Q4OS Forum

padota1663

Member

Registered: 2024-09-21

Posts: 22

Screensaver not always starting automatically

Hi,

I've been having this issue for a while, the screensaver almost never starts automatically after the specified time (I left the default Q4OS Trinity values):

While digging for evidence in /var/log/syslog I found this line which made me raise my eyebrows:

2024-11-21T02:22:42.670308+01:00 scatorcio-di-merda xdg-desktop-por[14177]: Backend call failed: Impossibile invocare il metodo; il proxy è per un nome well-known org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver senza un proprietario e il proxy è stato costruito con il flag G_DBUS_PROXY_FLAGS_DO_NOT_AUTO_START

This is the literal English version of the aforementioned error:

xdg-desktop-por Backend call failed: Cannot invoke method; proxy is for the well-known name org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver without an owner, and proxy was constructed with the G_DBUS_PROXY_FLAGS_DO_NOT_AUTO_START flag

Googling around a bit I understood this has something to do with compiling options of a piece of software, probably the DBus Broker, but I'm not totally sure (still a bit a newbie on fiddling around with compiling software, in fact I never did), can anyone help in solving the issue?

There is one single instance where the screensaver starts working as expected: if I remote inside the PC with Anydesk from another machine then terminate the session, THEN the screensaver starts working normally, kicking in after 6 minutes as defined in the settings; still don't know how Anydesk triggers the screensaver to come on normally, tried to Google around but nothing; Anydesk version is 6.3.3 (latest available for Linux boxes).

Thanks in advance!

padota1663

Member

Registered: 2024-09-21

Posts: 22

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

Hi,

can anyone help with this one?

Thanks

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,352

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

Might be worth a look in TDEPowersave to see how you've got the screensaver/power management set in there.

padota1663

Member

Registered: 2024-09-21

Posts: 22

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

Might be worth a look in TDEPowersave to see how you've got the screensaver/power management set in there.

These are my settings, I had to install TDEPowersave as it wasn't preinstalled:

On the other three settings, all the tick options are turned off, what is strange is that the PC is detected as if it was a laptop, notice the battery icon in the tray, this is strange.

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,352

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

Don't worry about the icon - on my laptop it shows the mains power icon....

OK - select the Performance Scheme and check the top box to Enable Screen Saver and see what happens.

padota1663

Member

Registered: 2024-09-21

Posts: 22

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

Ah ok, so basically the icon just shows whatever it wants ... Fine, I'll ignore it.

I ticked the top box in the Performance Tab, I'll report on how it behaves ASAP.

Thanks!

padota1663

Member

Registered: 2024-09-21

Posts: 22

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

Hi bin,

I did as you told, unluckily it didn't do a thing .

The screensaver doesn't come on, and in syslog sometimes I still find:

xdg-desktop-por Backend call failed: Cannot invoke method; proxy is for the well-known name org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver without an owner, and proxy was constructed with the G_DBUS_PROXY_FLAGS_DO_NOT_AUTO_START flag

Do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,352

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

This seems to be a fairly common issue. Do you have any flatpaks installed?

padota1663

Member

Registered: 2024-09-21

Posts: 22

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

Eeehhhh... quite a lot it seems:

