[CentOS] CentOS 5, gnome-screensaver and password amnesia?

Tue Aug 10 23:35:05 UTC 2010
Scott Ehrlich <srehrlich at gmail.com>

I've built some CentOS 5.5 64-bit systems straight off the DVD, full
installs, and the Gnome screen lock (manually invoked or automatically
via the gnome-screensaver) does not allow the user to unlock the
screen.  The only fix appears to be ctrl-alt-F<1 - 5> then have the
user log into the tty session, type pkill -f gnome-screensaver, log
out, then ctrl-alt-f7 to return to X.

These systems are standalone, so there is no option to remote in, and
the display is never unplugged from the system as some of the RedHat
bugzilla reports show.

I did try a yum update but the problem persists, so I suspect the
issue has not been fixed, or if it has, has not been released via the
yum default locations.

The screensaver and manual screenlock options must be enabled, so
disabling them is not an option.

I've also developed a cron job to restart gnome-screensaver every few minutes.

I've got other systems, built back when CentOS 5.0 was out, that do
not experience this problem.  I've built newer systems with CentOS 5.4
and 5.5, yum updates, and I don't think they have experienced the
problem either.   I _think_ the issue, thus far, appears to be a full
install of all packages from the DVD, which is how I build various
standalones.

Does anyone have an update on when this will officially be fixed?

Thanks for any insights.

Scott