Re: Screensaver issues after distro upgrade (SOLVED)

2019-09-11 Thread Christopher David Howie
On 9/11/2019 7:01 PM, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> Well, I noticed that issue after I recently upgraded to Stretch, but not
> had it in Jessie. Whatever. Having in mind that Stretch is oldstable for
> a while, and you had the issue in Buster, it seems that the issue goes
> through the versions intact :-)

Yes, light-locker has not changed much recently and the threads I was
able to find on the issue spanned many years and Linux distributions.
Debian is not unique to have this problem.

I believe this is the relevant bug.  It may be useful to add any
additional information beyond what has already been reported there:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=913062

Perhaps the problem is hardware-specific.  It doesn't seem like everyone
has this problem, so there must be something our systems all have in
common to trigger this.

-- 
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Re: Screensaver issues after distro upgrade

2019-09-11 Thread Miroslav Skoric

On 9/11/19 12:12 AM, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:



I saw the same problem when I tried lightlocker after upgrading to XFCE 
4.14, so I went back to good old xscreensaver. Ugly bitmaps fonts and no 
theming, but secure and reliable. There is a new locker in XFCE, but 
there have been reports of segfaults causing uncommanded unlock, so I 
consider it too vulnerable for use. There is a bug report.


Kind regards,



Ben, I just removed light-locker, and the problem disappeared. I did not 
reinstall xscreensaver (yet). Looks as if it is not required in my 
environment (MATE).


Regards,

Misko



Re: Screensaver issues after distro upgrade (SOLVED)

2019-09-11 Thread Miroslav Skoric

On 9/10/19 8:11 PM, Christopher David Howie wrote:


On 9/10/19 4:30 AM, Miroslav Skoric wrote:

After upgrading the old laptop from Jessie to Stretch, I noticed that
the screensaver in Mate environment does not work for me as before. For
example, when the screen goes black after some time of inactivity, for
returning back it is not enough just to touch the touchpad or press any
key. Instead, pressing any key or touching the touchpad makes the screen
just some 1% lighter than the full black (or better to say, it remains
99% black). However, the last working GUI does not return.


I have this same issue with the default configuration of XFCE on Buster,
where the problem was not present on Stretch.



Hi Chris,

Well, I noticed that issue after I recently upgraded to Stretch, but not 
had it in Jessie. Whatever. Having in mind that Stretch is oldstable for 
a while, and you had the issue in Buster, it seems that the issue goes 
through the versions intact :-)



Is light-locker installed, and do you use lightdm?  light-locker appears
to be the source of this issue.  Googling "light-locker black screen"
returns dozens of posts across many sites complaining about the same
problem.



Yes, light-locker was installed, and as soon as I removed it the problem 
disappeared. By the way, lightdm is still there, however I am unsure 
about the display manager in current use because it is the system that 
started initially from Squeeze several years ago, and included Gnome, 
KDE, LXDE, and XFCE (and I added MATE in Wheezy I think). Before the 
last dist-upgrade I removed KDE because I used it at least.



I resolved this issue by removing light-locker and installing
xscreensaver instead.  Note that this required removing a few
metapackages, and then marking the dependent packages that I wanted to
keep as manually installed to prevent apt from removing most of my
desktop tools.



Well, in trying solution for this issue, I removed xscreensaver 
yesterday. So it disappeared from MATE's menu System > Preferences > ... 
but that did not solve the problem.


Nevertheless now I only have one instance of screensaver preferences in 
MATE's System > Preferences > Look and Feel > Screensaver. It works well 
for now. I'll observe its behaviour, and report again if it is not good.


Thank you for help!

Misko



Re: Screensaver issues after distro upgrade

2019-09-10 Thread Ben Caradoc-Davies

On 11/09/2019 06:11, Christopher David Howie wrote:

On 9/10/19 4:30 AM, Miroslav Skoric wrote:

After upgrading the old laptop from Jessie to Stretch, I noticed that
the screensaver in Mate environment does not work for me as before. For
example, when the screen goes black after some time of inactivity, for
returning back it is not enough just to touch the touchpad or press any
key. Instead, pressing any key or touching the touchpad makes the screen
just some 1% lighter than the full black (or better to say, it remains
99% black). However, the last working GUI does not return.

