Screensaver does not recognize activity on 2nd screen

[Michael B. Trausch]

Running a dual-head configuration (i810) on Feisty with Xorg 7.2 and GNOME 2.18.

Previously (e.g., in Edgy Eft) the screen would not start to fade to the screensaver if I were active in one or the other of the heads. However, now, if I am working on the non-primary screen (as I often do with my e-mail, because that screen is bigger), after the specified time, the screensaver will start. The only way for me to stop it is to move the mouse onto the first (primary) display so that it sees that I am still there. This can happen when I am typing into an e-mail, browsing the web, or working in any other application.

I don't have any more information other than that for the time being, though I can give any additional information upon request. I will attach my X.org configuration so that it can be seen.

[Michael B. Trausch (mtrausch)]

BTW, I am not sure if this bug is at the X level, or the level of the screensaver applications, or something in between. That is why I have not assigned a package—I am not sure which one it would be.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug

[Kelsey Sigurdur (kes)]

I'm experiencing the same with a dual-card (PCI & AGP Radeons ) dual-monitor set-up.

[Michael B. Trausch (mtrausch)]

Changing to confirmed per previous update by Kelsey Sigurdur.

[Mark O'Donohue (mark-odonohue)]

Hi

I also have the same problem, with my laptop and the extended desktop, mouse movements on the extended desktop do not stop the screensaver from activating.

I am using laptop with external monitor as extended desktop and AGP Radeons their fglrx driver.

I've also attached my xorg.conf file in case it helps.

BTW, thanks for all the good work

Cheers - Mark

[Thomas Hammerl (thomas-hammerl)]

I'm experiencing the same problem. IMHO the importance should be raised from low to medium on this bug. For now I've hacked myself an unsatisfying workaround:

http://cc.thammerl.interlinked.org/index.php/2008/01/13/enablingdisabling-gnome-screensaver-with-a-custom-keyboard-shortcut/

[Viktor Kojouharov (vkojouharov)]

With Hardy Heron, the bug is still present. As an additional information, xscreensaver does not suffer from this bug.

[Jerad Hurst (jvhurst)]

I can confirm this bug, though for me using the keyboard does prevent the screen from fading no matter which screen I'm on. I actually came upon this bug by accident, as I had mainly only used my second screen for games (keypad doesn't prevent the screensaver anyway) and MPlayer (which disable the screensaver). To deal with my screensaver problems I tried a simple script to disable the screensaver upon opening the selected program and re-enabling it once opened.

What I found through that is that when I returned to my main display, if I was only moving my mouse it wouldn't prevent the screensaver, while moving it to the secondary display did. To summarize, I found that it wasn't only activity on :0.0 that was preventing the screensaver from activating, but from whichever display ran gnome-screensaver (which by default is generally :0.0). To confirm, try this:

Run:

gnome-screensaver-command --exit

(To terminate the default session) and then on any secondary display run:

gnome-screensaver

And the bug should be on opposite screens as it was before.

[schop (peters-revenge)]

(confirmed, yet again)
Guess it's because of the seperate X screens that the one can't detect the other's activity by default. I have them set up that way at least. Also, reversing the bug by running the screensaver from the other X monitor works as expected. Somehow it will need a workaround to detect input from a different X session, but I'm just thinking loud here.

IF this is indeed the cause, is it possible to - as a workaround - somehow send a copy of all the input on different X screens to the (screensaver on the) primary X? (I might not describe it properly but I guess you know what i mean)

Attached my Xorg.conf even though nvidia-settings might have made it quite messy.