Prevent screensaver when flash is running in linux

Question

I imagine that my problem is not unique to my circumstances, and I have been having it for some time.

I am running Arch Linux, and quite frequently watch videos, particularly flash, in fullscreen. However, eventually, the screensaver appears, and starts dimming the screen. I have the screensaver set to run whenever the computer is 'idle'. Does anyone know a way to either

• Stop the screensaver from appearing when in a flash video or watching other video?
• Stop the screensaver from appearing when a flash video or normal video is full-screened? Heck, even...
• Let the screensaver know that my machine is not idle when watching flash.

Answer 1

You can disable the screensaver by running xset s off.

Enable it again by writing xset s 5, where 5 is the number of seconds it takes your screensaver to come back on.

If you want to write a script, you could attempt to do something like this:

#!/bin/bash
# Wrapper around the main body to facilitate being run
# from a startup file like .xinitrc, ~/.config/autostart, ...

while :; do
    if pgrep xscreensaver >/dev/null; then
        METHOD="xscreensaver"
        pkill xscreensaver
    else
        METHOD="xset"
        xset s off
    fi

    # If you want to be really fancy:
    ## notify-send "Screensaver Disabled" $"The Flash plugin is running"

    while ps ax | grep libflashplayer.so >/dev/null; do
          sleep 1 # Sleep while waiting for Flash to exit
    done

    if [ "$METHOD" = "xscreensaver" ]; then
        xscreensaver &
    else
        xset s 30
    fi

    # If you want to be really fancy:
    ## notify-send "Screensaver Enabled" $"The Flash plugin has exited"

    sleep 30
done

---

At @snapfractalpop's request, a short use guide:

1. Put this somewhere in your home directory - it doesn't matter. You probably want to make a ~/bin directory if you don't have anywhere for personal scripts already. For the purpose of this explanation, I'll assume you put it in ~/bin/youtube-scrn-svr.sh.

2. chmod +x ~/bin/youtube-scrn-svr.sh or make it executable some other way.

3. Assuming your DE is one of the common ones (XFCE, GNOME, and KDE can load scripts this way), create a file called ~/.config/autostart/flash-screensaver.desktop and add the following to it.

   [Desktop Entry]
   Name=Flash Screensaver Disabler
   Exec=/home/WHATEVER_YOUR_USERNAME_IS/bin/youtube-scrn-svr.sh
   Terminal=false
   Categories=Network;
   StartupNotify=false
   

4. Try logging out and watching a suitably long video, and see if the screensaver is enabled.

Answer 2

Have you check this: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=130447

I made this some time ago and want to share. It's a Bash script that checks when you are watching flash videos fullscreen in Firefox and Chromium and prevents the screensaver and DPMS (turns off screen) from activating.