Live install screen-saver locked me out! [censored Martian curse-words!!]

[jharris1993]

Greetings!

Please note that I have already read the following posts in nauseating detail. . .

(Asking for password when booting from USB)
viewtopic.php?f=90&t=300838&p=1679108&h ... n#p1679108

(Unable to install 19.2 due to login loop. [SOLVED])
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=301414&p=1683579&h ... 1#p1683579

What I am doing:
I created a Mint 18.1 (cinnamon) UEFI boot stick using YUMI - which has always worked in the past. It works. I created it from a thoroughly validated ISO image. (I have the checksums for each and every ISO in the directory where the ISO's are, and I check them every time I use them, just in case.)

I booted my wife's computer with it, and it works like a charm! (Which, by the way, is what I've learned to expect from a distro like mint!)

I set a task that will take a loooooong while, but I need to monitor it periodically.

I made sure that the power options were set so that the computer wouldn't time-out on me and go to sleep while backing up data from my wife's system.

What I forgot to set was the screen-saver/screen lock settings. [insert more Martian curse-words here!]

Issue:
After a period of time, the system went into it's "screen-saver" (lock-screen) mode. I am now the proud owner of a system that - though it's still working - I cannot access.

At the "live user session" login request for a password, entering a blank password is not accepted because, (as we all know), blank passwords are not allowed.

After (somehow or other) getting to a screen that asks me for a username, I enter "mint" (all lower case, no quotes), and a blank password. Again I am told that either the username or password is incorrect.

I cannot just "reboot" and check this, that, or something else.

This leaves me with two nagging questions:

1. How do I get out of this and back into my wife's system without shutting it down and (potentially) destroying several hours worth of backup? Unfortunately, with the system the way it is, I have no idea what is going on, aside from the fact that the hard drive light on the external device is still blinking.

Likewise, I really want to be able to return to the original user-session where the backup operation is running so that I can monitor its progress.

2. Why, oh why, oh why does a "live install" system even think of defaulting to a locked-screen timeout anyway? (IMHO, this should be a usability bug against the live CD)

Any help would be most gratefully appreciated!

P.S.
Anything that may sound like sarcasm or angst is merely me smashing my head against the floor at 6:00 am EDT after spending most of the night trying to figure this out. I have nothing but the utmost respect for everyone who puts in HUGE amounts of time to make these things work. The fact that I might be a blithering idiot isn't YOUR fault!

[pbear]

2. Why, oh why, oh why does a "live install" system even think of defaulting to a locked-screen timeout anyway? (IMHO, this should be a usability bug against the live CD)

FWIW, I don't think I've seen that behavior since Mint 18.1. Oh wait, that's the one you used! But, yes, this has been fixed.

As for your immediate problem, ISTM you have two options: Abort the session using "raising elephants" or let it run until the external drive stops showing activity. Considering it's now several hours later, I'd be inclined to the first option, but your choice.

[jharris1993]

Update:

18.3 shows the screensaver settings, both set to "lock"

I haven't been able to get 19.2* to successfully boot off my thumb-drive, so I can't talk about that - yet.

*(or whatever the latest is,I downloaded it today)

I don't know about raising elephants, but I did do a force-shutdown by pressing the power button. The copy was incomplete, but I was able to finish it in Widows.

I will check the 19.n release and report results

[jharris1993]

19.2, Cinnamon, 32 bit still has the same issue. Screen saver is set to lock the machine down tight as a drum.

[pbear]

The setting is there, yes, but if you test I believe you will find it doesn't actually kick in. At least that's been my experience every time I've tested.* Just ran the test on that ISO, which I happen to have on hand because of an old thread. (My system is 64 bit, so I don't generally have 32 bit ISOs.) Ran the test in VBox, but that shouldn't make a difference.

* To be clear, I'm talking about live sessions, as in the OP. Once installed, the screen lock works unless disabled.

And, really, you should learn raising elephants. Forced shutdown can damage the file system.

[jharris1993]

On every live system I've seen, it will, repeat will, lock if you don't disable it.

I use a lot of 32 bit images because they work on both kinds of systems - primarily for testing and troubleshooting.

[pbear]

Shrug, I can't reproduce. Even burned the ISO to USB drive and booted on bare metal. Screensaver settings had no effect. Eventually Power Management blanked the screen, but the system didn't lock.

Anyhoo, you can file a bug report. (Complaining here does nothing.) They'll need detailed instructions on how to reproduce. If they' can't reproduce the error, nothing will happen. And, frankly, I doubt this will be considered a high priority bug. OTOH, the developers did make a decision to have the live session not lock, so that part at least won't be subject to debate.

[smurphos]

I also can't reproduce in a Mint 19.2 Cinnamon live session - sure the settings say lock the screen on screensaver activation is set but in the live session the screensaver does not actually lock the session.

It was fixed here in 2017 for the Cinnamon screensaver - https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-s ... 1d24f96445

I think that release would have been Mint 18.2....

[jharris1993]

Silly me. . . I believed that the UI knew what it was doing.


I've been busy this last few days updating my thumb drive images and I will test to confirm/disprove your results - and I will report my findings back here.

[BG405]

also can't reproduce in a Mint 19.2 Cinnamon live session

Neither can I. I do remember it happening on Mint 17.3 Cinnamon (32-Bit, which is what I used for the first month or so) but as far as I recall, it didn't actually lock the screen?

test to confirm/disprove your results

I tested LM19.2 Cinnamon 64-Bit, Live Session, in Virtualbox & left it sitting there for ages, no sign of a screensaver or lock kicking in even after an hour or so. Just forgot to post my reply here .. .. I'll try this with a 32-Bit ISO later & see if that's any different. I've cleared a bit of space so actually have room for a few more ISOs to test. (I got rid of most of my 32-Bit ISOs since I can run 64-Bit Virtual Machines on this system).