<NO LONGER Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

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Huecuva
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<NO LONGER Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by Huecuva »

So I'm using Mint 19 with Cinnamon 3.8.9. I have my screensaver set to activate after 15 minutes with a 30 second delay to lock after the screensaver activates. When I first installed this, I recall that it worked except when I had Kodi open in full screen. Or maybe just when I had it open at all. I figured "Okay, media program preventing screensaver. That's fine." Now I don't know if there have been updates or something that changed things, but my computer never locks anymore, even if Kodi isn't running at all. I can leave the thing alone for hours and come back, turn my monitor on and there's my desktop, completely unlocked. I honestly don't even know if the screensaver even activates. I will update this thread when I determine the answer to that question. I recall having a similar issue with Cinnamon in Mint 18 as well. Why does Cinnamon always have lockscreen issues? Does anyone know how to solve this?

Thanks.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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smurphos
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Re: Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver

Post by smurphos »

There has been a recent update to Cinnamon-Screensaver. This was to fix a bug with power management setting related to closing a laptop-lid not being honoured and causing unwanted locking for some users.

Some quick troubleshooting tests.

For troubleshooting purposes temporarily set your Screensaver settings to 1 minute and lock immediately. Does that work?
Also test 1 minute and lock after 15 seconds. Does that work?

if not...

Does the keyboard shorcut Ctrl-Alt-L lock your session?

If not does

cinnamon-screensaver-command -l from the terminal lock the screen. If not does it produce any error messages.
For custom Nemo actions, useful scripts for the Cinnamon desktop, and Cinnamox themes visit my Github pages.
Huecuva
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Re: Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver

Post by Huecuva »

Hey smurphos, thanks for the response. To answer your questions, the screensaver does not even activate at all. Needless to say, neither does the screen lock whether I have it set to lock immediately or after 15 seconds. Ctrl-Alt-L does work, however.
Last edited by Huecuva on Sun Oct 21, 2018 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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smurphos
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Re: Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver

Post by smurphos »

Try the terminal command as well.
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Huecuva
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Re: Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver

Post by Huecuva »

The terminal command also works.
Huecuva
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Re: Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver

Post by Huecuva »

You know, now that I notice it, I have my power settings set to turn the display off after 30 minutes and it doesn't do that, either.
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Re: Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver

Post by smurphos »

A few other things to try.

Any ownership issues in your home? Does find $HOME ! -user $USER return any output? If so run sudo chown -R $USER:$USER $HOME to correct. Reboot - tweak some settings for the Screensaver (and/or Power Settings) Does it make any difference?

Do the issues also occur if you try a new user account?

Do you routinely leave a menu open (application, context or panel) when leaving the computer - there is a known bug that will prevent the screensaver kicking in if there is a an open menu on the screen.

A reinstall might help - apt reinstall cinnamon-screensaver

A search through the logs may be enlightening - journalctl | grep cinnamon-screensaver

Finally - killing the screensaver and launching in debug mode might produce some useful output.

cinnamon-screensaver-command -e && cinnamon-screensaver --debug
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Huecuva
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Re: Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver

Post by Huecuva »

Thank you very much, smurphos. I tried that find $HOME ! -user $USER command and it did spit out some stuff. I then used your suggested fix: sudo chown -R $USER:$USER $HOME. It did its thing and then I tried the first command again to which there was no longer any response. I rebooted and it seems to have rectified the issue. I still haven't tested to see if the display will power off after 30 minutes, but I don't see why it wouldn't, now. It seems like it would be a related issue. I'll let you know if it doesn't, though.
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Re: <Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by smurphos »

No worries you are welcome - it might have been ~/.config/dconf/user under wrong ownership - its the backend settings database.
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Re: <Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by Huecuva »

I see. Interesting. Well, the monitor seems to be getting turned off when it should be. Everything's working as it should, now. Thanks again, mate.
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Re: <Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by Huecuva »

I didn't want to start a new thread for this so I dragged up this old one. I've altered the title.

This issue is persisting. The chown command suggested by smurphos still fixes this issue, but it doesn't last. Within days, Cinnamon stops locking when left alone. Even though the find command yields no results, I decided to try the chown command anyway. The lock screen started working properly but just a few days later it was no longer locking. It's kind of annoying to have to keep running that chown command. Does anyone know why this might keep recurring and why it's happening if the find command doesn't find anything and why the chown command is temporarily fixing it?

Thanks.
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Re: <NO LONGER Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by smurphos »

Next time it happens try this variation of the chown command. It should report back anything it's actually changed. If it fixes the issue albeit temporarily but doesn't report back anything that would be very odd. If it does report something please paste that back to your next reply. That should give a clue as to what is causing the issue for your machine.

Code: Select all

sudo chown -Rc $USER:$USER $HOME
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Re: <NO LONGER Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by Huecuva »

I ran the chown command last night and it didn't seem to actually fix the issue even temporarily, as it wasn't locked today when I got home from work.

I just ran that -Rc variation on the chown command and it sure did spit out some feedback. Way too much to post in any form. I think it changed the owner of everything in the user home folder (including everything on a mounted NTFS storage drive) from user:root to user:user. I'm not sure why that was necessary as the chown command I ran last night should have already done that. Does something keep changing the group ownership of my home folder to root? Why would it do that?

Actually on closer examination it seems the only thing it changed the ownership of was the contents of the mounted NTFS storage drive.
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Re: <NO LONGER Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by smurphos »

Huecuva wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 7:32 pm I ran the chown command last night and it didn't seem to actually fix the issue even temporarily, as it wasn't locked today when I got home from work.

I just ran that -Rc variation on the chown command and it sure did spit out some feedback. Way too much to post in any form. I think it changed the owner of everything in the user home folder (including everything on a mounted NTFS storage drive) from user:root to user:user. I'm not sure why that was necessary as the chown command I ran last night should have already done that. Does something keep changing the group ownership of my home folder to root? Why would it do that?

Actually on closer examination it seems the only thing it changed the ownership of was the contents of the mounted NTFS storage drive.
I don't think the NTFS partition ownership would be a factor but you might want to review how you mount it to avoid the issue of it being mounted with root ownership in the first place - viewtopic.php?f=50&t=289465
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Huecuva
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Re: <NO LONGER Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by Huecuva »

I don't think the NTFS drive should be a factor, either. And it is mounted and assigned under the ownership with UID=myusername in the fstab at startup. Should I also add gid? is that a thing or is it something else? Also, the computer hasn't been rebooted since the last time I ran the chown command.

However, that seems to be irrelevant as it still was not locked when I got home from work today. There must be something else preventing the machine from locking. I have Kodi open, but it is not full screen. I'm pretty sure I've tried closing it and it still doesn't lock properly, but I will try it again.

EDIT: Apparently GID is a thing.
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Re: <NO LONGER Solved> Mint 19 with Cinnamon doesn't lock on screensaver,

Post by Huecuva »

Well, now it seems to be locking. That's weird. I'll post if anything changes.
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