KDE screen lock intermittent

[David Lawrence]

I have my KDE screen locker configured to "Lock screen automatically after" 1 minute. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, I can lock manually with Ctrl-Alt-L. I upgraded from 14.04 to 16.04.1 ~4 days ago, and it has stopped locking 3 or 4 times. It was working fine in 14.04. It's particularly annoying for me because I use my screen saver status and my workspace name to log my hours to various charge numbers for work. If the screen saver isn't on, I'm logging hours.

I wasn't sure what component to file a bug against. I assume libkscreenlocker5 (there is no kscreenlocker package AFAICT).

apt-cache policy libkscreenlocker5
libkscreenlocker5:
  Installed: 5.5.5-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 5.5.5-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 5.5.5-0ubuntu1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Other info:
I've tried 5 minute locking intervals and changing the interval during the KDE session where locking isn't working... no change.

I've looked through all of my workspaces to see if there might be some dialogue window or panel widget expecting user interaction that might be disabling the timeout mechanism or something like that. I didn't find anything of that sort, but I just closed all windows except the firefox window in which I'm typing this question (emacs, thunderbird, octave, gramps, google-chrome, konsole, + ???) and the screen saver worked after that. I'm not sure if that was coincidence or not. I re-opened an instance of every app that I remember having closed and the screen saver worked again.

This is a new Ubuntu 16.04.1 64 bit installation that was converted to KDE by installing kde-desktop. The user account that I'm using has its home on another disk and that home directory has been on 12.04 and 14.04 systems.

I'm not sure if this is anyway related, but I get a "System Notification Helper" popup window many hundreds of time per day that says "Software upgrade notifications are available". Perhaps that popup window is causing the screen locker to thing there is something going on.

I'm not sure how to capture useful debugging information for something that isn't happening. Is there a way to query the screen locker and ask it what it thought happened that prevented it from locking?

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1625441/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Reassigning against kscreenlocker. Better than leaving filed against "Ubuntu".

[David Lawrence (david-gary-lawrence)]

I've been able to correlate this problem with having chromium-browser open to certain web pages (not completely consistent in reproducing the problem, but once reproduced, I can always make the problem go away by closing that chromium-browser tab). I can reproduce the problem most of the time by opening this web page from chromium-browser and then scrolling up and down the page a few times:

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/health/tennessee-doctor-vaccines-can-cause-autism

I assume the problem is related to one of the ads, so this site may not continue to cause the problem as the ads change over time.

In a few attempts, I was unable to reproduce this behavior with firefox.

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Hello David,
Thank you for submitting this bug and reporting a problem with the KDE screenlocker. You made this bug report in 2016 and there have been several versions of Kubuntu since then.

Could you confirm that this is no longer a problem and that we can close the ticket?
If it is still a problem, are you still interested in finding a solution to this bug?
If you are, could you let us know and run the following (only once):
apport-collect 1625441
and upload the updated logs and and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

Thank you again for helping make Kubuntu better.
G

[David Lawrence (david-gary-lawrence)]

Yes, it's still a problem in Ubuntu 18.04. I assume there is a "feature" with an intention to keep the screen from locking when there is a video playing and some web sites with animated ads fool that feature into thinking a video is being watched when it isn't.

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Hi David. So, do you want to persue this issue or should we close the ticket?
Take care
:)
G

[David Lawrence (david-gary-lawrence)]

It's either a bug or a poorly documented feature, so I think it should be
pursued. If the screensaver is configured to turn off after a certain
period, it should turn off after that period unless one opts out for things
like watching movies in a browser.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2018 at 6:28 AM, gf <email address hidden> wrote:

