How do I avoid the Redmond method ...

[Jay Ridgley]

On 03/21 Patton Echols wrote:

On 03/21/2008 08:14 AM, Corey Bettenhausen wrote:

> > Jay Ridgley wrote:
> >   
>   
>> >> What task do I need to start, restart, reload, run, configure or load 
>> >> that will allow the screensaver to resume the normal display activities? 
>> >> I hate having to reboot for this...
>> >>     
>>     
> > I'm not running 6.06, but on my system gnome-screensaver is running.  Do 
> > a "ps aux| grep screen" in a terminal and see if it is listed.  Not sure 
> > what could cause it to hang though.
> > Cheers,
> > -Corey
> >
> >   
>   

Ok, not an expert, but here's a couple of thoughts. 

So what I hear OP saying is: System is idle; Screensaver comes on and 
shows whatever pictures; couple of hours later, screen goes blank.  OP 
can wake up the system and use it, but the screen saver will not come on 
again.  Is that about right?

The screen blanking could be one of the power settings designed to do 
just that.  One solution might be to set screen blanking to "never"

As to the original question, after the system starts cleanly - when you 
think everything is running, use the command Corey suggested and see if 
gnome-screensaver is listed.  If it is some other screensaver, then 
adjust the following as needed.  Assuming it is there, wait until the 
behavior is exhibited again, so when you think it is broken and run the 
ps command again.  If the screensaver process is there the first time, 
and not the second, then try just starting it:
$gnome-screensaver

If it is there, but does not start, then (to  finally answer your 
question) try

$ killall gnome-screensaver; gnome-screensaver

Note: I have not tried this, and don't use 6.06.  YMMV and someone else 
may have better ideas.

-----


Folks,

Here is what I have discovered so far:

1. It does not appear to be a hardware related energy saver problem. The 
screen power indicator LED stays green & my settings in the BIOS appear 
to be correct. Since this function worked fine before going to 6.06 
(05.10 was former version) I don't think that has any bearing on the 
problem.

2. When the problem occurrs the gnome-screensaver task is running, 
however, if I bring up gnome-screensaver-preferences window
(System->Preferences->screensaver) the screen display window shows a 
blank screen. I can change the preference from random to any
other and it will display that one & if I return back to random it 
displays a random sample. I then exited the preferences display.

3. If I leave things alone at this point the gnome-screensaver does not 
change the display.

4. Last thing I tried was to kill the gnome-screensaver and then restart 
it; THAT SEEMS TO WORK!

Earlier today I rebooted and things worked; but while I have been 
researching this item I have swapped between the two users I have 
defined on this system and the screen saver went away, up until then I 
THINK it was working ok... I will try doing that again in the next 
couple of days and follow up with another post.

It does appear that by working with the preferences and killing and 
restarting the screen saver I am able to avoid a reboot (the Redmond 
method).

Thanks for the suggestions...

Cheers,
Jay
-- 


Jay Ridgley
jridgley2 at austin.rr.com
Registered Linux User ID - 9115
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