root@scatorcio-di-merda:~# flatpak list
Name                                      Application ID                          Version                     Branch         Installation
AnyDesk                                   com.anydesk.Anydesk                     6.3.3                       stable         system
Brave                                     com.brave.Browser                       1.70.126                    stable         system
Discord                                   com.discordapp.Discord                  0.0.71                      stable         system
Dropbox                                   com.dropbox.Client                      209.4.3661                  stable         system
Video Downloader                          com.github.unrud.VideoDownloader        0.12.18                     stable         system
Microsoft Edge                            com.microsoft.Edge                      129.0.2792.89-1             stable         system
Opera                                     com.opera.Opera                         114.0.5282.86               stable         system
Proton VPN                                com.protonvpn.www                       4.6.0                       stable         system
Skype                                     com.skype.Client                        8.127.0.200                 stable         system
Spotify                                   com.spotify.Client                      1.2.45.454.gc16ec9f6        stable         system
Vivaldi                                   com.vivaldi.Vivaldi                     6.9.3447.54                 stable         system
Freedesktop Platform                      org.freedesktop.Platform                freedesktop-sdk-23.08.23    23.08          system
Freedesktop Platform                      org.freedesktop.Platform                freedesktop-sdk-24.08.3     24.08          system
Mesa                                      org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default     24.2.3                      23.08          system
Mesa (Extra)                              org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default     24.2.3                      23.08-extra    system
Mesa                                      org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default     24.2.4                      24.08          system
Mesa (Extra)                              org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default     24.2.4                      24.08extra     system
ffmpeg-full                               org.freedesktop.Platform.ffmpeg-full                                23.08          system
openh264                                  org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264       2.1.0                       2.2.0          system
openh264                                  org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264       2.4.1                       2.4.1          system
GNOME Application Platform version 46     org.gnome.Platform                                                  46             system
GNOME Application Platform version 47     org.gnome.Platform                                                  47             system
PPSSPP                                    org.ppsspp.PPSSPP                       1.17.1                      stable         system
Zoom                                      us.zoom.Zoom                            6.2.3.2056                  stable         system
root@scatorcio-di-merda:~#

I installed many of them for testing them "when I'll find the time" which, until now, I didn't find...

Anydesk is the only program really useful to me, living without it will be impossible to me ATM.

The two GNOME Application Platform packages were installed when I installed Snap, which I had to install to test Whatsapp on Linux (I removed it later).

freedesktop, ffmpeg, mesa and openh264 are probably system packages.

The rest is part of the test stuff, I can remove them if I need to.

Regards

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,352

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

OK - that is the root of the issue (I think) - the org.freedesktop.Platform.

There are various discussions around xdg-desktop-portal org.freedesktop and the error message you are seeing. In essence I think it is saying that those two do not seem to get on with trinity screensaver as it doesn't know how to talk to them.

I've set up TDE on a laptop and the default screensaver works as expected.

I then install flatpak

robin@acer:~/Desktop$ sudo apt install flatpak
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  bubblewrap libappstream4 libmalcontent-0-0 libostree-1-1 libpipewire-0.3-0
  libpipewire-0.3-common libspa-0.2-modules libstemmer0d libxmlb2 libyaml-0-2
  p11-kit p11-kit-modules xdg-dbus-proxy xdg-desktop-portal
  xdg-desktop-portal-gtk
Suggested packages:
  malcontent-gui pipewire accountsservice evince xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  bubblewrap flatpak libappstream4 libmalcontent-0-0 libostree-1-1
  libpipewire-0.3-0 libpipewire-0.3-common libspa-0.2-modules libstemmer0d
  libxmlb2 libyaml-0-2 p11-kit p11-kit-modules xdg-dbus-proxy
  xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-gtk



Setting up libpipewire-0.3-common (0.3.65-3+deb12u1) ...
Setting up bubblewrap (0.8.0-2+deb12u1) ...
Setting up libyaml-0-2:amd64 (0.2.5-1) ...
Setting up libxmlb2:amd64 (0.3.10-2) ...
Setting up libostree-1-1:amd64 (2022.7-2+deb12u1) ...
Setting up p11-kit-modules:amd64 (0.24.1-2) ...
Setting up libspa-0.2-modules:amd64 (0.3.65-3+deb12u1) ...
Setting up libpipewire-0.3-0:amd64 (0.3.65-3+deb12u1) ...
Setting up xdg-dbus-proxy (0.1.4-3) ...
Setting up libstemmer0d:amd64 (2.2.0-2) ...
Setting up p11-kit (0.24.1-2) ...
Setting up libmalcontent-0-0:amd64 (0.11.0-4) ...
Setting up xdg-desktop-portal (1.16.0-2) ...
Created symlink /etc/systemd/user/graphical-session-pre.target.wants/xdg-desktop-portal-rewrite-launchers.service → /usr/lib/systemd/user/xdg-desktop-portal-rewrite-launchers.service.
Setting up libappstream4:amd64 (0.16.1-2) ...
Setting up flatpak (1.14.10-1~deb12u1) ...
Setting up xdg-desktop-portal-gtk (1.14.1-1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.36-9+deb12u9) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.11.2-2) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.14.10-1~deb12u1) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.70+nmu1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.26-1) ...

and we can see  components mentioned in the error message being installed.

