Now I don't think the problem is in the mate-screensaver package itself. I reverted to version 1.24.2-0ubuntu1 for a week and still had it happen occasionally: I'd come back to the computer to find a black screen and no amount of typing or mouse-jiggling would bring up the unlock dialog. I have to ssh in and use 'sudo service lightdm restart' to fix it (losing whatever is running in the GUI).
Now I don't think the problem is in the mate-screensaver package itself. I reverted to version 1.24.2-0ubuntu1 for a week and still had it happen occasionally: I'd come back to the computer to find a black screen and no amount of typing or mouse-jiggling would bring up the unlock dialog. I have to ssh in and use 'sudo service lightdm restart' to fix it (losing whatever is running in the GUI).