gnome screensaver activation is hindered by unobscure routine

This patch can help to fix this issue.

I also prepare ppa:fourdollars/gnome-screensaver.

Consolidating this bug into one report. Ayan, can you take a look at the patch in comment #1 to see if this is something that might make sense for a SRU, or submission upstream?

Cheers,
Chris

I'm experiencing the same problem, using the Classic Desktop without effects. I'm not sure what gave rise to this problem, b/c my system only started demonstrating this problem recently. I checked the output of gnome-screensaver --no-daemon --debug and see the same thing as Robert.

I am experiencing this problem on Natty. I recently re-installed, but initially didn't experience the problem. It has only been the last few days that this very annoying bug has hit me. I have tried lots of "fixes" but still have screen to black to full desktop all the time.

Jason: Do you have a screensaver password that activates immediately when the screensaver activates? If you do, then instead of deactivating the screensaver, it will simply pop up the password dialog box.

In either case, did you apply my patch listed in the Gnome Bugzilla linked to this bug, and rebuild the screensaver?

http://bugzilla-attachments.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=187479

That patch *does* fix this bug. I cannot understand why the patch was not accepted, or at least, why no Gnome or Ubuntu developers even commented on it. It is a relatively simple explanation and solution that any developer should be able to confirm.

This is the same patch as the one I submitted to the Gnome Bugzilla. Since no one ever commented on it there or here, I am explicitly submitting it here for consideration.

I'll see if I can get this some attention on Tuesday.

I've recently came across this problem too. I was installing some Unity quicklists using Confity 1.6 and then the problem started. Maybe God knows if Confity is the cause of my problems. Also (and please forgive me for asking), how do I apply this patch? I tried the repo posted above (posted by Shih-Yuan Lee) but that did not work for me. Thanks in advance!

Truth be told, I never understood what Shih-Yuan Lee's patch did or how it addressed this bug. My patch is much simpler, but it only addresses a symptom of the bug (the unobscure routine deactivating the screensaver) rather than the underlying bug (why is the obscure/unobscure routine called at every invocation of the screensaver?). Of course, a patch of a particularly annoying symptom is still better than no patch for the underlying cause...

To apply the patch, you must use the Debian package building system to rebuild the gnome-screensaver package. It's very easy to apply if you are familiar with that system, but it's beyond the scope of this bug tracker to provide directions.

Since Ubuntu 11.10 effectively eliminated gnome-screensaver, I no longer see this bug in that release.

Marking invalid since this was filed against 11.10, and 11.10 eliminated gnome-screensaver.

While Oneiric no longer makes sense here we do have potential fix candidates for Natty. Adding a Natty task here.

no longer effecting hwe

I have marked this bug invalid because the bug exists (might still exist) in a package that is no longer used by default in current Ubuntu releases.

Huh? gnome-screensaver is still used by default in Ubuntu.

Let me rephrase: the mechanism by which this bug exists is no longer in current releases of Ubuntu by default (Unity does its own thing to activate screen blanking/lockout), and it is crystal clear that in older releases of Ubuntu, this is a "Won't fix".