Xfce Power Manager does not override the screen saver timeout (X11 Screen Saver extension)

I have to do the same thing when I'm in the classroom and we're watching a long music performance on MPlayer. I have to remember to keep moving the mouse every few minutes to restart the clock before the presentation screen and netbook monitor goes blank. No settings in Power Manager seem to make a difference. This also happens on liveCD disks ... if I don't touch a keyboard or mouse for 10 minutes, the screen of my netbook or my Mac Mini (or any computer I'm installing Lubuntu on) will go blank.

Check for DPMS/Energy Star with this command:
xset -q

If enabled, turn off DPMS with this command:
xset -dpms

@Daniel

That did NOT change anything at all. Monitor goes black after 10 mins no matter what time you choose.

Thank you!

Please provide the output of the command:

  xset q

You might also want to try:

  xset s off

which is the way I usually disable the screensaver.

Jonathan

@Jonathan,

As I have mentioned, I did try the command you suggested which is the same command Daniel suggested previously and that did NOT change anything at all. My monitor still go black after 10mins no matter what.

Anyway, there you go:

============================================================
$ xset q
Keyboard Control:
  auto repeat: on key click percent: 0 LED mask: 00000000
  XKB indicators:
    00: Caps Lock: off 01: Num Lock: off 02: Scroll Lock: off
    03: Compose: off 04: Kana: off 05: Sleep: off
    06: Suspend: off 07: Mute: off 08: Misc: off
    09: Mail: off 10: Charging: off 11: Shift Lock: off
    12: Group 2: off 13: Mouse Keys: off
  auto repeat delay: 500 repeat rate: 33
  auto repeating keys: 00ffffffdffffbbf
                        fadfffefffedffff
                        9fffffffffffffff$ xset q
Keyboard Control:
  auto repeat: on key click percent: 0 LED mask: 00000000
  XKB indicators:
    00: Caps Lock: off 01: Num Lock: off 02: Scroll Lock: off
    03: Compose: off 04: Kana: off 05: Sleep: off
    06: Suspend: off 07: Mute: off 08: Misc: off
    09: Mail: off 10: Charging: off 11: Shift Lock: off
    12: Group 2: off 13: Mouse Keys: off
  auto repeat delay: 500 repeat rate: 33
  auto repeating keys: 00ffffffdffffbbf
                        fadfffefffedffff
                        9fffffffffffffff
                        fff7ffffffffffff
  bell percent: 0 bell pitch: 400 bell duration: 100
Pointer Control:
  acceleration: 20/10 threshold: 10
Screen Saver:
  prefer blanking: yes allow exposures: yes
  timeout: 600 cycle: 600
Colors:
  default colormap: 0x22 BlackPixel: 0x0 WhitePixel: 0xffffff
Font Path:
  /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,built-ins
DPMS (Energy Star):
  Standby: 2940 Suspend: 0 Off: 3000
  DPMS is Enabled
  Monitor is On

                        fff7ffffffffffff
  bell percent: 0 bell pitch: 400 bell duration: 100
Pointer Control:
  acceleration: 20/10 threshold: 10
Screen Saver:
  prefer blanking: yes allow exposures: yes
  timeout: 600 cycle: 600
Colors:
  default colormap: 0x22 BlackPixel: 0x0 WhitePixel: 0xffffff
Font Path:
  /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,built-ins
DPMS (Energy Star):
  Standby: 2940 Suspend: 0 Off: 3000
  DPMS is Enabled
  Monitor is On
============================================================
By the way, there is no screensaver in Lubuntu Saucy anymore :)

@Jonathan

Correction:

The command: xset s off

Has helped to stop that issue - thanks a lot.

I'm sorry, I thought that was the same previous command suggested in comment #3 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-power-manager/+bug/1193716/comments/3

but I was too rushy, I guess.

So far, so good. However, I did not rebooted yet. Not sure if everything will be ok after the reboot or I have to re-issue the same command again? when I will reboot, I will get the answer :)

Now, let's wait until this bug will be fixed :D

Thanks!

@Jonathan,

I have no idea what is going on? I think Saucy is playing Hide and Seek game with me or something?!!!

The issue is back and " xset s off" is doing absolutely nothing :(

This bug affects Xubuntu 13.04 too.

xfce4-power-manager 1.2.0-1ubuntu2 with kernel 3.8.0.26.44

Any update regarding this bug???

saucy-desktop-amd64.iso 01-Oct-2013
Fresh New Installation

I confirm that this but is STILL NOT yet fixed.

Thanks!

Sorry, I mean: This 'bug' is not yet fixed.

Testing this if you set the delay to 1 minute it works, but if you set it to never it seems to wait for ten minutes and then turn off the screen.

