On 08/26/2010 01:06 PM, Mark informed us:
After yet another test yesterday where I just left the machine idle for over 3 hours and the screensaver did not activate, I concluded that mplayer was not part of the problem and rebooted.
Screensaver now works just fine (same kernel, with or without mplayer running, 10 minutes or 2 hours), so I'm completely lost as to why it failed.
I tried looking through the .gnome and .gnome2 files for a clue, but there's nothing particularly informative in them, so I'm wondering where the screensaver settings are kept, etc. I'd rather not search every file on my system (some 800GB worth - ick!).
Google was not particularly informative on this subject, either, although I did find out how to make my own slideshow....
Mark _____
Reading between the lines, I conclude that you're running a gnome desktop. F.Y.I., I have seen that failure to activate the screensaver, running KDE 3.5.4-25.el5.centos.1 on kernel 2.6.18-194.11.1.el5PAE. Maybe you haven't tried it from this angle but I'm a hard-headed old fart and still boot into run level 3, log in and issue startx. All I do to restore the screensaver function is shut down X and startx. This straightens out the screensaver just fine. In addition to being much quicker than rebooting, it has the added advantage of not disturbing services, cron jobs, etc. I don't worry too much about the screensaver anyhow since I started using this LCD monitor. I understand there ain't no fleecy li'l phosphors to worry about no mo'.