> Hi David. So, do you want to persue this issue or should we close the
> ticket?
> Take care
> :)
> G
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1625441
>
> Title:
> KDE screen lock intermittent
>
> Status in kscreenlocker package in Ubuntu:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> I have my KDE screen locker configured to "Lock screen automatically
> after" 1 minute. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. When it
> doesn't, I can lock manually with Ctrl-Alt-L. I upgraded from 14.04
> to 16.04.1 ~4 days ago, and it has stopped locking 3 or 4 times. It
> was working fine in 14.04. It's particularly annoying for me because I
> use my screen saver status and my workspace name to log my hours to
> various charge numbers for work. If the screen saver isn't on, I'm
> logging hours.
>
> I wasn't sure what component to file a bug against. I assume
> libkscreenlocker5 (there is no kscreenlocker package AFAICT).
>
> apt-cache policy libkscreenlocker5
> libkscreenlocker5:
> Installed: 5.5.5-0ubuntu1
> Candidate: 5.5.5-0ubuntu1
> Version table:
> *** 5.5.5-0ubuntu1 500
> 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64
> Packages
> 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
>
> Other info:
> I've tried 5 minute locking intervals and changing the interval during
> the KDE session where locking isn't working... no change.
>
> I've looked through all of my workspaces to see if there might be some
> dialogue window or panel widget expecting user interaction that might
> be disabling the timeout mechanism or something like that. I didn't
> find anything of that sort, but I just closed all windows except the
> firefox window in which I'm typing this question (emacs, thunderbird,
> octave, gramps, google-chrome, konsole, + ???) and the screen saver
> worked after that. I'm not sure if that was coincidence or not. I
> re-opened an instance of every app that I remember having closed and
> the screen saver worked again.
>
> This is a new Ubuntu 16.04.1 64 bit installation that was converted to
> KDE by installing kde-desktop. The user account that I'm using has
> its home on another disk and that home directory has been on 12.04 and
> 14.04 systems.
>
> I'm not sure if this is anyway related, but I get a "System
> Notification Helper" popup window many hundreds of time per day that
> says "Software upgrade notifications are available". Perhaps that
> popup window is causing the screen locker to thing there is something
> going on.
>
> I'm not sure how to capture useful debugging information for something
> that isn't happening. Is there a way to query the screen locker and
> ask it what it thought happened that prevented it from locking?
>
> To man...

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Hi David. Thanks for the update. I will change the status back to “new” and will look at next steps.
Take care
:)
G

[David (hansmann.d)]

Hi, just chiming in to upvote this bug. I'm relying on this feature to work at work and just this today a coworker found my desktop unlocked. Just before a company wide certification audit regarding security and privacy. Just as described: It seems to work most, but not all, times and I had chrome showing a (stopped) video open, too.

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks for chiming in, David. That helps because it confirms this ticket!
If you have time, could you click the link a the top of the bug report entitled "Does this bug affect you?" so that it will be properly recorded in the bug report's tracker?
I will confirm the ticket and look for duplicates.
Thanks for your help
Take care
G

[David Lawrence (david-gary-lawrence)]

I don't have the scripts set up yet, but I think using these calls might work:
# prints idle time in msec
xprintidle
# locks screen
qdbus org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver /ScreenSaver Lock

But of course this is a workaround for a broken screensaver. This bug still should be fixed.

[David Lawrence (david-gary-lawrence)]

I have a hack workaround working I think. I call a script every minute from a cron job that does something like this:

#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=:0
if [ `xprintidle` -gt 240000 ];then
    . ~/.Xdbus
    qdbus org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver /ScreenSaver Lock
fi

The for info about .Xdbus, see:
https://github.com/Jach/cycle_gnome_background

[David Lawrence (david-gary-lawrence)]

This bug still exists in 22.04.

[David Lawrence (david-gary-lawrence)]

The may be the same bug as this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+bug/1600622

This problem is both a power consumption bug and a security bug. It causes affected systems to be out of compliance with a CMMC security requirement (AC.L2-3.1.10). I reported it over 6 years ago. Can this get escalated and actually fixed? There needs to be an option to prevent apps from disabling screen locking.