On Fri, Jun 13, 2025 at 01:42:24PM +0100, Laurence Tratt wrote:
> As of some time early this week, I noticed that my xidle screensaver
> command is not running. [It may have happened before that, but if so I
> didn't notice.]
I don't normally use xidle, but it works here with:
xidle -no -program /usr/X11R6/bin/xclock -timeout 5
with both cwm and fvwm
>
> If I hack xidle to turn on `DEBUG` it doesn't notice that the timeout
> has been met, sitting there forever without running `program`:
>
> ```
> $ make && ./xidle -no -program "/usr/bin/touch /tmp/t" -timeout 5
> cc -O2 -pipe -Wall -MD -MP -I/usr/X11R6/include -c xidle.c
> cc -o xidle xidle.o -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lXss -lXext -lX11 -lxcb -lXau -lXdmcp
> Area: 2
> Delay: 2
> Position: 16
> Timeout: 5
> Program: "/usr/bin/touch"
> ```
>
> However, if I send it `SIGUSR1` it wakes up:
>
> ```
> got event 33
> ```
>
> and runs the command.
>
> So either xidle isn't tell X it wants to be woken up (and that part of
> xidle's code hasn't changed in years), or X isn't sending it the wake up
> event.
>
> Running this C program in a loop confirms that the idle time is being
> incremented/reset correctly:
>
> ```
> #include <stdio.h>
> #include <X11/Xlib.h>
> #include <X11/extensions/scrnsaver.h>
> void main() {
> Display *d = XOpenDisplay("");
> XScreenSaverInfo inf;
> if (XScreenSaverQueryInfo(d, DefaultRootWindow(display), &inf))
> printf("%f\n", inf.idle / 1000.0);
> XCloseDisplay(display);
> }
> ```
>
> so it seems that XScreenSaver does have the right information.
>
> FWIW, I had to make a patch against `xidle` for its DEBUG output to work
> correctly (without this, the DEBUG output always goes to /dev/pull).
> diff at the end of this email.
>
>
> Laurie
>
>
> diff --git app/xidle/xidle.c app/xidle/xidle.c
> index 623ca784a..c302d710a 100644
> --- app/xidle/xidle.c
> +++ app/xidle/xidle.c
> @@ -327,7 +331,9 @@ main(int argc, char **argv)
> char *args[10];
> int area = 2, delay = 2, timeout = 0;
> int position = north|west;
> +#ifndef DEBUG
> int fd;
> +#endif
> u_long last_serial = 0;
>
> parse_opts(argc, argv, &x.dpy, &area, &delay, &timeout,
> @@ -345,6 +351,7 @@ main(int argc, char **argv)
> signal(SIGTERM, handler);
> signal(SIGUSR1, handler);
>
> +#ifndef DEBUG
> fd = open(_PATH_DEVNULL, O_RDWR);
> if (fd < 0)
> err(1, _PATH_DEVNULL);
> @@ -353,6 +360,7 @@ main(int argc, char **argv)
> dup2(fd, STDERR_FILENO);
> if (fd > 2)
> close(fd);
> +#endif
>
> if (pledge("stdio proc exec", NULL) == -1)
> err(1, "pledge");
>
>