JUST NOW I set it to 1 minute and the monitor goes off. Of course, this is Lubuntu 13.10 :)

By the way, when I:

Menu > Preferences > Power Manager

It says "Power Manager" is not running, do you want to run it now?

I clicked "Yes" then opened the Power Manager again. I don't think it is related but just thought to mention that.

This is Lubuntu 13.10 amd64

I got around the problem of screen turning off by installing xscreensaver, disabling screensaver in xscreensaver and to make run at login I used the new "default applications for lxsession" tool (section "screensaver").

@Gorenc Franc

It seems that is the only way for the time being, I might try that as well except I am not using Saucy, I am still with Raring. My Test PC though has Saucy.

Funny enough that installing xscreensaver defeat the idea of removing it by default :D

I do hope this bug got fixed soon :)

Thanks for sharing!

@amjjawad

no problem. i'm glad i could help. :)

@Gorenc Franc

You are right. For now, as a workaround for this very annoying bug, installing XScreensaver will do the needful as explained on: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-power-manager/+bug/1193716/comments/15

But, as you all may know, 'xscreensaver' is not installed by default with Lubuntu 13.10 :)

Hopefully this bug will be solved soon ;)

This bug affectes me too.

5 months now and there is no progress on this unless the work around.

Looking at the bright side, at least there is a work around :)

Being realistic, this is not good enough for users, specially newcomers!

Thank you :)

xfce4-power-manager is installed by default in Lubuntu.
Nevertheless the two configuration folders for the startup applications have been disabled in Lubuntu 13.10 and newer versions according to e-mail posting by @Julien Lavergne [1]

So, try to startup properly the xfce4-power-manager by adding an entry in
 ~/.config/lxsession/Lubuntu/autostart file
or graphically :
Start Menu - Preferences - Default applications of LXSession - Autostart .

The command should be simple like

/usr/bin/xfce4-power-manager

Then please test again if Lubuntu "respect" your settings. If yes, then we can mark this bug as invalid because it is Lubuntu specific and has nothing to do with xfce4-power-manager.

[1] - https://lists.launchpad.net/lubuntu-qa/msg04192.html

Regards
 NikTh

@ Nik.Th. The method you described does not have any effect. xfce4-power-manager autostarts now but the bug persists.

I found this post (2011 !) that seems to be the same problem ?!
http://salinelinux.proboards.com/thread/158

 This bug report will be marked for expiration in 59 days if no further activity occurs. (find out why)

https://help.launchpad.net/BugExpiry

@Nik.Th. (nick-athens30)
Based on what you have marked this bug as incomplete? I'm sorry, I fail to see the point here?!

I second what stavros daliakopoulos (stavrosd) has written/confirmed - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-power-manager/+bug/1193716/comments/23

The workaround you provided didn't change the fact and this bug still exist :)

Thank you!

@amjjawad

you filled a bug against a project. (xfce4-power-manager).

The xcfe4-power-manager works without problems in my Lubuntu installation. The fact the Lubuntu decided to drop those two "startup applications" folders has nothing to do with the xfce4-power-manager.

Based on that, I wanted more info (the test case on comment #21) so I marked the bug incomplete , meaning.. "wants more info".
You provided the info, and marked the bug again as confirmed. That's OK. It's a logical procedure.

Now developers need to take action and find out if this bug is for real or a "false alarm".

Regards
 NikTh

@Nik.Th

While I appreciate your help in regard of this, kindly be advised that marking a bug as incomplete (yes, I know what that means :D) without asking the other people or waiting for them to confirm your finding is not a correct way, IMHO :)

 While it works for 'you', it does not work for 'us' :)

And indeed, Devs need to take over and find a solution to this little nasty bug ;)

Thanks a lot

please read the followinghttp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1428387

strange is also that the bug affects my desktop but not my laptop.

@amjjawad

Don't take my actions as an opinion or something. I'm just following the procedure.

I added the upstream bug here.
It would be good for the life-cycle of this bug if you login there (upstream) and add a comment - Url link - to this existing bug.

Eventually, after a new installation of Lubuntu I checked this bug as "Yes, it affects me" (again) . The problem seems to involve the xfce4-power-manager and even if you autostart it properly , the settings will not be respected.

xset will overwrite the settings.

Regards
 NikTh

@Everyone

Just for the record, this bug does affect Xubuntu 13.10 as well. I installed Xubuntu 13.10 both i368 and amd64 and it seems, this bug is alive with Xubuntu as well and that is obvious and logical because Xubuntu is using xfce4-power-manager as well.

Machine: http://phillw.net/hardware/BnA9pw11

And I installed it on other machines as well.

