VLC Inhibits power management daemon when option UNCHECKED

[Ernie 07]

Binary package hint: vlc

Change VLC power management interaction from default by unchecking
Inhibit the power management daemon during playback.

Observe that power management is inhibited although it should NOT be

This problem has been reported but unaddressed since at least 9.04

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: vlc 1.0.5-2ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-20.30-generic-pae 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-20-generic-pae i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Apr 13 23:37:32 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100412)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: vlc

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

VLC inhibits the screensaver regardless (which is _not_ power management) as well as DPMS as it makes no sense to show a video if the screen is off. This is expected behaviour.

Make sure you did not manually select the DBus Inhibit plugin in the interfaces preferences.

[Ernie 07 (ernestboyd)]

Unconditionally disabling the privacy/security provided by the Screen-Saver simply because VLC has been invoked, but is not being used to show a video, will GUARANTEE that Ubuntu will NEVER be accepted for use in the EXPLODING health-care industry. Hasn't anyone heard of HIPAA?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

Ernie, I have been on the vlc-devel mailing list for the past six years. I have never header of HIPAA.

You need to understand that the VLC developers, including myself, are hobbyist programmers, not public contractors. Frankly, I find it surprising that you expect us to have a clue on health care sector IT standards. We make no money from this, so it is only fair that we decide how much and on which features to work.
If you have specific requirements as regard the VLC media player, you are welcome to submit patches to the vlc-devel mailing list. Or you can contract someone to do it for you. Needless to say, this will probably cost.

As for Ubuntu, it ships VLC media player in Universe. You probably know it means there is no support promise. I am sorry that it is this way, but that's Ubuntu's decision and I doubt the situation will change. And so, Ubuntu does not invest in VLC media player development. Thus, Ubuntu users have to rely on the upstream VLC developers, which brings us back to my previous point.

Coming back to the bug report, I have to say it's confusing. The original report says that VLC should not inhibit PM during playback if the corresponding option is disabled. But now, you're implying that it's inhibiting PM even when not playing back, which should really never happen. Those would be totally different issues.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

Please provide the logs from DBus monitor on the session bus while starting VLC and reproducing the problem. Thanks.

[Ernie 07 (ernestboyd)]

Preparation

1.Set Screen-Save timeout to one minute.
2.Uncheck default inhibit Power Management in VLC.
3.Play media.
4.Pause playback.
5.Screen-Save and perhaps Power Management will be inhibited. Unexpected behavior.
6.Note, normal behavior when VLC playback is stopped or VLC is terminated.

Check inhibit Power Management

1.Play media.
2.Stop playback.
3.Exit VLC
4.Screen-Save and perhaps Power Management will be inhibited. Unexpected behavior.
5.Start VLC and uncheck inhibit Power Management.
6.Exit VLC.
7.Screen-Save and perhaps Power Management will be inhibited. Unexpected behavior.

Force return to normal behavior

1.Reboot.

Dbus-Monitor Output:

aguru@aguru-07-1004:~$ dbus-monitor

signal sender=org.freedesktop.DBus -> dest=:1.96 serial=2 path=/org/freedesktop/DBus; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus; member=NameAcquired

   string ":1.96"

method call sender=:1.96 -> dest=org.freedesktop.DBus serial=3 path=/org/freedesktop/DBus; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus; member=AddMatch

   string "type='method_call'"

method call sender=:1.96 -> dest=org.freedesktop.DBus serial=4 path=/org/freedesktop/DBus; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus; member=AddMatch

   string "type='method_return'"

method call sender=:1.96 -> dest=org.freedesktop.DBus serial=5 path=/org/freedesktop/DBus; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus; member=AddMatch

   string "type='error'"

^C

aguru@aguru-07-1004:~$

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

As the dbus-monitor sees nothing, I infer the VLC D-Bus inhibit plug-in is correctly not enabled, and cannot be blamed for this. That would in principle leave the xscreensaver plug-in and the built-in X11 DPMS extension code as potential culprits.

But then VLC is not even running. I would like to point out that the xscreensaver and the DPMS code only disable the screensaver for a fixed timeout. After VLC quits and the timeout expires, they cannot be inhibiting PM. Which shows it's apparently not a VLC bug.

I would also add that VLC could always crash, so the power management system has to be robust against applications that don't clean up properly.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

Apparently, nothing can be done in VLC about this.

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

I cannot reproduce
Everithings works ae expected.
fabio

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Ubuntu because there has been no activity for 60 days.]