Screen doesn't recover from standby mode / white screen [Solved]

[markwiering]

Hello there,

I am using MX Linux 19 32-bit on my Fujitsu Siemens computer from 2003. Everything seems to work, but there is one big problem.

When my computer has been inactive for 10 minutes, the screen saver activates (blue squares). When I wait for another 5 minutes, the monitor goes into standby mode. That is normal. But, when I move my cursor again, my screen doesn't always recover. Sometimes, I get my screen back and I can continue working like I did, but sometimes, the screen becomes white and I only see my cursor. I can move my cursor and I can click on everything. I just don't see what I am clicking on. Whatever button I press, the screen remains white. The only option to continue from here is for me to forcefully shut down the desktop environment with Ctrl + Alt + Backspace. XFCE restarts and I can see everything again, but all applications that I had running are gone, meaning that I lose unsaved work this way.

The annoying this is: I cannot reproduce this error at will, since this only occurs sometimes. Sometimes, I come back to my computer after an hour and the screen displays normally. Sometimes, I come back after 15 minutes and I get the white screen. I cannot properly diagnose where things go wrong when the error occurs so randomly and inconsistently, but it does occurs, sometimes, when the screen saver is on or when the screen goes in standby mode.

I have never had this problem when running MX Linux 18 XFCE on this same PC.
I also didn't have this problem when signing in into the Fluxbox session instead of the XFCE one. I tried. Fluxbox always recovers from the screen saver or screen standby mode. This suggests that this could be an XFCE problem, but I cannot be sure. Maybe I was just being lucky when using Fluxbox?

Either way, this is very annoying behaviour. I want a reliable PC where I can safely prepare myself some meal and come back instead of having to fear that I will get the white screen.

Does any of you know how to solve this? Any help is greatly appreciated!

This is my quick system information:

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 4.19.0-25-686-pae i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc v: 8.3.0 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-25-686-pae 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.5 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.14.0 vt: 7 
           dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: MX-19.4_386 patito feo March 31  2021 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: FUJITSU SIEMENS product: SCENIC E v: N/A serial: <filter> 
           Chassis: type: 6 v: SCEE serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: FUJITSU SIEMENS model: D1534 v: S26361-D1534 serial: <filter> 
           BIOS: FUJITSU SIEMENS // Phoenix v: 5.00 R2.16.1534.01 date: 04/01/2005 
CPU:       Info: Single Core model: Intel Pentium 4 bits: 32 type: MCP arch: Netburst Smithfield 
           family: F (15) model-id: 4 stepping: 1 microcode: 17 cache: L2: 1024 KiB 
           flags: pae sse sse2 sse3 bogomips: 5585 
           Speed: 2793 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 2793 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected 
           Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Vulnerable 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion 
           Type: mds status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT disabled 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: mmio_stale_data status: Unknown: No mitigations 
           Type: retbleed status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 
           mitigation: Retpolines, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 82865G Integrated Graphics 
           vendor: Fujitsu Solutions Fujitsu-Siemens Scenic E300 i865GV driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:2572 class-ID: 0300 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.14.0 driver: loaded: intel 
           unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1440x900 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 380x238mm (15.0x9.4") 
           s-diag: 448mm (17.7") 
           Monitor-1: VGA1 res: 1440x900 hz: 60 dpi: 89 size: 410x260mm (16.1x10.2") 
           diag: 485mm (19.1") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 865G x86/MMX/SSE2 v: 1.3 Mesa 18.3.6 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801EB/ER AC97 Audio vendor: Fujitsu Solutions driver: snd_intel8x0 
           v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.5 chip-ID: 8086:24d5 class-ID: 0401 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k4.19.0-25-686-pae running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 12.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82547EI Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Fujitsu Solutions driver: e1000 
           v: 7.3.21-k8-NAPI port: 4000 bus-ID: 02:01.0 chip-ID: 8086:1019 class-ID: 0200 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Broadcom Limited BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN 
           vendor: Belkin F5D7001 v1000 driver: b43-pci-bridge v: N/A modules: ssb,wl port: 4000 
           bus-ID: 03:07.0 chip-ID: 14e4:4320 class-ID: 0280 
           Device-3: Sitecom Europe B.V. type: USB driver: r8188eu bus-ID: 2-2:3 
           chip-ID: 0df6:0076 class-ID: 0000 serial: <filter> 
           IF: wlan1 state: up mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-1: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 247.69 GiB used: 34.88 GiB (14.1%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Maxtor model: 6L200P0 size: 189.92 GiB 
           block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: <unknown> type: N/A 
           serial: <filter> rev: 1G10 scheme: MBR 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB model: USB DISK 2.0 size: 57.77 GiB 
           block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: N/A serial: <filter> rev: PMAP 
           scheme: MBR 
           SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure? 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 77.92 GiB size: 76.15 GiB (97.72%) used: 34.8 GiB (45.7%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 2 GiB used: 80.2 MiB (3.9%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 59.0 C mobo: 35.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): fan-1: 1320 fan-2: 1860 
           Power: 12v: 11.79 5v: 5.05 3.3v: N/A vbat: 0.91 
Repos:     Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 2143 lib: 1086 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://nl.mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:      Processes: 167 Uptime: 26m wakeups: 1 Memory: 993.7 MiB used: 796.7 MiB (80.2%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 
           alt: 8 clang: 7.0.1-8+deb10u2 Shell: quick-system-in default: Bash v: 5.0.3 
           running-in: quick-system-in inxi: 3.3.06 

[markwiering]

Can someone at least explain to me what is going wrong here?

