CorePlus as video player kiosk

[quixote_arg]

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

[curaga]

Could it have been a prank by a bypasser?

[quixote_arg]

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!

[Rich]

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.

[Nathan_SR]

Hi quixote_arg

To keep track of the foreground gui application name, you can use the wmctrl or the xdotool command, on a regular basis, through a script.

The following articles explain the same in greater detail :

https://askubuntu.com/questions/21262/shell-command-to-bring-a-program-window-in-front-of-another

https://askubuntu.com/questions/728157/how-to-get-the-list-of-running-gui-applications-in-the-unity-launcher

https://superuser.com/questions/142945/bash-command-to-focus-a-specific-window

https://www.google.com/search?q=linux+foreground+gui+app+name

Regards,

Nathan SR

[quixote_arg]

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

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ps ax

[aus9]

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

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cat .config/vlc/vlcrc | grep saver
so you are looking for
disable-screensaver=0

and there are some other suggestions in that link too

[curaga]

The X server's built-in screensaver is controlled via xset.

[quixote_arg]

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

[quixote_arg]

Have you checked that you have disabled VLC screensaver function?

I'll try this, thanks

[curaga]

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.

[quixote_arg]

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

[Misalf]

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

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heartbeat-cmd="[ $DISPLAY ] && xset s reset &"


[Pats]

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 :
 

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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 !

[Rich]

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.