Re: [E-devel] enlightenment blanking issue

On 6/13/22 11:42, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jun 2022 17:13:15 +0200 [email protected] said:
>
>> On 6/10/22 10:22, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
>>> On Fri, 10 Jun 2022 08:45:44 +0200 [email protected] said:
>>>
>>>> On 6/9/22 23:53, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 22:41:08 +0200 [email protected] said:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 6/9/22 12:16, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 10:41:25 +0200 [email protected] said:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 6/9/22 09:55, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Wed, 8 Jun 2022 19:50:27 +0200 [email protected] said:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On 6/8/22 19:17, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, 8 Jun 2022 15:39:17 +0200 [email protected] said:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> actually wait - is this a laptop? or using ddc? dimming timeout set?
>>>>>>>>>>> then the 30 sec may be the dimming timeout. e will run a timer after
>>>>>>>>>>> that that then totally blanks the screen. this timer is cancelled
>>>>>>>>>>> when the screensaver is cancelled (when the screen dims the screen
>>>>>>>>>>> is basically in screensaver mode)
>>>>>>>>>> It's just a laptop
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ok - that explains the 30 sec then - that's the dimming timeout. does
>>>>>>>>> the screen dim automatically after 30 sec of idle input?
>>>>>>>> No, screen doesn't dim after 30 sec of idle input.
>>>>>>>> Screen blanks after 2 minutes (according to settings), but sometimes,
>>>>>>>> maybe once a day, it doesn't blank at all. If i restart e, it blanks
>>>>>>>> normally.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> that's odd. screen should dim. you have backlight support? does it work
>>>>>>> manually with the gadget?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes that's odd...I have backlight support and gadget in shelf. See
>>>>>> settings in  attached file
>>>>>
>>>>> so backlight controls work? you can manually change brightness? does the
>>>>> backlight dim after 30 sec of no input if you leave things idle? btw your
>>>>> normal backlight is 5% .. that's really odd.... it should be HIGHER than
>>>>> the dim level of 30%...
>>>>
>>>> I set backlight higher than dim level, and dim works now.
>>>> Maybe this explains why, sometimes, blanking doesn't work, but it
>>>> happens randomly...
>>>
>>> well now you at least have saner backlight settings (these are not defaults
>>> - the defaults are 100% and 30% for normal and dim levels). the first thing
>>> you should look for is if the screen dims after 30 sec od idle - if it does
>>> then screensaver is then activating. e uses the x screensaver notify event
>>> fromto dim the backlight (and screensaver deactivate to un-dim (go back to
>>> bright)). once idle e runs a timer that then waits for "the rest of the
>>> time" until the screen needs to go blank. so if dim timeout is 30 sec, and
>>> blanking time is 2 min, then e runs a timer for 1.5min. when this timer is
>>> hit then e will "fade to blank" and fade out the rest of the backlight to
>>> off too. x's dpms timeouts are set to expire a little bit after this "fade
>>> to black" (about 10 seconds after as you can see in xset's dpms settings)
>>> so the screen will completely power off then (but will appear black by this
>>> point).
>>>
>>> so the first thing to do is to notice... is the dimming happening? if it is
>>> not then there is a problem earlier on with screensaver notify events not
>>> happening. that means either the x screensaver has been suspended in some
>>> way (it was totally turned off - some apps go mess with screensaver
>>> settings - xset q will tell you if screensaver is on or off and the
>>> timeout) and some apps may take a screensaver "block" from x and ask it to
>>> temporarily suspend the screensaver. chromium and chrome based browsers
>>> will do this when playing videos - sometimes ads on a web page can cause
>>> this if they play videos. youtube does it... the best way to eliminate this
>>> is to close your browser and see if the problem continues. steam will also
>>> kill off blanking even if it just runs as a service in the background and
>>> no game is running. this s an ongoing issue with sdl/steam actively trying
>>> to keep the screen alive. in git i just added support for a dbus service
>>> used by some other wm's and de's that does the same as the x screensaver
>>> suspend/block feature - but it's asking whoever runs the dbus service to
>>> suspend blanking/screensaver - in this case e will advertise this service
>>> and it gets the requests. now e knows who asked to block the screensaver
>>> and will list who asked in a submenu of the main e menu under "blanking
>>> block". some apps will prefer to use this dbus service instead of the x
>>> screensaver suspend extension feature, thus it may help identify the
>>> problem too. you can remove that blank clock by just selecting it in the
>>> menu and e will remove that blocker. like here:
>>>
>>> http://www.enlightenment.org/ss/e-62a2fefb1df8c2.44000455.png
>>>
>>> it's very basic but enough to debug it. i'll make it prettier in future with
>>> eventually a proper dialog or some gadget with popups or some shelf
>>> indicators etc.
>>
>> I see DPMS blanking (but blanking works) doesn't work when other X
>> session is launched from other user account in the same time.
>> This issue doesn't happen when using other wm like xfce4, fluxbox...
>
> even without screensaver active, dpms should still kick in. e.g.:
>
> Screen Saver:
>    prefer blanking:  yes    allow exposures:  yes
>    timeout:  0    cycle:  0
> ...
> DPMS (Energy Star):
>    Standby: 46    Suspend: 47    Off: 48
>    DPMS is Enabled
>    Monitor is On
>
> a timeout of 0 on screensaver disables it - but with dpms still set to a
> value ... dpms now turns on instantly at 46 seconds. you won't see e nicely
> fade to black because it won't get a screensaver notify event .. but dpms still
> happens. dpms is controlled by the xserver. when the timeout is hit then dpms
> will automatically just happen (it does here). the screen turns off. if this is
> not happening then the xserver is choosing not to make it happen. either the
> xserver (and/or driver) has a bug OR more likely some process is suspending
> screensaver/blanking entirely - as i mentioned. there is an extension to do
> that. xset q will show if something has manually messed with dpms/screen saver
> settings but you can't see who/what requested a suspend. something that is an x
> client has asked to suspend. check what apps you are running that are x
> clients. something has done this - what - i don't know. check all your
> processes in details and kill off anything that is not from e or efl ... i
> guess the problem will go away then. then it's a matter of eliminating the
> client that causes it. as i mentioned - there are some clients that do this
> like browsers. steam is worse - it plays with x screesnaver/dpms settings
> directly AND it has bugs and gets it wrong. i know rage will auto-suspend
> screensaver if in fullscreen mode. it does this assuming when in fullscreen you
> want a "media experience". you may have other apps around that do this. you
> could write a LD_PRELOAD that wraps XScreenSaverSuspend() from libXss and then
> log all processes calling this to suspend or unsuspend and then find out if
> someone is doing it... but as i said - the other option is a bug... but dpms is
> entirely done by the xserver internally. e sets the timeouts to go off after
> screensaver and so thats why they are set to the timeouts you see - if dpms is
> not working even with these timeouts set and dpms is enabled (xset q) then ...
> its the xserver not doing this.
>
> there is only one other option i can think of ... there is some input coming
> in. mouse, touchpad, keyboard ... something .. so input is going into x to keep
> it alive. i don't remember if the x test extension will have events reset the
> idle timeout. this would be very very very odd if something was doing this...
> but it's possible and as i said - i am not sure if xtest extension events reset
> idle timeout. i'd have to test.
>

I see enlightenment blanking issue happens when spotify web page is
opened in firefox. There's no option in firefox, like in vlc or smplayer
to choose wether allow blanking or no blanking. I think enlightenment
has too many  rights, only the user should be able to choose.