ubuntu 9.10 screen goes black

When the eternity screensavers/plugins should get triggered, the screen just goes black (other gnome screensavers work correctly). I don't know whether this is a bug or a configuration problem. I installed the i386.deb files from your download page http://parker1.co.uk/eternity/download.php and I do not have Xscreensaver installed. I have already tried to add the "VideoOverlay" and "OpenGLOverlay" lines to the Device section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf but to no avail.

I can play the .mpg files correctly with Totem in /usr/share/eternity-screensaver/...

I realized some funny behavior with the screensaver preferences: when I open System>Preferences>Screensaver, the preview window would be black if it is set to one of the four plugins "eternal ubuntu", "eternal ubuntu studio", "eternal damnation" or "eternity" (and also the full-screen preview wouldn't work this way, just black). If I then click on any other screensaver on the list and again choose one of the four eternity screensavers, the preview shows up and it then also works in fullscreen preview. There seems to be something wrong with the trigger mechanism.

dpkg -l | grep eternity
ii eternity-screensaver 0.3.4 Eternity MPEG Screensaver

dpkg -l | grep eternal
ii eternal-damnation 0.3 Eternity Screensaver Plugin - Ubuntu Satanic
ii eternal-studio 0.2.1 Eternity Screensaver Plugin - Ubuntu Studio
ii eternal-ubuntu 0.3.1 Eternity Screensaver Plugin - Ubuntu

uname -a

2.6.31-19-generic #56-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 28 01:26:53 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux running Gnome Desktop

Please let me know if you need additional data.

Thanks for your time and support, great screensavers btw!