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When I lock the screen, Gmail chat appears at the bottom of the screen just like when it's unlocked. Is it a bug?

2 Answers2

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Definitely sounds like a bug.

I would suggest using Empathy for chatting instead of the web interface, because I have no experienced this problem with Empathy (or with the web interface for that matter). You can report the bug against the gnome-screensaver package.

You can also mark it as affecting chromium-browser (optionally), because imo Chromium should not display anything when the screensaver or screenlock is active.

RolandiXor
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  • Can we close this as one of thoze bugz?! – jrg Nov 10 '11 at 01:30
  • You should only report this bug against chromium-browser if the problem happens in the Chromium web browser... Otherwise, it should be reported against the package for whatever browser or application it occurred in. – Eliah Kagan Nov 10 '11 at 01:48
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    @jrg I don't think this question should be closed as a bug. It is not a bug; it is a question about whether or not a particular behavior would be considered to be a bug. – Eliah Kagan Nov 10 '11 at 01:50
  • @EliahKagan I know for a fact (don't ask how) that it occurs in Chromium only. – RolandiXor Nov 10 '11 at 01:52
  • @RolandTaylor I presume you've experienced the bug. Do you know if it's already been reported? – Eliah Kagan Nov 10 '11 at 02:10
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    @Explorer It occurs to me that even if it is happening in Chromium, the bug might not be in Chromium. It shouldn't be up to the application to behave properly in order for its UI elements not to pop up on top of a locked screen. So maybe the bug is really in gnome-screensaver. I'd suggest reporting it against one or the other of chromium-browser (assuming that really is the application creating the UI elements in question) or gnome-screensaver, and then adding a bug task for the other one (use Also affects distribution on the bug page and select Ubuntu and the other package). – Eliah Kagan Nov 10 '11 at 02:11
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    @Eliah That is also true. If you check the chat room you will see that I first suspected it was gnome-screensaver, but we eventually settled on it being Chromium. – RolandiXor Nov 10 '11 at 04:11
  • @RolandTaylor I can't tell from reading the chat transcript how it was decided that it was not a bug in gnome-screensaver, but I presume there was a reason for it...anyway, the task can always be changed later or a new task can be added. The most important thing is that the bug be reported, especially since, as George said (I paraphrase), it's a security bug as well as a usability bug. – Eliah Kagan Nov 10 '11 at 04:47
  • @EliahKagan I told you in a previous comment "don't ask how" :). Let's just say we communicate outside of AU - and I determined it was Chromium from our conversation. – RolandiXor Nov 10 '11 at 04:52
  • @RolandTaylor I don't want to get into a pedantic squabble here in the comments, but you told me not to ask how you knew it only happened in Chromium (and I didn't). Even if it only happens in Chromium, that doesn't mean it's not a bug in gnome-screensaver. Even if it happens with multiple screensavers, it doesn't mean it's not a bug in multiple screensavers... It's fine that you're not explaining that here on AskUbuntu, and I am not asking you to. But the reasoning for this being a bug in Chromium and not gnome-screensaver does need to be explained in the bug report itself on Launchpad. – Eliah Kagan Nov 10 '11 at 15:59
  • @EliahKagan After some thought you might be right - which means my original assumption (as you would have seen in chat) was correct :P... I'll edit my answer :)

    Thanks!

     – RolandiXor Nov 10 '11 at 16:02
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    http://community.kde.org/KWin/Screenlocker , though about KDE, indicates that screen locking is not as simple as one might think. – Prateek Nov 10 '11 at 16:14
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Yes. When the screen is locked, users will reasonably assume that potentially private information that might be displayed on the screen will not be displayed until and unless the screen is unlocked. Assuming that this is from the Gmail web-based interface, this is a bug in your web browser (which interprets the Javascript in the Gmail and creates the chat "windowlets" as interface elements). On the other hand, if you are seeing chat windows or tabs from a standalone instant messaging applications like Empathy or Pidgin, then it is a bug in that application.

I recommend reporting this bug.

Community
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Eliah Kagan
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  • Thanks a bunch. Sorry if I accepted the other answer, I was looking for the package to report the bug. –  Nov 10 '11 at 01:24
  • @Explorer No problem. But chromium-browser is only the correct package if the problem is occurring in the Chromium web browser. Otherwise, that is the wrong package. – Eliah Kagan Nov 10 '11 at 01:49