I have this same issue with the default configuration of XFCE on Buster,
where the problem was not present on Stretch.
Is light-locker installed, and do you use lightdm?  light-locker appears
to be the source of this issue.  Googling "light-locker black screen"
returns dozens of posts across many sites complaining about the same
problem.
I resolved this issue by removing light-locker and installing
xscreensaver instead.  Note that this required removing a few
metapackages, and then marking the dependent packages that I wanted to
keep as manually installed to prevent apt from removing most of my
desktop tools.


I saw the same problem when I tried lightlocker after upgrading to XFCE 
4.14, so I went back to good old xscreensaver. Ugly bitmaps fonts and no 
theming, but secure and reliable. There is a new locker in XFCE, but 
there have been reports of segfaults causing uncommanded unlock, so I 
consider it too vulnerable for use. There is a bug report.


Kind regards,

--
Ben Caradoc-Davies 
Director
Transient Software Limited 
New Zealand



Re: Screensaver issues after distro upgrade

2019-09-10 Thread Christopher David Howie
On 9/10/19 4:30 AM, Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> After upgrading the old laptop from Jessie to Stretch, I noticed that
> the screensaver in Mate environment does not work for me as before. For
> example, when the screen goes black after some time of inactivity, for
> returning back it is not enough just to touch the touchpad or press any
> key. Instead, pressing any key or touching the touchpad makes the screen
> just some 1% lighter than the full black (or better to say, it remains
> 99% black). However, the last working GUI does not return.

I have this same issue with the default configuration of XFCE on Buster,
where the problem was not present on Stretch.

Is light-locker installed, and do you use lightdm?  light-locker appears
to be the source of this issue.  Googling "light-locker black screen"
returns dozens of posts across many sites complaining about the same
problem.

I resolved this issue by removing light-locker and installing
xscreensaver instead.  Note that this required removing a few
metapackages, and then marking the dependent packages that I wanted to
keep as manually installed to prevent apt from removing most of my
desktop tools.

-- 
Chris Howie
http://www.chrishowie.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers

If you correspond with me on a regular basis, please read this document:
http://www.chrishowie.com/email-preferences/

PGP fingerprint: 2B7A B280 8B12 21CC 260A DF65 6FCE 505A CF83 38F5


IMPORTANT INFORMATION/DISCLAIMER

This document should be read only by those persons to whom it is
addressed.  If you have received this message it was obviously addressed
to you and therefore you can read it.

Additionally, by sending an email to ANY of my addresses or to ANY
mailing lists to which I am subscribed, whether intentionally or
accidentally, you are agreeing that I am "the intended recipient," and
that I may do whatever I wish with the contents of any message received
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This overrides any disclaimer or statement of confidentiality that may
be included on your message.



Screensaver issues after distro upgrade

2019-09-10 Thread Miroslav Skoric

Hello,

After upgrading the old laptop from Jessie to Stretch, I noticed that 
the screensaver in Mate environment does not work for me as before. For 
example, when the screen goes black after some time of inactivity, for 
returning back it is not enough just to touch the touchpad or press any 
key. Instead, pressing any key or touching the touchpad makes the screen 
just some 1% lighter than the full black (or better to say, it remains 
99% black). However, the last working GUI does not return.


The only solution I found is to press Ctrl-Alt-F1 and there is another 
GUI login screen, and after login I am returned back to the last state 
of GUI I was working in.


Furthermore, if I do not perform Ctrl-Alt-F1 in a relatively short time 
after the screen went black (but after some 15-20 mins or so), 
Ctrl-Alt-F1 gives the GUI login prompt again but the touchpad is not 
responding to touching and no key from keyboard reacts (and the mouse 
pointer looks as 'frozen'). However, it is still possible to press the 
left key bellow the touchpad to continue with login.


Ctrl-Alt-F2 remains 99% black as described above, while Ctrl-Alt-F3 to 
Ctrl-Alt-F6 bring text CGI login prompt. I wonder whether all of that 
are normal conditions for Stretch.


Finally, if the laptop is continually active (means without any kind of 
idling where the screensaver activates), it works perfectly for hours or 
more.


Any comment?

Misko