gnome-screensaver does not respect screensaver selection [xubuntu only]

[Goyo]

Binary package hint: gnome-screensaver

Using Xubuntu Jaunty beta, gnome-screensaver 2.24.0-0ubuntu5.

I always get a blank screen no matters the screensaver choosen in gnome-screensaver-preferences.

Maybe a xubuntu issue? There's no menu entry for gnome-screensaver-preferences but a list of screensavers under Applications->settings->screensavers which does nothing.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here.

Confirmed using a fresh Jaunty installation using jaunty-alternate-i386.iso dated 2009-04-05. Screensaver preferences is not an option.

Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Desktop file shows "OnlyShowIn=Gnome". This needs to be corrected again for Xfce to be able to display the screensaver preferences file.

[Steve Beattie (sbeattie)]

Charlie, looking at intrepid's /usr/share/applications/gnome-screensaver-preferences.desktop file, it also contains 'OnlyShowIn=GNOME;' -- can you explain how this needs to be fixed? Or is this also broken on Intrepid in Xubuntu?

Thanks.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

I need the line to read 'OnlyShowIn=GNOME;XFCE;' . I think this is because of the change to Xfce 4.6 respecting the freedesktop.org standards, but that is a guess. I do know that this simple change lets Xubuntu have screensaver preferences active.

[Steve Beattie (sbeattie)]

Charlie, did you actually try it like so? I went ahead and built a gnome-screensaver package in my ppa (https://launchpad.net/~sbeattie/+archive/ppa) and used it on the xubuntu livecd (build 20090406.1) and, while gnome-screensaver-preferences does then show up in the menu, when I actually opened it up, it offered no available screensavers (despite xscreensavers-gl and xscreensavers-data being installed). So I'm not actually convinced that you've identified the real problem here.

Attached is the debdiff against gnome-screensaver so far. Thanks.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Sorry, it did not occur to me to try this from the live cd. I actually installed Xubuntu jaunty-alternate-i386.iso dated 2009-04-06, found that Applications -> Settings -> Screensavers allows me to select from different screensaver images. I also found there was no way to select my preferences for time to activate the screensaver. When I add XFCE to the .desktop file, the preference shows up in Applications -> Settings -> Screensaver. This creates two settings for me, one is called Screensaver, which allow the time to activate and screensaver to be chosen, the other is Screensavers, which allow the screensaver to be changed without touching settings.

[Steve Beattie (sbeattie)]

Charlie: we can ask for sponsorship, then, if you're happy with the change, as the debdiff does enable it. It seems a bit odd to have both the individual screensavers listed and the preferences tool as a separate option.

Also, note that the original reporter did run gnome-screensaver-preferences and always got the blank screensaver. I just did a fresh install using the same live cd and I get the behavior I reported before; no screensavers show up when gnome-screensaver-preferences is run, which is a different behavior from the original reporters, but not any less broken, AFAICS.

I also see the same behavior that the original reporter mentioned, that none of the screensaver options under Settings -> Screensavers do anything. I should note that I'm running this within a virtualbox vm, but I am able to get working screensavers from the Ubuntu live cd within virtualbox.

Thanks.

[Goyo (goyodiaz)]

Steve, I didn't notice before but when I run gnome-screensaver-preferences (still 2.24.0-0ubuntu5) sometimes the screensavers show up and sometimes they don't. When they do, selecting one of them has no effect, even the setting is not stored.

The list is always empty if I launch gnome-screensaver-properties from terminal and sometimes if I use Alt+F2.

[Goyo (goyodiaz)]

This seems to be fixed in gnome-screensaver 2.24.0-0ubuntu5

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-screensaver - 2.24.0-0ubuntu6

[Matt Castelein (matt-castelein)]

Uh oh.. I am seeing this same issue in gnome-screensaver 2.28.0ubuntu3 - Screen just blanks no matter what screensaver is selected.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Matt: You should file a new bug report for that. You can do that using 'ubuntu-bug gnome-screensaver' in a terminal.