As in, is this a faulty kernel setting? A screen locking mechanism that doesn't come off? Is this a XFCE thing? Kernel thing? Can I solve this problem with a kernel parameter? Or by changing certain settings? Or must I upgrade or downgrade certain packages?

Please, tell me.

[j2mcgreg]

Uninstalling the screen saver or disabling power manager are the workarounds.

My best advice is to say that it's time for you to upgrade to a newer version of MX.

[markwiering]

Uninstalling the screen saver or disabling power manager are the workarounds.

My best advice is to say that it's time for you to upgrade to a newer version of MX.

All right. I have disabled the screen lock in the XFCE4 Screensaver, by clicking on the screen lock tab and toggling off the uppermost option.
I will see if this solves my problem. Unfortunately, I cannot really test it, since this error occurs randomly, but time will tell whether or not this was the solution!

[j2mcgreg]

Uninstalling the screen saver or disabling power manager are the workarounds.

My best advice is to say that it's time for you to upgrade to a newer version of MX.

All right. I have disabled the screen lock in the XFCE4 Screensaver, by clicking on the screen lock tab and toggling off the uppermost option.
I will see if this solves my problem. Unfortunately, I cannot really test it, since this error occurs randomly, but time will tell whether or not this was the solution!

We know that the screensaver in MX 19.4 is / was buggy as hell. The only working solution is to uninstall it.

[markwiering]

Uninstalling the screen saver or disabling power manager are the workarounds.

My best advice is to say that it's time for you to upgrade to a newer version of MX.

All right. I have disabled the screen lock in the XFCE4 Screensaver, by clicking on the screen lock tab and toggling off the uppermost option.
I will see if this solves my problem. Unfortunately, I cannot really test it, since this error occurs randomly, but time will tell whether or not this was the solution!

We know that the screensaver in MX 19.4 is / was buggy as hell. The only working solution is to uninstall it.

All right. How do I uninstall it?

[j2mcgreg]

Look in MXPI for XFCE Sceensaver and then instruct MXPI to remove it.

[markwiering]

Look in MXPI for XFCE Sceensaver and then instruct MXPI to remove it.

Thank you. I did this. Hopefully, this error will be gone, now. I will mark your answer as "Solved" if the problem with the persistent white screen disappears.

And about your advice to upgrade: I actually had the newest MX Linux installed on this PC, MX Linux 23, but the RAM usage was unacceptable for me. It used 404 MB of my RAM when running idle. I found out that this was because of the 6.1 kernel, so I downgraded the kernel to antiX 4.9. Now the system only used 295 MB RAM on idle, but I couldn't connect to the Internet any more. Then I tried an older version of MX Linux that is still being updated, but also still uses kernel version 4 - MX Linux 19 - and this one uses 333 MB of my RAM on idle. Still more than 4.9, but significantly less than 6.1 - and everything works (Internet, printer, installing packages). Plus, MX Linux 19 boots faster than MX Linux 23, for some reason.

So, this is the ideal compromise for me. I want a lightweight system that just works, but that is also still being updated. That is: MX Linux 19.
And, the fact that MX Linux 19 comes with both XFCE and Fluxbox (giving me a choice when signing in) is also nice.

[j2mcgreg]

@markwiering wrote:

So, this is the ideal compromise for me. I want a lightweight system that just works, but that is also still being updated. That is: MX Linux 19.
And, the fact that MX Linux 19 comes with both XFCE and Fluxbox (giving me a choice when signing in) is also nice.

In that case I think that you should have a look at our sister distro, Antix. Antix is specifically aimed at older hardware like your Fujitsu.

https://antixlinux.com/

[LinuxNomad]

Hello y'all,
loaded MX23.3 from a Linux magazine DVD. Install took about an hour with updates.
tried the 'power management' trick and any thing else with display/screensaver.
I ended up using MXPackInstaller to load the 'XFCE4 desktop' - it wasn't checked as being installed.
{it never showed it being installed even afterwards !!!}
'
This seems to have solved it for me ......I didn't go back and check any of the other settings I had done.
but I only ran an app that wouldn't lose data - in case I had to do the C-A-Backspace !!!