Temporarily disabling screensaver and power options during Skype or Hangouts calls?

Dear all,

Something I want to put out for discussion.

I observed that when my laptop is on battery and I am in a Skype or Hangouts call, then it darkens the screen AND/OR completely switches off the screen if I don’t move the mouse.

I am wondering if we can add some intelligence to future Ubuntu Desktop versions that can detect if the user is in a call. My assumption is that nobody wants any of those power saving things to trigger when you are on a call. :slight_smile:

Your thoughts?

Thank you!

Robert

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What Ubuntu version/desktop environment and webbrowser are you using? firefox/chrome inhibit the screensaver while playing videos, unsure what hangout/skype do though

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Thanks, @seb128!

I use Chrome 62 on Ubuntu 17.10 Gnome.

I use Hangouts from wihthin a Chrome browser tab but it certainly doesn’t inhibit the screensaver.

Shall I address that with Chrome upstream?

If you use chrome as distributed by Google, you should report a bug upstream.
If you’re seeing the issue with chromium from the ubuntu archive, please file a bug with:

ubuntu-bug chromium-browser

It’s not unlikely that the issue is present in both, in which case bug reports upstream and in ubuntu would be welcome, if you don’t mind.

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Here is the bug report [1].

Thanks for your help!

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

Thanks! Let’s see what upstream says about it.

The same happens to me on kodi.
I would love a quick option to inhibit the screen to shut down.

I tried caffeine a few weeks ago but it didn’t work for me on 17.10.

Caffeine is working here on 17.10 FWIW.

This is what I get:

$ caffeine
/usr/bin/caffeine:25: PyGIWarning: Gtk was imported without specifying a version first. Use gi.require_version('Gtk', '3.0') before import to ensure that the right version gets loaded.
  from gi.repository import GObject, Gtk, GLib
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Xlib/xauth.py", line 42, in __init__
    raw = open(filename, 'rb').read()
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/elopio/.Xauthority'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/caffeine", line 36, in <module>
    ewmh = EWMH()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ewmh.py", line 50, in __init__
    self.display = _display or display.Display()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Xlib/display.py", line 80, in __init__
    self.display = _BaseDisplay(display)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Xlib/display.py", line 62, in __init__
    display.Display.__init__(*(self, ) + args, **keys)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Xlib/protocol/display.py", line 61, in __init__
    name, host, displayno)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Xlib/support/connect.py", line 93, in get_auth
    return getattr(mod, modname).get_auth(sock, dname, host, dno)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Xlib/support/unix_connect.py", line 116, in new_get_auth
    au = xauth.Xauthority()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/Xlib/xauth.py", line 44, in __init__
    raise error.XauthError('~/.Xauthority: %s' % err)
Xlib.error.XauthError: ~/.Xauthority: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/elopio/.Xauthority'

This is likely due to running under wayland. Can you try with Xorg?

Launchpad bug is 1719456

Really? I’m running Wayland. Is this extension from Ubuntu repos or upstream? I believe I’m using the upstream version. Let me check that. Update: Yeah installed from upstream.

The fullscreen setting sounds like an elegant workaround for Hangouts! :slight_smile:

image

How do you get to this setting?

I installed caffeine from the repo, can run caffeine-indicator to show the applet but it only has Activate, About and Quit.

Running caffeine only gives me this and no settings screen:

orschiro@x230:~$ caffeine
/usr/bin/caffeine:25: PyGIWarning: Gtk was imported without specifying a version first. Use gi.require_version('Gtk', '3.0') before import to ensure that the right version gets loaded.
  from gi.repository import GObject, Gtk, GLib

Tweak-Tool has those options.

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Found it! Wow, that’s really not obvious.

Don’t understand why this setting for Caffeine is part of Tweak Tools that is not even installed by default!

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I hear you, agree that it should be default! :+1:

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Can someone please help test and try to reproduce [1]?

Upstream they say that Chrome/Chromium already inhibits during Hangout calls which I cannot confirm, however.

[1] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=783737#c5

Confirmed. I’m looking into the issue.

1 Like