screen powers down after 10 minutes regardless of what Brightness and Lock settings used.

[Robert Bruce Park]

[IMPACT]
* Regardless of settings in the "Brightness and Lock" Panel, screen will power off after 10mins.

As part of the new lock-screen in gnome-shell 3.6 (when running on gdm), a watchdog timer, that disables the builtin X screensaver was moved into gnome-settings-daemon 3.6. Previously this was in gnome-screensaver however that is no longer used with gnome-shell/gdm combination.

Since Quantal is still using gnome-settings-daemon 3.4, currently we are missing the watchdog timer for gnome-shell session on gdm.

This is an upstream git patch take from gnome-settings-daemon 3.6.

[Test case]
1. Run gnome-shell from gdm.
2. Set "Turn screen Off" in Brightness/lock panel to Never
3. Wait 10mins and the screen will turn off.

[Workaround]
Install gnome-settings-daemon 3.6 from gnome3-team ppa.

[Regression Potential]
The code in this patch was copied from gnome-screensaver into gnome-settings-daemon, so should not cause any problems. However when running a session that uses gnome-screensaver (Unity, gnome-shell on Lightdm), this watchdog timer will be duplicated. This is probably harmless but it might be best to patch it out gnome-screensaver.

=== Original Bug report ===

Just updated to the latest quantal today and then tried to watch a movie in Totem. Screen powered off every 10 minutes, reliably. Tried setting the power save to 'never', or to '1 hour', tried it with auto screen lock on or off, screen always powers off after 10 minutes exactly.

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu quantal (development branch)
Release: 12.10

$ apt-cache policy gnome-control-center
gnome-control-center:
  Installed: 1:3.4.2-0ubuntu13
  Candidate: 1:3.4.2-0ubuntu13
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.4.2-0ubuntu13 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ apt-cache policy totem
totem:
  Installed: 3.4.3-0ubuntu2
  Candidate: 3.4.3-0ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 3.4.3-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ apt-cache policy gnome-screensaver
gnome-screensaver:
  Installed: 3.5.5-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 3.5.5-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 3.5.5-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Let me know what other information is needed to troubleshoot this and I'll gladly help, thanks.

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Probably relevant: I am using gnome-shell, not Unity.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Victor Zamanian (victorz)]

Same here. I'm on Ubuntu GNOME Remix. Doesn't seem to matter whether I'm playing a video (totem, vlc, YouTube, whatever) in fullscreen or not fullscreen, whether the timer in Brightness and Lock setting is set to 10 min, 1 hour or Never... The screen always goes black after 10 minutes. Always. (Unless I move the mouse or type on the keyboard, of course.)

[17:46] ~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 12.10
Release: 12.10

[17:49] ~$ apt-cache policy gnome-control-center totem gnome-screensaver dbus libdbus-1-3
gnome-control-center:
  Installed: 1:3.4.2-0ubuntu19
  Candidate: 1:3.4.2-0ubuntu19
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.4.2-0ubuntu19 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
totem:
  Installed: 3.6.2-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.10.1
  Candidate: 3.6.2-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.10.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.6.2-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.10.1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu/ quantal/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.4.3-0ubuntu5 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates/main i386 Packages
     3.4.3-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main i386 Packages
gnome-screensaver:
  Installed: 3.6.0-0ubuntu2
  Candidate: 3.6.0-0ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 3.6.0-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.6.0-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main i386 Packages
dbus:
  Installed: 1.6.4-1ubuntu4
  Candidate: 1.6.4-1ubuntu4
  Version table:
 *** 1.6.4-1ubuntu4 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
libdbus-1-3:
  Installed: 1.6.4-1ubuntu4
  Candidate: 1.6.4-1ubuntu4
  Version table:
 *** 1.6.4-1ubuntu4 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
[17:49] ~$

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Hmmmmmm... somewhere along the line, I switched to Unity, and then I upgraded to raring, and the bug stopped happening. It's not clear though if that means the bug is only in gnome-shell, or or maybe it's both gnome-shell and unity, but only on quantal.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the idle timer was updated by gnome-screensaver, iirc I've seen some recent bug saying that since gnome-shell stopped using it the timer was not being updated as it should so it would be an issue in gnome-shell yes

[Tim Lunn (darkxst)]

Robert and Victor are you using lightdm or gdm?

There is a known issue with some apps calling SimulateUserActivity to inhibit screen dimming and this dbus method is only available in gnome-screensaver and not the new gnome-shell lockscreen. That said it should still be possible to disable screen dimming via the lock panel in g-c-c.

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

I would have been using gdm at the time I was experiencing this. I'm using lightdm now, no issues.

[Tim Lunn (darkxst)]

As part of the new gnome-shell lockscreen, the code that handles a watchdog timer for disably X builtin screensaver was moved into gnome-settings-daemon. I have applied the git patch that fixes this.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "debdiff" of this bug report has been identified as being a patch in the form of a debdiff. The ubuntu-sponsors team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review and hopefully sponsor the debdiff. In the event that this is in fact not a patch you can resolve this situation by removing the tag 'patch' from the bug report and editing the attachment so that it is not flagged as a patch. Additionally, if you are member of the ubuntu-sponsors team please also unsubscribe the team from this bug report.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by Brian Murray. Please contact him regarding any issues with the action taken in this bug report.]

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your work, I don't think we should duplicate that feature in a stable serie without having a look first on the impact on Unity sessions, the number of wakeups it creates (which has an impact on battery usage) and the potential bugs

Unsubscribing sponsors until that's done

[Tim Lunn (darkxst)]

The watchdog timer fires every 120secs. I don't know if that would be considered significant in terms of impact on battery usage?

Anyway I can provide a patch to remove the watchdog from gnome-screensaver, if that would be preferred.

[kChris Wininger (chris-wininger)]

I am having the same problem in Ubuntu 12.10 using unity. Just thought I would mention this as most people here seem to be using gnome. It's driving the crayz. I've dug through so many settings and tried a few command line work arounds suggested on other forumns, but every 10 minutes on the dot the machine suspends (assuming I am inactive, watching a video). I've turned off lock. I've set "Turn screen off when inactive for:" to never. I've set "Suspend when inactive for" to "Don't Suspend" both when plugged in and when on battery. No luck.

[Tristan Schmelcher (tschmelcher)]

I am experiencing a similar issue in 12.10 using Unity, filed as bug 1072531.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

quantal has seen the end of its life and is no longer receiving any updates. Marking the quantal task for this ticket as "Won't Fix".