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.
I 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.
