Monitor losing HDMI connection whenever xscreensaver runs: It’s a thing

After upgrading my TV machine (the old one wasn’t powerful enough to play BluRay media), whenever xscreensaver runs, the TV would claim to have no inputs.

IMG_5331I know.

After trying various things, I started looking at the DPMS stuff, because that’s, like, power handling and seemed like something that might be relevant.  Perhaps Linux/xorg/whatever turns HDMI output off when we get into “power saving” mode?  And doesn’t know how to switch HDMI on again?  Intel Xorg things are often kinda funky:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200
 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)

So DPMS seemed like a likely guess.  However, I already had the following in my .Xscreensaver file:

dpmsEnabled: False

So what could it be?  Reading through the documentation, it seems like xscreensaver has gotten a new option called dpmsQuickOff.  (Makes total sense that if you have DPMS disabled, then “quick DPMS” would still be enabled, right?)

I disabled that in my  ~/.xscreensaver file, which made older xscreensavers on the other machines start complaining about an unrecognized option.  (Yes, I use nfs.)

Instead I put the following in the .Xdefaults file on the TV machine:

xscreensaver.dpmsQuickOff: False

And everything works perfectly.

If somebody had written this on the Internet somewhere, I would have been spared minutes and minutes of work.  So here you are, Next Person With Obscure Linux Intel Xorg Xscreensaver Blank Screen/Disconnect Problem.

CM&C:XCIX Foreign Correspondent

Foreign Correspondent. Alfred Hitchcock. 1940. ★★★★☆☆

I think I’ve seen most of Hitchcock’s post WWII movies, but very few of the earlier ones. I had forgotten I had bought a couple of box sets of the early ones, but I found them today. Just in time for the penultimate CM&C.

But it was a bit disappointing. It has lots of nice technical stuff going on, but the tension collapses all the time. Hitchcock reused some of the plot elements to great effect in the 50s.

Frozen Banana Daquiri: 😃

CM&C:XCVI A History of Violence

A History of Violence. David Cronenberg. 2005. ★★★☆☆☆

Look at this list of movies: Scanners, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, Crash, eXistenZ.

Not only are they all excellent and fascinating — they’re also thematically consistent, sort of. Cronenberg had some obsessions, and he wasn’t shy about putting them on the screen.

And then what happened? I haven’t seen all of his post-eXistenZ movies, but the ones I’ve seen have basically been competent and somewhat boring. And they have nothing in common with all of his previous movies.

What happened? Did he just get over it? Go for the money? What?

This movie has a surprising budget of $33M. And you can see exactly none of it on the screen.

Rum Smash: 😃