Introduction

Bugs relating to screen locking issues typically fall into 4 categories:

1. Screensaver failing to start after the inactivity period times out
2. Screensaver failing to start when triggered manually
3. No password prompt after resuming from suspend/hibernation
4. Screensaver not hiding desktop and applications properly

How to file

Screen locking is a complex combination of many different packages, applications, and tools. For detailed information on how screen locking works, see DebuggingScreenLocking/HowScreenLockingWorks.

Important information

• What desktop environment does this problem occur in? (GNOME, XFCE, KDE, etc.)
• Do you use visual effects? (System/Preferences/Appearance/Visual Effects)
• Does the problem still occur if you use the "blank screen" screensaver?
• Is this a laptop or a desktop machine?
• How many monitors do you use?
• If it is a laptop, do you use an external screen?

Getting GConf values

The following command will dump all the screen-locking relevant settings that are stored in GConf:

$ gconftool-2 --dump /apps/gnome-screensaver /desktop/gnome/session /desktop/gnome/lockdown > screen-locking-debug.xml

Debugging procedure

to be completed

How to Triage

to be completed

Stock Reply

to be completed

How to Forward

If you think that a bug needs to be forwarding upstream, please have a look at Bugs/Upstream/GNOME where you can find instructions on how to do it.

Known bugs

List of known issues with gnome-screensaver:

Open

Closed

gnome-screensaver cannot grab keyboard or mouse

gnome-screensaver will not activate if an applications grabs keyboard and mouse focus.

This happens most noticeably with GTK context menus. If a context or panel menu is open, it grabs the pointer and gnome-screensaver never activates. It is also an issue for applications such as VNC, virt-manager, VirtualBox, Remote Desktop Viewer, Terminal Server Client, etc.

This problem is quite difficult to solve and there is currently no solution to this issue.

gnome-screensaver under XFCE (xubuntu, mythbuntu)

Under a XFCE desktop (including xubuntu and mythbuntu), gnome-screensaver never activates after the idle timeout expires.

gnome-screensaver in Karmic and later uses gnome-session's idle signal, instead of using it's own idle watcher. Xubuntu doesn't use gnome-session, so gnome-screensaver doesn't work properly.

Non-bugs

How to recognise common issues arising from hardware failures, common feature requests and other invalid bugs for this category. Advice how triage them and stock responses.

Also see

• DebuggingProcedures

• DebuggingScreenLocking/HowScreenLockingWorks

• DebuggingGNOMEPowerManager

CategoryBugSquad CategoryDebugging