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Author Topic: CorePlus as video player kiosk  (Read 9242 times)

Offline quixote_arg

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #15 on: August 20, 2018, 05:48:33 AM »
That is the X logo, which does point to a screensaver. I don't ever recall seeing it on a screen like that though.

I thought that myself too, but me myself saw it running about 8 hours straight playing videos and that screen never showed up! So either it has a very long activation time or it's some kind of error... I'll keep you posted

Offline curaga

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #16 on: August 20, 2018, 09:54:36 AM »
Could it have been a prank by a bypasser?
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline quixote_arg

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #17 on: August 20, 2018, 01:12:51 PM »
Could it have been a prank by a bypasser?

I don't think so, as the computer is only connected to the monitor. No keyboard, no mouse, no internet connection!

Offline Rich

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #18 on: August 20, 2018, 01:38:35 PM »
Hi quixote_arg
If you're looking to try to track down why this is happening, plug in a keyboard next time this happens. Try  Ctrl-Alt-F1  to
switch to the console or  Ctrl-Alt-Backspace  to kill X and kick you into the console. If the machine responds to the
keyboard you should get the black console screen. You might have to hit the  Enter  key a couple of times to get the
prompt if you just see a flashing cursor. You can then enter:
Code: [Select]
dmesg > dmesg.txtThen check the file  dmesg,txt  to see if any errors cropped up, most likely near the end of the file.

Offline Nathan_SR

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #19 on: August 20, 2018, 06:18:20 PM »

Offline quixote_arg

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #20 on: August 22, 2018, 10:52:36 AM »
Hello all

Updates to this puzzle:

Today I went to the school at about 2pm and the screen was with the X on it. They told me they turned it on at about 9am so it's 5 hours later. I saw it playing videos 8 hours so the screensaver theory loses ground.

I plugged in a keyboard, and when I pressed CTRL (to press CTRL-ALT-F1) the X went away and vlc resumed playing videos! The screensaver theory makes a comeback!

I checked dmesg and saw nothing unusual, no error messages (unfortunately, I didn't take a pic of the screen, will do next time).

I rebooted the machine, and less than 10 minutes later, the X screen shows up again. Screensaver theory loses ground, once again  :-\

Apparently there's no screensaver program running, but there are a few libs that might do something screensaver related.

Code: [Select]
sudo find / | grep -i screens

Code: [Select]
ps ax

aus9

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #21 on: August 23, 2018, 01:12:20 AM »
Hi

Have you checked that you have disabled VLC screensaver function?
https://askubuntu.com/questions/69615/how-do-i-stop-the-screensaver-from-coming-on-during-vlc-movie-watching

^^ is GUI

or show the output to
Code: [Select]
cat .config/vlc/vlcrc | grep saver
so you are looking for
disable-screensaver=0

and there are some other suggestions in that link too
« Last Edit: August 23, 2018, 01:17:40 AM by aus9 »

Offline curaga

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #22 on: August 23, 2018, 01:43:38 AM »
The X server's built-in screensaver is controlled via xset.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline quixote_arg

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #23 on: August 23, 2018, 05:44:10 AM »
The X server's built-in screensaver is controlled via xset.

I added
Code: [Select]
xset s off -dpms to one of the startup files. On the other hand it's confusing because if it's a screensaver it should run at a deterministic timeout, but I saw it showing up in less than 10 minutes and also saw it not showing up in more than 7 hours

Offline quixote_arg

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #24 on: August 23, 2018, 05:44:55 AM »
Have you checked that you have disabled VLC screensaver function?

I'll try this, thanks

Offline curaga

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #25 on: August 23, 2018, 10:09:30 AM »
Perhaps it's applied at a bad time? Next time you have it happening, open up a shell and "xset q" to see what the screensaver values are.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline quixote_arg

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #26 on: August 23, 2018, 11:32:31 AM »
I'll check that.

But if it is the case that the xset parameters are not propertly set up, then the screensaver should activate at roughly the same time, no? However the infamous screen showed up between 20 minutes and >8 hours

Offline Misalf

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #27 on: August 23, 2018, 07:59:58 PM »
I have no idea. But if it's a screensaver thing and your xset config does not apply after a given amount of time, another program may be resetting things.
In case of MPlayer, this is useful or could be problematic if not used correctly:
$HOME/.mplayer/config
Code: [Select]
heartbeat-cmd="[ $DISPLAY ] && xset s reset &"
Download a copy and keep it handy: Core book ;)

Offline Pats

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #28 on: August 23, 2018, 11:42:26 PM »
Two posible options to disable screen savers : ...
1) Disable the power management setting for X. In a X terminal type :
 
Code: [Select]
xset -dpms
For persistancy of this setting xorg.conf is useful. :
Code: [Select]
 
Section
"Monitor"  Identifier  "Monitor1"   
Option "DPMS"  "false"
Section
"ServerFlags"   
Option "BlankTime" "0"

2)  If using xinit to start X session , then in .xinitrc file :
 
Code: [Select]
xset -dpms
3) Hardware problems :
Loose power cables , Damaged display card , loose RAM memory  plates  in  memory slots , monitor is about to die in near future !

Offline Rich

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Re: CorePlus as video player kiosk
« Reply #29 on: August 24, 2018, 03:57:13 AM »
Hi quixote_arg
... I added
Code: [Select]
xset s off -dpmsto one of the startup files. ...
By  "one of the startup files"  I presume you are referring to  bootlocal.sh  or  bootsync.sh? If that's the case, place your  xset
command at the end of the  .xsession  file in your  home  directory instead.