DPMS is broken

I guess that this is a duplicate of Bug #59589. Gnome-Power-Manager is connected to the screen saver idle time. DPMS works fine for me with my Intel hardware but it is correct that the xset dpms values gets reset after a short period. This wouldn't be any problem if the Gnome power manager has more flexibility.
You can test it through setting screen saver idle time to 1 minute and monitor sleep time of ac to 2 minute. With this configuration the Screen should go to sleep after this time. Btw. there are programs which prevent DPMS like especially video players.

I have it set to 1m/2m but it doesn't turn off.
Killing screensaver or power-manager does not help either.

I would file a xorg bug about this but too many times i have seen them reply "Use cvs or else we don't care".

Does at least the screensaver start after one minute?

It did not until i rebooted.
In a couple of hours it will be broken again.
Im not even using suspend, my Laptop is just idling.

Maybe it is a mouse issue or a program is polling like video player or some audio programs. Could you please recheck this issue with Ubuntu Gutsy LIve CD?

I have 16h uptime now and DPMS stopped working a couple of hours ago, so it takes a long time until it breaks for some unknown reason. I dont use any audio/video programs, the only thing that i could imagine trying to access the soundcard would be some random flash-content while surfing the web. I can remove the flash-plugin of course.
I don't have a external CD-Drive, im not sure if unetbootin boots into the Live-CD environment or starts the install directly, but i could check that out.
I could also look through the logs but i dont know what to look for.
I can also ask the xorg-mailinglist for some advice, i think that would be a good idea.
If i have to i will install gentoo on another partition to fullfill any "please use the latest version of xorg" requests from them.

I guess instead of Gentoo I would install Gutsy or Hardy on a separate partion just to recheck with a default install but I guess an external CD drive would be easier.
Btw. I don't think that Flash is able to prevent the screensaver especially if it isn't active.

You are right of course, i can install hardy within 20m on a free partition with unetbootin.
In my infinite wisdom i partitioned my hdd to take 6 different distros to play around with and 3 slots are still free.
I will install hardy and leave it running over a few nights. If DPMS does not break i try to same with another fresh Gibbon install.
Within a week there should be some clue what could be causing these problems.

I just noticed something.
Currently the Screensaver is set to 9m and exactly after 9m of idle-time the screen starts fading.
Before it gets completely dark though it jumps back to full brightness again until 9m later it tries (and fails) again.
I grepped /var/log/ for the time where the screensaver tried to start but no match.

I have the same problem. After boot it works, screen is shut-off after configured time-out. But after a few hours it stops. Manually using "> xset dpms force standby/suspend/off" always works.
Currently using Ubuntu 8.04, but I have had this problem on previous versions as well. Terrible that nothing happens on this issue.

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

Just a note from me, my problem seems to have been resolved in Intrepid.

I'm seeing this behavior in Intrepid (kubuntu). Every few hours DPMS stops working.
My timings are still there, but 'xset q' reports 'DPMS is Disabled'

Same problem in Jaunty.
It is gnome and gnome power manager to blame, everything works fine in xfce with xfce power manager.
The screen tries do dimm down and right before its black it goes back to full brightness.
Im really tired of this bug, since YEARS Gnome is not able to reliably dimm my screens.

I have the same problem in 9.04 (and earlier versions). I also don't find anything in the log files. But it seems to have something to do with the sound card access. I recognised dpms not working after using flash video player in the web or using songbird. Maybe it is an interessting fact, that I have an Nvidia sound card.
This bug is really annoying!

I just used skype with the same effect: blank screen and screensaver doesn't work anymore.

I have an idea for a workaround: in crontab add a new line "0 * * * * DISPLAY=:0.0 xset +dpms". You can see that when you have this problem, xset q shows that dpms is disabled, and after running xset +dpms, xset q shows that dpms is enabled. Hopefully some people may find this workaround handy. I tested this workaround on 9.04.

Hi dvstin,

Thank you for your workaround. Unfortunately it doesn't work in my case. When I had a look at the dpms status, it was enabled even if blank screen doesn't work.

Servus, Spack

Spack, can you confirm that 'xset dpms force off' turns your display off?

dvstin, yes, with 'xset dpms force off' the display turns off.
I think an interesting thing is the comment from schmolch:
"Currently the Screensaver is set to 9m and exactly after 9m of idle-time the screen starts fading. Before it gets completely dark though it jumps back to full brightness again until 9m later it tries (and fails) again."
I can confirm exactly this behaviour.

Today I did a diff between the "xset q" output when blank screen worked and after blank screen did not work anymore: there were no differences. Maybe this information is helpful. Please let me know if I should do other tests.

Discussion of a similar bug in Karmic is going on here: bug #385633

I've got the same trouble.
gnome-power-manager-2.22.1 didn't set DPMS property.

>>>>>> gnome-power-manager --no-daemon --verbose --debug all
.....
[gpm_backlight_sync_policy] gpm-backlight.c:164 (10:31:38): not laptop, so use GPM_BACKLIGHT_METHOD_STAGGER
[gpm_backlight_sync_policy] gpm-backlight.c:193 (10:31:38): BACKLIGHT parameters 60 60 120, method '1'
[x11_sync_server_dpms_settings] gpm-dpms.c:130 (10:31:38): Syncing DPMS settings enabled=1 timeouts=0 0 0
[x11_sync_server_dpms_settings] gpm-dpms.c:187 (10:31:38): set DPMS timeouts: 0 0 0.
....
When I set timeout with gnome-power-preferences.

So ... it 's normal, because DPMS get unlimited timeout.

I've just change in gpm-dpms.c:350 (sync_settings function)
- if (dpms->priv->active) {
+ if (dpms->priv->enabled) {

==== it's working for me... but I'm waiting the official patch :)

[gpm_backlight_sync_policy] gpm-backlight.c:164 (10:31:38): not laptop, so use GPM_BACKLIGHT_METHOD_STAGGER
[gpm_backlight_sync_policy] gpm-backlight.c:193 (10:31:38): BACKLIGHT parameters 60 60 120, method '1'
[x11_sync_server_dpms_settings] gpm-dpms.c:130 (10:31:38): Syncing DPMS settings enabled=1 timeouts=60 60 120
[x11_sync_server_dpms_settings] gpm-dpms.c:187 (10:31:38): set DPMS timeouts: 60 60 120.

Dominique

I am currently using gnome-power-manager-2.28.1 (Ubuntu Karmic) and dpms works almost completely fine, except that i cant get any display-timeout above 10 minutes.

Is anyone else experiencing this?