xscreensaver problem?

[Woodsman7077]

I have a System 76 laptop that came with Pop_OS and I have it dual booting with MX linux.

I have xscreensaver installed on both Pop_OS and MX linux. It has been working fine on both distros for well over a year. About two weeks ago xscreensaver quit working on the Mx linux distro. It shows it is loaded and running and the settings are as below. The problem is that the screen saver doesn't start and the desktop just shows forever without blanking or without a screensaver. It still works fine on the Pop_OS distro.

The settings are:
blank after 5 min.
cycle after 3 min.
Power Management enabled:
Standby after 20 minutes
Suspend after 30 minutes
Off after 60 minutes
Fade to black when blanking
Install colormap

[Eadwine Rose]

Please post your Quick System Info using Copy for forum, thanks.

[Woodsman7077]

Code: Select all

Snapshot created on: 20211227_1259
System:    Kernel: 5.14.0-4mx-amd64 [5.14.16-1~mx21+1] x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.14.0-4mx-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.18.1 tk: Gtk 3.24.24 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.18.0 vt: 7 
           dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: MX-21.3_ahs_x64 Wildflower November 22  2021 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: System76 product: Lemur Pro v: lemp10 serial: <filter> Chassis: 
           type: 9 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: System76 model: Lemur Pro v: lemp10 serial: <filter> UEFI: coreboot 
           v: 2022-11-21_b337ac6 date: 11/14/2022 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 41.7 Wh (59.1%) condition: 70.6/73.9 Wh (95.5%) volts: 8.1 min: 7.7 
           model: Notebook BAT type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Charging cycles: 192 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
           arch: Tiger Lake family: 6 model-id: 8C (140) stepping: 1 microcode: A6 cache: 
           L2: 12 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 44851 
           Speed: 946 MHz min/max: 400/4700 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 946 2: 882 3: 841 4: 618 
           5: 933 6: 1002 7: 528 8: 609 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
           Type: mds status: Not affected 
           Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass 
           mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Enhanced IBRS, IBPB: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: i915 
           v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:9a49 class-ID: 0300 
           Device-2: Chicony Chicony USB2.0 Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 3-7:2 
           chip-ID: 04f2:b729 class-ID: fe01 serial: <filter> 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.14 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0 driver: 
           loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
           s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
           Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 158 size: 309x173mm (12.2x6.8") 
           diag: 354mm (13.9") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Xe Graphics (TGL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.5 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 
           chip-ID: 8086:a0c8 class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.14.0-4mx-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
           Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.19 running: no 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl port: 1000 
           bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:a0f0 class-ID: 0280 
           IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-1: lxcbr0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Intel type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-10:3 chip-ID: 8087:0026 
           class-ID: e001 
           Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 3.0 lmp-v: 5.2 
           sub-v: 200f hci-v: 5.2 rev: 200f 
           Info: acl-mtu: 1021:4 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch sniff link-mode: slave accept 
           service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 1.36 TiB used: 705.16 GiB (50.5%) 
           ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 maj-min: 179:0 model: LX512 size: 464.25 GiB block-size: 
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: SSD serial: <filter> scheme: MBR 
           SMART Message: Unknown smartctl error. Unable to generate data. 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-2: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WDS500G2B0C-00PXH0 
           size: 465.76 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 
           type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 233010WD temp: 33.9 C scheme: GPT 
           ID-3: /dev/nvme1n1 maj-min: 259:5 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB 
           size: 465.76 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 
           type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 2B2QEXM7 temp: 33.9 C scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 457.5 GiB size: 449.25 GiB (98.20%) used: 271.11 GiB (60.3%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/nvme1n1p2 maj-min: 259:7 
           ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 256 MiB size: 252 MiB (98.46%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat 
           dev: /dev/nvme1n1p1 maj-min: 259:6 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/nvme1n1p3 maj-min: 259:8 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Packages: 3511 note: see --pkg apt: 3500 lib: 1843 flatpak: 11 
           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/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye non-free contrib main
           2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-backports non-free contrib main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-earth-pro.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
           2: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bullseye ahs
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera-stable.list 
           1: deb https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/ stable non-free #Opera Browser (final releases)
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-stable.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https://repo.skype.com/deb stable main
Info:      Processes: 251 Uptime: 3h 56m wakeups: 102 Memory: 23.34 GiB used: 1.5 GiB (6.4%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 
           alt: 10 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.1.4-release inxi: 3.3.06 
Boot Mode: UEFI

[CharlesV]

What version of xscreensaver are you running?

And what mode and actual screen saver are you set to?

[Woodsman7077]

xscreensave 5.45 (08-Dec-2020)
AFIK that is the latest version in the MX repositories

Mode is Random Screen Saver with about 8 or 10 screensavers selected.

[CharlesV]

xscreensave 5.45 (08-Dec-2020)
AFIK that is the latest version in the MX repositories

Mode is Random Screen Saver with about 8 or 10 screensavers selected.

Actually, there is a xscreensaver version 6.06 in the Test Repo and that was what I was going to suggest. I had a few issues with xscreensaver on my laptops, after the 6.x kernel updates, and that xscreensaver 6.06 version resolved them.

Also, you might try changing to one screen saver instead of random and see if that resolves the issue. ( this resolved screensaver issues on several client machines for me - no clue why.)

[Woodsman7077]

I just upgraded to the newer version. Thank you. Maybe that will solve the problem.

[Stevo]

I would also suggest upgrading to the 6.1 long-term-support kernel in AHS, since the 5.14 is no longer supported and probably has security holes. The 6.1 gets regular updates in Debian 12, and then we backport those to MX 21 AHS repos.

[Woodsman7077]

Thank you.

[Woodsman7077]

I am still on the same version of MX-21 but have been using the new version of xscreensaver, but for some reason it will still not start on its own, only works when I use the preview function.
I also tried just using a single screensaver but that didn't solve the problem either.
If anybody has any other ideas, I would appreciate it.