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archaeon

Member

Registered: Today

Posts: 5  

Screen randomly turns black

Hello

I am new to the forum and just a "desktop-user".
My question might be easily answered, although I searched the forum and on the net, finding some answers but none of them worked for me so far.

I am running an old MacBookPro5,5, running devuan without any major problems for years. (Thanks for all your hard work.)

Now after upgrading to Excalibur my only problem is that my screen, while in the X environment, randomly (could be 1 minute, could be 20 minutes…) turns to black.
At this point all is still working perfectly fine in the background.

It mostly seems to happen when I do not use the touchpad or the keyboard for some time, although when watching a movie e. g. the screen also stays on.
Running a movie (mpv) seems to be the only way so far to keep the screen on.

In any other case, When I use the touchpad/keyboard again the black screen directly dissapears and everything is back to normal. Like a screensaver.

But I turned of the screensaver or any energy saving options.
At least anything I could find. It seems to be a GPU problem?

I can not  translate/understand the log entries and do not exactly know where to look at. So any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,047  

Re: Screen randomly turns black

Hello:

... new to the forum ...

Welcome to Dev1.

... my screen, while in the X environment, randomly (could be 1 minute, could be 20 minutes…) turns to black.

There is (in all probability) nothing wrong with your screen, it is just going to sleep.

Proof: it comes alive after touching the pad.

See this thread: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=4502

There may be an answer on how to stop this behaviour there.

Edit:
Please open a terminal and run ...

~$ xset q

... then post the output so we can see what is going on with the settings.

Specific to what is going on with your screen are these:

--- snip ---
Screen Saver:
  prefer blanking: xxx    allow exposures:  xxx
  timeout: xxx            cycle:  xxx
--- snip ---

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (Today 13:02:41)

archaeon

Member

Registered: Today

Posts: 5  

Re: Screen randomly turns black

Thank you Altoid for the welcome and the link.

I am reading this thread right now and later on trying to figure out if anythin of this is working for me.

archaeon

Member

Registered: Today

Posts: 5  

Re: Screen randomly turns black

$ xset q
Keyboard Control:
  auto repeat:  on    key click percent:  0    LED mask:  00000000
  XKB indicators:
    00: Caps Lock:   off    01: Num Lock:    off    02: Scroll Lock: off
    03: Compose:     off    04: Kana:        off    05: Sleep:       off
    06: Suspend:     off    07: Mute:        off    08: Misc:        off
    09: Mail:        off    10: Charging:    off    11: Shift Lock:  off
    12: Group 2:     off    13: Mouse Keys:  off
  auto repeat delay:  500    repeat rate:  20
  auto repeating keys:  00ffffffdffffbbf
                        fadfffefffefffff
                        9fffffffffffffff
                        fff7ffffffffffff
  bell percent:  50    bell pitch:  400    bell duration:  100
Pointer Control:
  acceleration:  2/1    threshold:  4
Screen Saver:
  prefer blanking:  yes    allow exposures:  yes
  timeout:  600    cycle:  600
Colors:
  default colormap:  0x20    BlackPixel:  0x0    WhitePixel:  0xffffff
Font Path:
  /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi,built-ins
DPMS (Display Power Management Signaling):
  Standby: 0    Suspend: 0    Off: 0
  DPMS is Enabled
  Monitor is On

archaeon

Member

Registered: Today

Posts: 5  

Re: Screen randomly turns black

Ok. So I now tried the following commands:

xset -dpms

xfce4-power-manager -q

And now I am waiting to see if this will change anything at all.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,047  

Re: Screen randomly turns black

Hello:

Screen Saver:
  prefer blanking:  yes    allow exposures:  yes
  timeout:  600    cycle:  600

There you go ...  8^D
Your screen is blanking because it is set up to do so every 600 seconds.

As to why it did not happen before (Daedalus) and is happening now (Excalibur), I have no idea.

The solution is probably here ...

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=31539#p31539
... or here:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … acking-out

I have no experience with how to set those parameters, maybe someone else can chip in.

Best,

A.

archaeon

Member

Registered: Today

Posts: 5  

Re: Screen randomly turns black

Hello

Ok. Just for the info. The two commands I have tried did not work.
The screen went black again. Whatever that means.

But I have to say sometimes it  definitely took less time than these "600 s"  for the screen to turn black again.

Thank you Altoid for this finding and your help.
I will read the two  threads later and hopefully I will find the answer to that really annoying thing.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,047  

Re: Screen randomly turns black

Hello:

... two commands I have tried did not work.
The screen went black again. Whatever that means.

Means the same thing as before: screen is going to sleep.  8^°

As you can see from your printout ...

--- snip ---
DPMS (Display Power Management Signaling):
  Standby: 0    Suspend: 0    Off: 0
  DPMS is Enabled
  Monitor is On
--- snip ---

... DPMS is/was enabled.

What does $ xset q say now?
ie: after the commands.

BTW: what desktop have you installed?

If XFCE, have you read this? it is in the body of https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=31558#p31558

XScreenSaver
If xscreensaver is installed and runs alongside Xfce Power Manager, it may not be clear which application is in control of blanking and DPMS as both are competing for control of the same settings. Therefore, in a situation where it is important that the monitor not be blanked (when watching a video for instance), it is advisable to disable blanking and DPMS through both applications. To know more about XScreenSaver options, see XScreenSaver#DPMS and blanking settings.

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (Today 14:56:19)