Running Gnome 3.28. I am having problems with screen blanking. More specifically, the screen is not blanking, and I cannot figure out how to get it to blank consistently anymore. (Sometime, years ago, I killed screen blanking completely, and no longer have any idea how I did it.) Throughout this, when I refer to blanking, I specifically want/prefer DPMS off behavior.
Setting "Blank Screen" in the "Power" section of gnome-preferences does nothing. xset q returns the following:
DPMS (Energy Star):
Standby: 0 Suspend: 0 Off: 0
DPMS is Enabled
Monitor is On
I can turn on screen blanking by using xset dpms 1200 2400 4800. This works. However, running any application that uses dbus to request inhibiting screen blanking (such as Youtube in chrome) causes the gnome power settings daemon to set these values back to zero, and never sets them back.
Tracing what is happening, starting, say, Youtube, sends an inhibit request to the SessionManager:
method call time=1533650079.657788 sender=:1.1216 -> destination=org.gnome.SessionManager serial=3 path=/org/gnome/SessionManager; interface=org.gnome.SessionManager; member=Inhibit
string "/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable"
uint32 0
string "Playing video"
uint32 12
signal time=1533650079.659445 sender=:1.14 -> destination=(null destination) serial=10679 path=/org/gnome/SessionManager; interface=org.gnome.SessionManager; member=InhibitorAdded
object path "/org/gnome/SessionManager/Inhibitor975"
method return time=1533650079.659468 sender=:1.14 -> destination=:1.1216 serial=10680 reply_serial=3
uint32 754926118
signal time=1533650079.659475 sender=:1.14 -> destination=(null destination) serial=10681 path=/org/gnome/SessionManager; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties; member=PropertiesChanged
string "org.gnome.SessionManager"
array [
dict entry(
string "InhibitedActions"
variant uint32 12
)
]
array [
]
This causes the gsd-power daemon to ask mutter to turn off power save mode:
method call time=1533650079.666562 sender=:1.36 -> destination=:1.16 serial=182 path=/org/gnome/Mutter/DisplayConfig; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties; member=Set
string "org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig"
string "PowerSaveMode"
variant int32 0
which works, turning the DPMS settings to zeros. When I close the youtube session, I get a matching uninhibit request:
method call time=1533650081.283611 sender=:1.1216 -> destination=org.gnome.SessionManager serial=4 path=/org/gnome/SessionManager; interface=org.gnome.SessionManager; member=Uninhibit
uint32 754926118
signal time=1533650081.286730 sender=:1.14 -> destination=(null destination) serial=10690 path=/org/gnome/SessionManager; interface=org.gnome.SessionManager; member=InhibitorRemoved
object path "/org/gnome/SessionManager/Inhibitor975"
method call time=1533650081.286768 sender=:1.14 -> destination=org.freedesktop.DBus serial=10691 path=/org/freedesktop/DBus; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus; member=RemoveMatch
string "type='signal',sender='org.freedesktop.DBus',interface='org.freedesktop.DBus',member='NameOwnerChanged',path='/org/freedesktop/DBus',arg0=':1.1216'"
method return time=1533650081.286778 sender=org.freedesktop.DBus -> destination=:1.14 serial=3032 reply_serial=10691
method return time=1533650081.286784 sender=:1.14 -> destination=:1.1216 serial=10692 reply_serial=4
signal time=1533650081.286789 sender=:1.14 -> destination=(null destination) serial=10693 path=/org/gnome/SessionManager; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties; member=PropertiesChanged
string "org.gnome.SessionManager"
array [
dict entry(
string "InhibitedActions"
variant uint32 4
)
]
array [
]
But nothing tells mutter to turn power save mode back on. What is normally supposed to do that, and what might prevent it from doing so?
SessionManager? I'm trying to determine what's keeping my screen from being blanked (superuser.com/questions/1393189/… )dbus-monitorprogram.