Bug 1544297

Oh and this repeats on three machines.

Would you attach your ~/.xscreensaver ? Also would you try below?
 
- open a terminal
- once terminate xscreensaver with "$ xscreensaver -exit"
- launch xscreensaver with debug mode as "$ xscreensaver -debug -log debug.txt"
- wait 5 ~ 6 min
- then attach "debug.txt" on this bug?

Created attachment 1394785 [details]
.xscreensaver

(In reply to Mamoru TASAKA from comment #2)
> Would you attach your ~/.xscreensaver ? 

done

> Also would you try below?
>  
> - open a terminal
> - once terminate xscreensaver with "$ xscreensaver -exit"

No such animal:
$ xscreensaver -exit
xscreensaver: 20:25:49: unknown option "-exit".  Try "-help".

substitute:

$ ps aux | grep [s]creen
todd      5249  0.0  0.0 184456  5820 ?        S    16:20   0:02 xscreensaver -no-splash

$ kill -9 5249

And it stayed gone

> - launch xscreensaver with debug mode as "$ xscreensaver -debug -log
> debug.txt"

$ xscreensaver -debug -log debug.txt
xscreensaver: 20:28:43: logging to file debug.txt


> - wait 5 ~ 6 min


waiting start: 20:29   stop: 20:39

> - then attach "debug.txt" on this bug?

will do

Created attachment 1394786 [details]
xscreensaver -debug -log debug.txt

Oh, it was "$ xscreensaver-command -exit", but as you killed xscreensaver with SIGKILL, it is okay.

So xscreensaver says frequently
> xscreensaver: 20:41:08: ClientMessage DEACTIVATE received while inactive: resetting idle timer.

this means xscreensaver receives frequestly DEACTIVATE message with "$ xscreensaver-command -deactivate" command. I guess some other process (like mplayer or so) are repeatedly forking this "$ xscreensaver-command -deactivate" command.

Would you check
- what other process are running ("$ ps auwwx", for example)
- if you are watching some video or so, would you first try stopping it and try again?
- I guess mplayer GUI or so may have option "stop xscreensaver from blanking screen" option. If such GUI has something like such option, try disabling that?

I am turning off various programs to see who is doing it.  Is there a way to trace down the culprit?

Created attachment 1394792 [details]
ps auwwx

I have turned off everything I can think of to turn off.  VLC was paused, but I was listened to music without videos.  And turning vlc off did not help.

The attached ps auwwx is with everything off, except the terminal I used to make the ps.  Any thoughts as to how to trace the offender down?

Or after googling, I've found that XFCE (or more specific, xfce4-power-manager) has "presentation mode" and from the code it may be doing this. Would you try disabling this mode (if you are setting this mode)?

If the above does not help, you can survey what has sending -deactivate command by

- Once moving /usr/bin/xscreensaver-command to some other directory (such as /usr/libexec/xscreensaver/xscreensaver-command)
- as root, do

cat > /usr/bin/xscreensaver-command <<EOF
#!/bin/bash

if [ -n $HOME ] ; then 
  pstree -l -p > $HOME/xscreensaver-command-pid.txt
fi
/usr/libexec/xscreensaver/xscreensaver-command "$@"
EOF
chmod 0755 /usr/bin/xscreensaver-command

and again wait for 5 min, then check $HOME/xscreensaver-command-pid.txt

Awesome!  Thank you.  I am writing all this down.  (I also wrote you something off line.)

Okay, anyway thank you for reporting. I am glad that you can see cow bouncing again!