Bug 2488676

Summary:	xfce4-screensaver idle/lock failure after xscreensaver removal due to orphaned autostart desktop entries
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Todd <ToddAndMargo>
Component:	xscreensaver	Assignee:	Mamoru TASAKA <mtasaka>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	44	CC:	cheese, epel-packagers-sig, jonathan, lkundrak, mtasaka
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Reopened
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	---
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2026-06-15 14:03:28 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Todd 2026-06-13 08:39:46 UTC

Fedora 44
Xfce 4.20
$ rpm -qa xfce4-screensaver
xfce4-screensaver-4.20.0-2.fc44.x86_64

This is ChatGPT write up of the issue (he is rather long winded, sorry):

Description

After removing the xscreensaver package, XFCE sessions can end up with leftover autostart desktop entries that are not cleaned up from:

/etc/xdg/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop
~/.config/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop

These orphaned entries conflict with xfce4-screensaver.

As a result, xfce4-screensaver appears to run normally and DBus service is available, but idle blanking and/or screen locking does not function correctly or is inconsistent.

Steps to reproduce
Install and enable xscreensaver
Install xfce4-screensaver

Remove xscreensaver:

sudo dnf remove xscreensaver
Log into XFCE session
Observe leftover autostart files remain in /etc/xdg/autostart/ or ~/.config/autostart/
Observe xfce4-screensaver is running but idle lock/blanking does not work correctly
Actual result
xfce4-screensaver runs and DBus service is active
Screensaver idle/lock behavior is broken or inconsistent
No warnings about conflicting screensaver autostart entries
Expected result
Removing xscreensaver should also remove/disable its autostart integration
xfce4-screensaver should function normally without manual cleanup
Or system should warn about conflicting screensaver session hooks
Workaround

Manually disabling leftover autostart entries restores correct behavior:

sudo mv /etc/xdg/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop.disabled
mv ~/.config/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop ~/.config/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop.disabled
Impact

Silent conflict between screensaver session hooks causes xfce4-screensaver to appear functional while idle locking/blanking fails, requiring manual cleanup to resolve.


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Mamoru TASAKA 2026-06-13 12:56:10 UTC

"dnf remove" are not expected to touch user directory. It can happen that user needs to do some "cleanup" manually.

Comment 2 Todd 2026-06-15 02:25:48 UTC

Maybe Xfce is doing adding
~/.config/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop

But to do it, it would have to  read

/etc/xdg/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop

which "remove" did not remove.   And is not in a user directory.

Please correct.

Comment 3 Todd 2026-06-15 05:56:39 UTC

were these also suppose to be removed when uninstall xscreensaver?

$ rpm -qa | grep -i xscreen
xscreensaver-gl-base-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64
xscreensaver-extras-base-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64
xscreensaver-gl-extras-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64
xscreensaver-base-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64
xscreensaver-extras-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64

Comment 4 Mamoru TASAKA 2026-06-15 06:04:27 UTC

Again, system wide dnf or rpm command are not supposed to remove files under ~/ (user home directory)

Maybe xfce session copies files under /etc/ to /home/user/.config, however anyway it is 
- not the fault of xscreensaver rpm, maybe DE can handle it.
- again dnf / rpm is not supposed to touch files under /home once it is copied.

Comment 5 Mamoru TASAKA 2026-06-15 06:09:39 UTC

So definitely xscreensaver does not copy the file, some desktop environment or so copies,
and `dnf remove` or `rpm -e` is not expected to remove the files under /home once copied.

Comment 6 Mamoru TASAKA 2026-06-15 06:20:59 UTC

In other words, once it is copied to under /home directory, dnf or rpm can no longer judge
if it is copied, or it is manually created by user because it is under user home directory.

So to prevent removing files "maybe" created by user, dnf or rpm is not expected to remove
files under user home directory.

Comment 7 Todd 2026-06-15 07:09:05 UTC

/etc/xdg/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop

was created by 

$ rpm -qf /etc/xdg/autostart/xscreensaver-autostart.desktop
xscreensaver-base-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64

It is not in the user's files

dnf remove did not remove 

xscreensaver-gl-base-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64
xscreensaver-extras-base-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64
xscreensaver-gl-extras-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64
xscreensaver-base-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64
xscreensaver-extras-6.15-1.fc44.x86_64

which are all dependent on having sscreensaver installed

Comment 8 Mamoru TASAKA 2026-06-15 14:03:28 UTC

Ah, "xscreensaver" rpm is a meta package which installs the 5 packages above, but $ dnf remove xscreensaver does not remove the 5 packages, it is expected.

You can do "$ sudo dnf remove xscreensaver\*"