MATE screensaver being called but it has been removed

Support & Help Requests
1

I have apt-removed mate-screensaver and installed xscreensaver and all the extras .

sudo apt remove mate-screensaver
sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra

xscreensaver is working flawlessly. There is NO problem with xscreensaver

Despite having removed -- or because I have removed -- mate-screensaver I see an error dialog saying that the system cannot find mate-screensaver. This pops up from time to time without any pattern that I've noticed.

From the journal, we have

    mate-session[2372]: WARNING: Could not launch application 'mate-screensaver.desktop': Unable to start application: Failed to execute child process “mate-screensaver” (No such file or directory)

So the problem seems to be in the configuration of mate-session

Under man mate-session, we have

   The default session is defined in the dconf keys under  /org/mate/desktop/session/

However the dfconf config has no mention of mate-screensaver.

The man page says also this

    autostart=DIR
          Start all applications defined in "DIR", instead of starting the
          applications  defined  in /org/mate/desktop/session/default-session

Another possibility is in the ~/.config/autostart directory, but there is no mention of mate-screensaver in any of the files there

The screensaver link in the control center takes me to the xscreensaver admin screen.

Power management is set to 'do nothing' for all options.

So where is this call to mate-screensaver coming from in the mate-session

2

I have X-Screensaver and use the instructions at the page https://www.linuxbabe.com/ubuntu/install-autostart-xscreensaver-ubuntu-18-04-19-04

Have a read through - you may be missing something, such as adding xscreensaver to the autostart menu.

3

All done. There is no problem with xscreensaver. The problem is that there is some process that expects mate-screensaver to be installed but I have removed it -- as per instructions in the link you've provided.

4

Cool. Glad that helped out. :ok_hand:

5

Sorry. I meant to say that I have the problem even though I had previously followed all the steps in that link. That is the standard procedure for installing xscreensaver and I had followed it.

xscreensaver has been working flawlessly all along. That is not the issue.

There is some process in MATE that expects the mate-screensaver to be installed. Removing mate-screensaver does not inform that process

Any idea what that process is?

6

Not sure on that one. Are you able to provide any messages that you receive regarding this?

Just to check, when you installed X-Screensaver, did you use the command:

$ sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl-extra