How to disable "screen blackening"

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-09-27 17:23:36

Good evening,

there is an issue, which I could not track down until now: When watching a video eg. on youtube, I am usually idle, regarding my input devices. However, the screen turns all black after approx. 5 minutes, forcing me to move the mouse or give another input in order to have the screen displaying the desktop again.

I find this 'feature' very annoying and would be grateful if anyone could tell me how to turn it off.

regards,
cg

pelle.k · 2007-09-27 17:40:34

It's called "blanking", and it's sort of a built in screensaver in xorg. You can have that as well as the "real" blanking where dpms turns monitor off.
control it with "xset", or with an "Option" stanza in xorg.conf.

fwojciec · 2007-09-27 21:50:50

Are you using mplayer and xscreensaver? Arch mplayer package is built with gnome screensaver patch which makes it possible for mplayer to stop the gnome screensaver while something is being played - because of this patch, however, mplayer can't control xscreensaver which I for example use.

I just recompile mplayer without the patch and then I can enable "stop xscreensaver" option in preferences and it all works as it should.

EDIT: Oh, wait, I guess I didn't read you post very carefully.... Nevermind

Last edited by fwojciec (2007-09-28 01:54:44)

Misfit138 · 2007-09-28 00:37:30

At the end of /etc/rc.sysinit is an option for blank time 15 minutes. Some people have said that changing this to zero works for them. It doesn't work for me. It just keeps going back to 15 minutes, even after I change it to zero. I had to add this to my xorg:
under section serverlayout

Option "BlankTime" "0"
Option "StandbyTime" "0"
Option "SuspendTime" "0"
Option "OffTime" "0"

This is the only thing that works for me. It should work for you. And in the meantime, can anyone tell me why my rc.sysinit keeps going back to the 15 minutes?!

byte · 2007-09-28 01:01:51

Because that file gets overwritten by every initscripts update. setterm has nothing to do with Xorg anyway.

Misfit138 · 2007-09-28 02:58:14

byte wrote:

Because that file gets overwritten by every initscripts update. setterm has nothing to do with Xorg anyway.

Well, every Arch install I have ever done, with or without X, goes blank after 15 minutes. It goes blank while I watch videos in X, or if I am sitting in the shell. xset never worked for me.
The only workaround I have found are the options I posted above, but if anyone has a cleaner suggestion, I am all ears.

theringmaster · 2007-09-28 14:09:24

this bugs me as well.

pelle.k · 2007-09-28 17:44:23

listen, "xset s" does essentially what gnome-screensaver does, and "xset dpms" what gnome-power-manager does. If you run those applications, xset will have no effect, since gnome deactivate all X preferences.
Also you shouldn't run xset as root. That rules out putting xset in rc.local or any other script run as root. use your .xinitrc or gnomes "session".

xset s off

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-11-03 19:52:29

Good evening,

there is an entry in the end of /etc/rc.sysinit which could be interesting in this regard.

# Screen blanks after 15 minutes idle time
/usr/bin/setterm -blank 15

Do you think that this entry causes the default blanking?

Misfit138 · 2007-11-04 01:18:15

chaosgeisterchen wrote:

Good evening,
there is an entry in the end of /etc/rc.sysinit which could be interesting in this regard.
# Screen blanks after 15 minutes idle time
/usr/bin/setterm -blank 15
Do you think that this entry causes the default blanking?

I posted this above:

Misfit138 wrote:

At the end of /etc/rc.sysinit is an option for blank time 15 minutes

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-11-04 10:06:36

Ah, sorry, overread this one.

I'll try to apply it and will see if it works.

peets · 2007-11-04 12:53:36

You may want to remember this:

byte wrote:

Because that file gets overwritten by every initscripts update.

I'm not sure when initscripts are updated though.

Also, instead of calling setterm -blank 0, I just deleted the whole line. I haven't taken the time to test though (but my system boots fine)!

taz · 2009-03-05 14:58:49

my rc.sysinit doesnt have this,
but screen get's down after 15 min (

perbh · 2009-03-05 15:28:12

What about updating rc.sysinit in /etc/rc.local?
That should be the last thing that happens before the login prompt - and _after_ all other initscripts are finished.

Funnily enough, though, I dont have that entry in _my_ rc.sysinit ... wonder where it comes from.

