same screen saver / power configuration without issue. I've also included some output from I script I wrote which queries my system's setting for the packages mentioned above. Although I could not find one specific enough, if this bug already exists and I have opened this in error, I apologize. Thanks.

Power Manager General Options (Defaults)
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power interactive
suspend nothing
icon_policy never

Power Manager On AC Options (Defaults)
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idle_dim_ac false
sleep_display_ac 1800

Power Manager On AC Options (User Override)
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sleep_display_ac 1800
spindown_enable_ac false

Screensaver Options (User Specific)
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mode single
themes screensavers-skyrocket
idle_delay 15
idle_activation_enabled true
lock_enabled true
power_management_delay 30

[Luke J Militello (kilahurtz)]

Ok, so I just had the screen saver not start on its own after the idle time out for that expired (twice). It now appears this idle time out problem is occurring in either gnome-power-manager and/or gnome-screensaver. Thus, I retract my previous statement about the screen saver working properly.

[Luke J Militello (kilahurtz)]

See bug #411350.