Please try this command.

setterm -blank 0 -powerdown 0

Source: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Display_Power_Management_Signaling#Disable_screen_saver_blanking

@ Sean Davis

In my set I have two users, one with sudo and one without.
I tried both with the following result;

code
@stavros-.:~$ setterm -blank 0 -powerdown 0
[14;0].....@stavros-.:~$
end code

However it did not fix the issue.

I confirm same issue on xubuntu 13.10

The solution is public since November 13.

http://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?topic=8403.0

http://openbox.org/wiki/Help:Autostart

To run commands for all users system-wide, place them in a similar file in /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart

Although DPMS can be configured, you can also just switch them off. To do so, add the following to the top of your openbox autostart file:

Code: [Select]
## DPMS - Display Power Management Settings
## These are disabled by default to prevent auto-actions when
## the system is idle, such as screen blanking (10 mins) or
## suspending (1 hour).
xset -dpms; xset s off &

Also add the above to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E25749_01/E25745/html/Clients-Howto-Disable-Screen-Blanking.html

I wonder, if the power manager could override the screen saver timeout. It could change the X setting, but I think it is better to change the setting by "xset s off" during session startup (i.e. as part of autostarted applications).
I still wonder where and why is that default 600 sec timeout set?

Lubuntu 14.04 LTS i386 Fresh New Installation and I confirm the same issue is happening, still :(

Xubuntu 14.04 amd64 here, still have this happening here.

Xubuntu 14.04 amd64 here, still have this happening here. +1

I have this issue with xscreensaver and light-locker in Xubuntu 14.04 and all the other major distros(Fedora,Arch, gentoo) has this issue as well with XFCE as the DE.

Happening to me as well. Just upgraded XUbuntu 13.10 to 14.04. Only thing to add is that this does not happen when watching video in XBMC. Otherwise, the screen shuts off every 5 minutes or so unless there is mouse activity.

Same problem.
Power Management settings : never turn off anything.
But still the screen goes black after x minutes of watching a movie in VLC.
Xubuntu 14.04 on Dell Inspiron 3000.

I've been having the same problem on a fresh install of Xubuntu 14.04 amd64. I previously had the problem after upgrading to 14.04 from 13.10.

Also, after unlocking the screen my WiFi (via a USB dongle) is about 10 times slower than before too, which is very annoying - the workaround is to disconnect and then reconnect the WiFi.

Can confirm this bug as well running Lubuntu 14.04, screen dims after 10 minutes despite xfce power manager being set differently. No screensaver running as well. Very annoying issue, and I would rather not have to run a shell script at log in to remedy it every time.

Can someone post instructions here on how to install the fix?

You can install the current development release of xfce4-power-manager by using the official Xubuntu staging PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~xubuntu-dev/+archive/ubuntu/xubuntu-staging

I am closing this report, because the bug has been fixed in the latest development version of Ubuntu - Utopic Unicorn. It won't be fixed in previous versions of Ubuntu because the package doesn't fit the requirements for backporting. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports for more information.

I cannot confirm that the bug is fixed. I have installed

dpkg -l xfce4-power-manager
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
ii xfce4-power-ma 1.3.1+git-0~ i386 power manager for Xfce desktop

and the problem is here.
Linux ...-MS-7238 3.11.0-18-generic

I'm not sure if this is related or not but I am also having this issue in Lubuntu without xfce-power-manager being installed. I have disabled light locker and xset reports Standby: 0 Suspend: 0 Off: 0. I'm actually running Lubuntu on an older Intel iMac and when the screen goes off, any running apps also go off similar to Stavros.

I can confirm as of today with most current xUbuntu 64-bit running I had this very issue. I could tell from the following.

I went in to both Power Management and Light Locker and set both values to 0, and turned DPMS control off by unclicking the DPMS checkbox. I thought it was weird that I went from display and system going off after 10 min to this odd behavior of screen would blank, BUT I could tell it was only a fullscreen black graphic as the contrast and brightness were still in play AND I could continue to hear the audio of my full screen based flash player [I use Plex Media Server (god I love it)] continuing without any interruption. I thought it had to be something more. After looking around the web a little I rememebered XWindows does have it's own seperate control for the display. I then went ahead and issued the

xset s off

(basically x stop trying to call screensaver ever (which there is none installed). Once I did that t sppear to be fixed I have been running with no screen blanking for awhile now.

Maybe it would be as easy as an eval if switch off display is set to 0 then run xset s off to cover the Xwindows portion of screen control. I have even been able to set DPMS back to on and have continued to enjoy no blanking or display powering down.

Amazing bug, so simple and I am still applying workarounds (xset in .xinitrc) 3 years after...

@Mike Miller: Obviously you're not using the latest Xubuntu release, because in 14.10 (released in October) light-locker-settings doesn't handle blanking anymore if xfce4-power-manager is installed.