<edit>
sorry - head under my arm (as usual)
use the 'setterm' command in /etc/rc.local
</edit>

Last edited by perbh (2009-03-05 15:59:44)

broch · 2009-03-05 19:42:28

blanking X and blanking terminal are two different things. It looks like these are mixed up (as someone pointed up already).

# Screen blanks after 15 minutes idle time
/usr/bin/setterm -blank 15

is used to set terminal blanking (not X).
Deleting this line will simply keep defaults. This is used by command line freaks who hate X!
But obviously it does not affect X session.

if one enter
in the terminal window (from x session)
xset s off
this will work only per one session. gnome manager is invoking this per each session

to see all xset options run in terminal
xset q
this is going to be really messy as you will see a lot of
"Xlib: extension "Generic Event Extension" missing on display ":0.0"." stupid errors

if you want to see what you can modify per session
run
xset
without any flags

Last edited by broch (2009-03-05 19:44:19)

marduik · 2009-03-06 04:00:54

chaosgeisterchen wrote:

Good evening,
there is an issue, which I could not track down until now: When watching a video eg. on youtube, I am usually idle, regarding my input devices. However, the screen turns all black after approx. 5 minutes, forcing me to move the mouse or give another input in order to have the screen displaying the desktop again.
I find this 'feature' very annoying and would be grateful if anyone could tell me how to turn it off.
regards,
cg

Personally I go to system settings, then Display then Power Control. Enable power management. Then put them all to disabled hit apply. done.

Now everytime I update video drivers i have to do it again. but that solved my blanking issue. Hate when a movie goes blank but i hear the sound, its always at a good part

Gen2ly · 2009-08-18 19:24:50

I get this behavior all the time. Just started popping up again after update so I built this script to toggle it on and off:

#!/bin/bash
# screenblank - Toggle screen blanking/powersaving on/off

XBLANKTEXT=$(xset -q | grep timeout | awk '{printf $2}')
DPMSTEST=$(xset -q | grep "  DPMS is Enabled")

if [[ "$XBLANKTEXT" -gt 0 ]] || [[ -n "$DPMSTEST" ]]; then
  xset s off; xset -dpms
  echo " Disabled screen blanking and powersaving"; else
  xset s on; xset +dpms
  echo " Enabled screen blanking and powersaving"
fi

Last edited by Gen2ly (2009-08-18 19:27:12)

kowalski · 2009-08-18 21:11:18

Doesn't one need an 'Option "DPMS" "True"' entry in the monitor section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to enable dpms features?

Edit: At least I do ;-)

Last edited by kowalski (2009-08-18 21:11:31)

YAOMTC · 2010-03-07 21:26:46

I still can't change this. Why didn't 'xset s off' work?

SnapShot · 2010-03-07 21:44:49

Maybe this is related to this issue http://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2009/08/ … of-bodges/

Quote from the end of the article:

If you are trying to run gnome-power-manager with a broken version of X, gnome-power-manager will warn you in the notification area. Distributors will just need to patch xserver with my previous patch and the current one to have all the issues resolved with git master.

This blog entry is 6 months old and I don't know if these patches are included in the latest version of X server or if X server in Arch is patched. I know I've been getting warnings from gnome power manager about this in the notification area recently.

Last edited by SnapShot (2010-03-07 21:46:10)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-09-27 17:23:36

How to disable "screen blackening"

#2 2007-09-27 17:40:34

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#3 2007-09-27 21:50:50

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#4 2007-09-28 00:37:30

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#5 2007-09-28 01:01:51

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#6 2007-09-28 02:58:14

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#7 2007-09-28 14:09:24

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#8 2007-09-28 17:44:23

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#9 2007-11-03 19:52:29

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#10 2007-11-04 01:18:15

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#11 2007-11-04 10:06:36

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#12 2007-11-04 12:53:36

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#13 2009-03-05 14:58:49

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#14 2009-03-05 15:28:12

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#15 2009-03-05 19:42:28

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#16 2009-03-06 04:00:54

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#17 2009-08-18 19:24:50

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#18 2009-08-18 21:11:18

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#19 2010-03-07 21:26:46

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

#20 2010-03-07 21:44:49

Re: How to disable "screen blackening"

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