XScreenSaver random blanking

User Support
1

I am encountering random blanking of my screens by XScreenSaver. It says the screen is locked, and to enter my password, but moving the mouse redraws whatever window is underneath it. No password is required. I can only re-draw the entire window by switching workspaces. If I drag a window around the screen, it will redraw whatever is underneath the window.

I have tried disabling the screen saver, and unchecking power management from the XScreenSaver dialog, but the phenomena persists. The blanking happens while I am actively working on the system, so it is not a normal time-out.

This can happen at seemingly random times. Once it starts the behavior accelerates to the point that the blanking happens after a few seconds and makes operation nearly impossible until I switch workspaces.

Running Qubes 4.03 with all the latest updates, kernel 5.10.8-1
Xfce, on a fairly new workstation with a Xeon CPU and 140+GB RAM.

2

Hi @pr0xy ,

could it be related to the below issues?

1 Like
3

Thanks @ludovic
It looks like there’s a fix in testing for #6350. I may wait a bit for that to make it to stable.

I found another work-around in the qubes-users list. Turning off Compositor in System Tools > Window Manager Tweaks seems to stop it. My screens are less pretty, but I don’t seem to get that XScreenSaver blanking.