Timeout until screen blanks setting does nothing

[Doug McMahon]

Test Case:
Lubuntu
Open LightDM GTK+ Greeter Settings > Misc
Adjust Timeout until screen blanks slider to some value, ex. 10 secs

What should happen: greeter screen should blank after 10 secs of inactivity
What happens: blank time remains on LightDM default of 300 secs

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings 1.2.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-16.19-generic 4.2.3
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-16-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: LXDE
Date: Tue Oct 20 06:23:54 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-10-19 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" - Alpha amd64 (20151017.1)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[dnord (dnord)]

Have same problem with Ubuntu 16.04 with XFCE4 DE. I'm trying to set `screensaver-timeout` parameter in seconds and it does nothing.

[dnord (dnord)]

I'm trying to use it with xscreensaver.

[Simon Steinbeiß (ochosi)]

@dnord: This has nothing to do with xscreensaver, so not sure in how far that comment is helpful.

Regarding the actual bugreport: the screensaver-timeout setting only takes effect when the greeter is used as a lockscreen. So at login the setting is not honoured at all, instead the system default values are taken.
This is also why the behaviour of the greeter will differ between logging out and locking your session with respect to the screensaver.

So I would not categorize this as a bug, because the code is specifically written to work this way. Instead I would consider this a feature request.

[john kuras (w7og)]

Simon, What is the "system default value" that you mention, and where is it set?

[Ryan Tarpine (objectiveryan)]

John, I think the greeter just inherits whatever screen blanking settings the X server started with (and I'm not sure how to change that).

I created a shell script with "xset s 60" in it and set the "greeter-setup-script" option in lightdm.conf to point to that script. That seemed to blank the screen after 60 seconds on the main login screen.