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In earlier Ubuntu versions like 16.04 and 17.04 while watching YouTube videos in full-screen mode, the screen would not get locked automatically.

In Ubuntu 17.10 while watching videos in browser, system is getting locked. So Ubuntu 17.10 is considering this scenario as user is not doing anything.

Kindly suggest a solution for that.

Bastian Voigt
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Karthick Jack
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  • Did you install gnome-tweak? In that program there are some settings that are not in the normal setttings. And yes it has a few I would consider needed (without it I could not set my system to NOT kill my wifi cuz gnome-tweak has an extra setting for "suspend" that was always ON despite normal settings it was set OFF). – Rinzwind Oct 26 '17 at 08:56
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    @Rinzwind The correct package name is gnome-tweak-tool I believe. – pomsky Oct 26 '17 at 10:27
  • Do you use VLC? If yes, then go to preferences and disable screensaver. It will prevent your screen from going dark. – Manish Kumar Bisht Nov 10 '17 at 16:24
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    @Manish Kumar Bisht , I would think having to manually disable the screensaver any time one wanted to watch a video would, at best, be a VERY short-term patch if the problem is as described. – jpezz Nov 10 '17 at 16:33
  • Did you try other media players that are known to support screensaver inhibition, e. g. Totem or VLC or the native video player of your web browser (typically Firefox or Chrome/Chromium)? MPV isn't that well maintained and Flash player never supported screensaver inhibition. Many web sites don't require Flash to play back videos these days, if you disable it. – David Foerster Nov 11 '17 at 00:24
  • Chrome and Firefox normally support it, so I guess this is not a problem of the media player, but probably caused by the new Wayland display architecture in Ubuntu 17.10. – Bastian Voigt Jan 20 '18 at 17:21
  • Firefox on Ubuntu is now installed with Snap, and one of the reasons they used to push it is full sandboxing. That means that apps have limited to no access to the underlying environment / WM / DE / OS. This specific video blanking problem have been plaguing users since day one, and as of today, no solution is in sight. – yPhil Mar 09 '23 at 13:15

3 Answers3

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The reason that this does not work any more is because 17.10 is the first ubuntu release that uses wayland as its display server. It looks like preventing screen lock is an entirely missing feature in Xwayland.

It has been filed as a bug in Ubuntu and hopefully will be fixed soon. If you're affected by this bug, please click the launchpad link below and click "Does this bug affect you?" to increase the bug priority.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+bug/1697373

As a workaround, you could also select "GNOME on X.org" as your session type when logging on.

There is also a bug in chromium, but it seems to apply only for google hangouts sessions:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=783737

Bastian Voigt
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nils
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  • This answer is incorrect. I'm using XOrg (specifically Latest Ubuntu with i3 over gnome / lightDM) and I have been experiencing the problem too, ever since Snap became mandatory for installing Firefox ; This problem is most probably due to the very "sandboxed" nature of snap applications. And AFAIK Wayland does have this obvious feature. – yPhil Mar 09 '23 at 13:16
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You may have to use the great Caffeine, available from here. You have to allow installing extension from Firefox or install the Ubuntu package gnome-shell-extension-caffeine thanks to the command apt. This extension detect any full screen application and prevent from running screensaver. It also adds a small cup beside your volume icon, letting you to disable the screen saver with one click.

Apt method

Open your Terminal, and type

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-caffeine

Then go to Gnome Tweak, click on Extensions tab, and enable Caffeine

Gnome Shell extension

Open https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/517/caffeine/ from Firefox, click on Allow from the top bar asking for Gnome Shell Integration. Enable then Caffeine extension.

Manish Kumar Bisht
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ob2
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  • Or Keep Awake https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1097/keep-awake/ – EODCraft Staff Nov 10 '17 at 20:37
  • Thanks, I searched before asking and could not find answer, it was not so strait forward, I had to go back and forth a few time ... I'll go with what I remember. I had to reboot cause the extension was not showing (I probably just had to log out). Installing Tweak and the extension from command line did not work, I wonder why ? – kbenoit Nov 11 '17 at 02:41
  • Also one can install Caffeine app (not the extension) by running sudo apt install caffeine. – pomsky Nov 11 '17 at 16:14
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You may try a GNOME shell extension as a workaround called Keep awake!

Product description:

Keep your computer awake! Forbid your computer to activate sceensaver, turn off the screen or suspend when it is idle for a while. Toogle [sic] this option on or off with one click.

Once you install this extension you'll see an "eye" icon in your top bar.

enter image description here
(screenshot source: extension's homepage at extensions.gnome.org)

Clicking on the eye will switch between "normal" and "no screen-lock or suspend" mode.

Another advanced extension which does the same but provides more customisability is Caffeine.

Warning: There is (or was, not sure whether it's fixed already) a bug in Caffeine which may freeze your computer for ~30 seconds after clicking on the power-off button in the status menu.

pomsky
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  • I posted a duplicate question, sorry. As pomsky said, there should be a bug in Caffeine (there a comment from a couple of days about it), but I should be able to fix it, if I step on it, but I could not see it so far. – kbenoit Nov 11 '17 at 02:56
  • @kbenoit Lucky you if you haven't hit the bug! Then no worries at all, happy "Caffeinating"! :) – pomsky Nov 11 '17 at 15:13