xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

ReD55 · 2025-08-05 14:29:28

Problem:
Your screen is locked and you get

Authentication initialization failed

or

Authentication password initialization failed

A quick workaround is to Ctrl-Alt-F2 to save your current running programs, login as root or your user and kill the xscreensaver process and then continue with the fix.

Fix:
if the file doesnt exist create

/etc/pam.d/xscreensaver

add

auth      include system-auth
account   include system-auth

Reason:
As Xscreensaver now exclusively works with pam this is necessary.
The pam requirement is stated here Xscreensaver man page
and the required config format and options PAM config docs

seth · 2025-08-05 14:59:55

Why would that file w/ that effective content not exist?

pacman -Qikk xscreensaver

Generally, and if this was actually a thing, please don't post PSAs in the forum where they get lost forever.
This kind of stuff *would* mandate a bug report or otherwise an entry in the wiki.
(But, again: the suggested pam config is part of the xscreensaver package)

waltibaba · 2025-12-15 22:47:05

This might have seemed irrelevant at that time but apparently the recent packaging of xscreensaver 6.13-1 (December 14 2025, around 1 day ago) updated that pam.d file to no longer include the "account" rule.
I could no longer unlock my session and had to kill xscreensaver from another tty.
Just to sanity check, I reviewed the previous package's solution (version 6.10-1-1 from June 2025) in the archlinux archive, that also used to include an "account" line.

auth       include	system-auth
account include system-auth

among lots of other commented-out lines, while the current file in its entirety is:

#%PAM-1.0
auth       requisite    pam_nologin.so
auth       include      system-local-login

I'm not sure whether this is an idiosyncracy of my use (no login manager), so I'm hesitant to mark it as a bug, just apparently a non-working default for this usage.

alexdw_mgzi · 2025-12-15 23:28:21

I can confirm that replacing the contents of /etc/pam.d/xscreensaver with the snippet provided by waltibaba fixes the issue with not being able to unlock via xscreensaver-auth. (Tested with xscreensaver 6.13-1, pam 1.7.1-1, lightdm 1:1.32.0-6, xfwm4 4.20.0-2.)

I'm not sure how idiosyncratic my own set-up is here, using lightdm as a display manager with xfce, and no real Gnome/KDE services to speak of.

seth · 2025-12-15 23:39:55

Somethings' fishy here.
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … ote_376841

frostbittenking · 2025-12-16 12:24:08

> I'm not sure how idiosyncratic my own set-up is here, using lightdm as a display manager with xfce, and no real Gnome/KDE services to speak of.

I'm running probably a similar idosyncratic setup: lxdm, xscreensaver, awesome-wm. Workaround for me is the same to kill xscreensaver.
I just downgraded to the old version, gonna test it later, when I'm on break from work in the afternoon (quite annoying that it affects my work setup).

seth · 2025-12-16 14:30:36

The problem isn't being sympathetic to idiots - there's probably some bug in the Makefile, see the arch gitlab discussion.
It's unlikely that this pam config is intended.

frostbittenking · 2025-12-18 16:13:18

seth wrote:

The problem isn't being sympathetic to idiots - there's probably some bug in the Makefile, see the arch gitlab discussion.
It's unlikely that this pam config is intended.

Que?

seth · 2025-12-18 16:19:14

The problem isn't being sympathetic to idiots

Me having fun with words.

there's probably some bug in the Makefile

should be obvious

see the arch gitlab discussion.

https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … ote_376841

It's unlikely that this pam config is intended.

Because it's probably a bug and the config doesn't make much sense.

frostbittenking · 2025-12-19 10:30:32

> Me having fun with words.
Ok . Your humor went over my head.
..
The rest is clear. For now I'm using the old xscreensaver version, and it works again.

barthel · 2026-03-08 10:41:46

As of today, 6.14-1 is still in testing. For my own sanity, I made copies of the /etc/pam.d/xscreensaver files from 6.10.1-1 and 6.13-1, then edited the active file as suggested by ReD55 above. (IOW, the uncommented lines from the 6.10 version...)

#%PAM-1.0
auth        include      system-auth
account     include      system-auth

With that correction, 6.13 works as before.

Side note: When xscreensaver first activated with the corrupt PAM configuration, I thought I was seeing a new hack, similar to GL Slideshow, but not using my configuration... But only my preferred modes were enabled... Weird, but not weird enough to spending any more time tracking it down.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-08-05 14:29:28

xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#2 2025-08-05 14:59:55

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#3 2025-12-15 22:47:05

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#4 2025-12-15 23:28:21

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#5 2025-12-15 23:39:55

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#6 2025-12-16 12:24:08

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#7 2025-12-16 14:30:36

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#8 2025-12-18 16:13:18

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#9 2025-12-18 16:19:14

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#10 2025-12-19 10:30:32

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

#11 2026-03-08 10:41:46

Re: xscreensaver update pam authentication breaking change

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