After reboot screensaver is still fine.

Just thinking - Anydesk is from what I see just another remote desktop tool. Now, I do recall many years ago doing some remote work on a machine on a different continent - and the screensaver kicked in.......... could not get past it so had to wait until the user got up to get back in - which by then was the middle of the night for me. With that in mind, it would make sense for Anydesk to kill off a screensaver on a remote machine - does it do the same thing for the 'client' machine?

Last edited by bin (2024-12-16 14:58)

padota1663

Member

Registered: 2024-09-21

Posts: 22

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

Hi bin,

sorry for the late reply, as always life gets in the middle but luckily I'm on holidays now , and as always I can't thank you enough for the help you're giving me.

Anydesk could well be the cause at this point... as I already stated before, if I remote inside the PC with Anydesk from another machine then terminate the session, then the screensaver starts working normally, BUT I forgot to also mention that, sometimes, if I remote inside the PC a second time after logging off, when the screensaver is on, I can move the mouse and it disappears, only to reappear after a second or two; I can get past it, but after logging inside the machine, standing still with the mouse or keyboard for more than a second or two makes the screensaver kick back in, and the session gets locked again; this sudden and continuous appearance and disappearance of the screensaver, other than the fact it makes working on the machine a PITA, sometimes makes Anydesk himself hang, and I cannot remotely access the PC anymore until i get back home and restart the Anydesk service directly on the PC.

Nothing of the above happens remoting inside a Windows or Mac host, so I highly suspect the latest version for Linux hosts, being quite old and unmaintained for a long time, is the culprit of this issue; I'm removing it right now, at least on this test PC, and I'll keep you updated on how it evolves; I hope removing it will solve this issue, and if this is the case, I'll find a better alternative; in fact, I already found it in NoMachine, which also transmits audio from the PC (something that Anydesk should be doing fine, like it does for Windows Hosts, but it doesn't, and reading the Anydesk forum on the matter it seems the Linux application is broken and not maintained from the devs at Anydesk ), but NoMachine is not allowed from my workplace sadly (it works but as soon as I make a connection, I receive a warning email that it's been detected), and it also cannot transfer files between Linux and Windows even if it should, probably I'll contact the guys at the NoMachine forum for this issue.

Edit 1: Anydesk doesn't cause issues on the client machine (Windows, but I also tested between my two Q4OS PCs and I don't recall it causing this issue on the client machine), I'll do some more tests to confirm it anyways.

Edit 2: so should I remove xdg-desktop-portal org.freedesktop straight away? If I try removing it from the "Package Manager" application, it also requires me to remove "xdg-desktop-portal-gtk", is that ok?

Again, TY for your support.

Last edited by padota1663 (2024-12-21 19:10)

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,352

Re: Screensaver not always starting automatically

No problem - not sure if we're making progress but we'll keep trying

Back in the day I always used remmina with a vpn to connect to windows machines which had remote desktop enabled. The version in the debian repo is not too far behind but the latest is available as a flatpak.

As regards xdg-portal, it is a recommended package, not a dependency of flatpak. So, in theory one could remove it. However it does provide a number of services to sandboxed flatpak applications and I honestly cannot suggest how they would be impacted as the org.freedesktop.Platform service may well start complaining.

https://people.freedesktop.org/~hadess/ … /re01.html is useful as it does mention that the service you are seeing in the log is responsible for screensaver inhibiting, but again it is probably not a case of simply trying to remove it. It seems that one or more application is triggering that service - if you look lower down that page you'll see an example.

This would suggest that one or more of those flatpak programs is trying to do just that. It may be PPSSPP as I guess having a screensaver cut in during a game may be bad...there are just too many variables here.

I think if I were in your shoes I think I would be setting up on a spare machine and slowly installing and testing until I got to the point where it malfunctions.