Screen does not lock properly with Synergy+

[HerbCSO]

Binary package hint: gnome-screensaver

I have selected a random screensaver to run and selected the "Lock screen when screensaver is active" option. The screensaver kicks in normally, but if I let it go all the way to power save, then when I hit a key or click a mouse button, it comes back to my current session without prompting me for a password. Any further action such as hitting a key or clicking the mouse again THEN locks the screen and I have to enter my password, but this is AFTER the session has already been displayed.

Running Karmic Koala (upgraded from 8.10, upgraded from 8.04) with NVIDIA proprietary drivers.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Nov 16 12:01:09 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: gnome-screensaver 2.28.0-0ubuntu3
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: gnome-screensaver
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686

[HerbCSO (herb-earthling)]

Upon further investigation, this actually seems to be related to running Synergy+. I'm not quite sure where the error is though, since it was working fine in 9.04 and the problem started when I went to 9.10 (same 1.3.4 release of Synergy+ running on both - 9.04 this problem did not exist, 9.10 exhibits the described behavior).

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. A new version of gnome-screensaver is available in both Lucid and Maverick and we are wondering if this is still reproducible in any of those versions, May you please test and give us of feedback about it? Thanks in advance.

[HerbCSO (herb-earthling)]

I am running Lucid now with all the latest updates applied as of today (2010-07-06) with gnome-screensaver 2.30.0 and Synergy+ revision 682 (built on my system from source). The problem still occurs, but the behavior is slightly different now (improved, but not quite all the way there yet... ;] ).

Now the scenario is as follows: I move the cursor over to the Synergy client (Windows XP), leave it there, wait for the screensaver to kick in on the server (Lucid), but it never starts. As soon as I move the mouse cursor over to the server the screensaver starts up. Then when I click the mouse, I get prompted for my password. This is definitely much better now, so the only problem that remains is that the screensaver never starts up when I have the mouse cursor sitting over on the client side.

Thanks for updating me! ;]

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

This is a known issue in the way the screensaver works. If an application, such as Synergy+, grabs keyboard and mouse, gnome-screensaver will never come up.

See:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingScreenLocking#gnome-screensaver%20cannot%20grab%20keyboard%20or%20mouse

[HerbCSO (herb-earthling)]

Looks like this is already well-covered in the other bugs. I'm fine with closing this one if you'd like.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

Closing bug as per your last comment. Thanks!