@gatopeich: As I just mentioned, this bug was fixed only in xfce4-power-manager 1.4, which was released in Xubuntu 14.10.

Bug policy: If I understand this correctly, because someone THOUGHT a bug was fixed in the newer version - which is NOT LTS - you feel everyone else should suffer until the new LTS come along.

This is doing everyone, and all Linux, a great disservice.

I do NOT install a new system to 'test' if a bug is fixed.

I have tried to simply use Synaptic to remove light locker, and it wants to remove Lubuntu desktop also.

On two different systems.

I have no problem attacking the issues by hand. But policies like this mean my sons cannot recommend Linux to an average user. Both work in the computer industry and take care of their friends and family.

Three YEARS!!!

Just like the Gnome power off button. Who are you developers trying to help?
Each time someone quotes a bug policy, someone else decides they don't need Linux.

Yes, this is a flame.

How can I get this on my Xubuntu 14 LTS release?

I'm on Xubuntu 14.04 LTS and this bug still affects me. Though it seems like the fact that it's still broken is known and will not be fixed?

This is pretty embarrassing, guys... it's 2015 now. The most basic functionality of one of the most basic features of my operationg system does not work at all. The solution is to upgrade my OS? Or pop open my terminal? For a bug that was filed YEARS ago?

That screensaver timeout should: A) be turned off, or B) have some interface to change it besides "xset".

Gah, sorry to rant. My annoyance should probably be directed at the Xubuntu project overall, or maybe XFCE, rather than the power manager specifically?

The power manager was never in charge of altering the X11 screen saver timeout. Tools like xscreensaver or xset can be used to change the default value set by the X server.

Now, xscreensaver has been replaced with light-locker in Xubuntu 14.04. On top of that, the Xubuntu team has included a simple GUI settings application (Light Locker Settings). It allows the user to change settings related to screen locking and blanking [1].

The bottom line is that the bug described in this report is actually a feature request, so it is unlikely that the change will be backported to a previous Xubuntu release. However, you can upgrade to a newer xfce4-power-manager version by following the advice in comment #57.

[1] http://smdavis.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/light-locker-settings1.png

Hi Thaddaeus,

I appriciate that this issue may be fixed using xfce-power-manager-1.4 however only version 1.2 is available to Xubuntu 14.04 LTS users. You say to install the latest version from xubuntu-staging, but it specifically states on the page you linked to "Please DO NOT consider this PPA a main, stable source for the packages.". For LTS users it is NOT an acceptable workaround to install from unstable PPA's.

Is it possible to add the xubuntu-staging PPA, but allow it to only use it for the xfce4-power-manager application? If so perhaps you could detail these steps as I am not sure how to do this.

Otherwise, as you mentioned earlier this fix would not qualify to be added as a backport (as it doesn't specifically add a new feature), would it qualify to be updated as a Stable Release Update? I would have thought it would come under "Bugs which do not fit under above categories, but (1) have an obviously safe patch and (2) affect an application rather than critical infrastructure packages (like X.org or the kernel)".

As for my experiance with this bug, I can prevent the screen blanking using:

xset s noblank

or delay it using

xset s 0 6000

where 6000 is the screen blank delay in seconds.

However, this change does not persist after a reboot or system hibernation. My suscpicion is that a settings application is resetting xset values on log in, though I cannot confirm this.

For completeness, my Light Locker and Power Manager settings:
http://imgur.com/BeHv6Q0
http://imgur.com/VykzUbN

how do i fix it in xubuntu lts 14.04.2 lts?

Sorry but im just starting out with linux , i have mint17.1 with the DE xfce and i too have the same problem ! , its really annoying and even though i have read every single comment (that go back years) its all just to much for me to figure how exactly how i stop this darn screen going to sleep every 10 mins.

Yes iv used xset s off but it only comes back after reboot.

Please could someone explain how i fix it since you say its been fixed already. Im quite confused :-/

Thank you.

In Light Locker, just move the arrow in "Blank screen after" as far to the right as possible.

Spent days trying to fix this, looked at loads of solutions, and then finally found how to fix it.
I have an install of LXLE, and after switching every screensaver
setting off still got the locked screen after exactly 10 minutes...

Simply go into Synaptic and uninstall "xautolock", then reboot...
problem solved for me!

I believe the problem is with the Screensaver Preference Panel and not the Power Manager.

On the Screensaver Preferences.. 'Activate screensaver when computer is idle' Button when switched OFF, does not seem to work.. so beneath, where it states: Regard the computer as idle after: 5 minutes -- is still set for 5 minutes.

xset q | grep -A 2 "Screen Saver:"
timeout: 300

I have set my idle to 600 --10Hours

even then my timeout returns 28800 for some reason..(maybe there is a limit)