Auto-refreshing webpages in Firefox prevent screensaver launch.

[Perkins]

I have noticed that whenever I have Firefox pointed at a webpage that makes use of autorefresh, my session will not go idle, and my screen will not lock. I do not know if this is caused by gnome-screensaver, or firefox itself, but it is something of an issue for users such as myself who need their screen to lock on idle for security reasons.

If there is already an option to disable this functionality it would be nice to have it added to the documentation.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: gnome-screensaver 2.24.0-0ubuntu6
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-screensaver
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686

[delance (olivier-delance)]

I have to work in company in which absence of key typing must lock screen.

What is the policy of gnome-screensaver ? I read nothing about it.

I am affraid it, does not lock if a video actity is present.

(Today, company is under Windows, but it could change).

[Perkins (lperkins)]

From what I understand, gnome-screensaver activates on lack of keyboard, mouse, or other user-input activity. However, it is possible for applications to disable that behaviour if they expect the user to be watching without providing input. (For example, movie players.) I am just not certain why Firefox seems to disable the screensaver when it is displaying a web page that uses the auto-refresh directive.

[Olivier Fabre (stqn)]

I've got the problem too with Xubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.29.5, Firefox 3.0.11.

The screensaver will not start as long as I have Firefox open with a tab displaying my webmail (which is set to auto-refresh every 5 min), even with the screensaver timeout set to 1 min.

Closing Firefox or unlogging from the webmail lets the screensaver work again.

I couldn't find any related setting in Firefox's about:config page.

I'm not concerned about security (locking my PC when it's unattended), but about heat production and energy waste... This is a strange and undesirable behaviour of Firefox.

[Perkins (lperkins)]

When I posted this I was not certain whether the fault lay with gnome-screensaver, or with Firefox. Testing other web browsers leads me to believe that it is a problem with Firefox since other browsers do not cause the same problem.

[Olivier Fabre (stqn)]

Affecting to firefox-3.0 since it seems strongly related to it. (I'm not sure if this is the correct package though, since there are also the "firefox" and "mozilla-firefox" packages.)

[Olivier Fabre (stqn)]

Oops, I didn't want to remove "gnome-screensaver" from the Affects list. I have seen bugs with several affectations and I thought it would add Firefox on top of it. I'm new to launchpad, sorry.
I'm leaving it like that but feel free to revert to gnome-screensaver or add it if you know how...

[dino99 (9d9)]

This is no more a supported version