Carbon screen lock management issue

JasonMehmel · 2026-08-25 17:26:52

I'm having a hard time finding a way to manage this.

I don't want the screen to lock at all. Right now, it's still locking after a few minutes. (I haven't timed it yet.)

In the Power Management Preferences, I've got display power management turned on, but 'put to sleep after' is set to 'never.'

Brightness Reduction is also set to 'never.'

In the Screensaver Preferences, The screensaver is not enabled, and neither is the Lock Screen.

Is there somewhere else this would be controlled?

(I work from home most of the time, so I don't need to have my machine lock if I'm away from it. I would turn these features on when working elsewhere, or when on battery.)

johnraff · 2026-08-26 05:49:20

I don't know what's happening here. I'm running Carbon on a desktop and it never locks however long it's left, just turns off the screen. (Of course it does lock when going into suspend.) That's how I want it, and it sounds like what you want too...

But my settings seem to be the same as yours. Maybe quicker to post screenshots of my power manager and screensaver settings:

See anything different?

JasonMehmel · 2026-08-26 23:50:49

I didn't have the screensaver enabled, so I turned that on. Other than that, I have the same settings currently. I also turned on the lock screen option in the secondary screensaver menu.

Will report back!

It seems like it's connected to some period of inactivity, but all of the settings should prevent it! I wonder if this could also be connected to the BIOS, basically something imposing behaviour at a level the OS can't control? I did work with the BIOS when I was rebooting and dealing with some hiccups in the Boron -> Cabron transition.

One other thing I did note: you mentioned it never locks, but does turn off the screen. That is also something I'd like to prevent. From what I see in your settings, even that shouldn't happen!

johnraff · 2026-08-27 05:04:53

JasonMehmel wrote:

One other thing I did note: you mentioned it never locks, but does turn off the screen. That is also something I'd like to prevent. From what I see in your settings, even that shouldn't happen!

Indeed. I'm now not sure if it was something that happened in the past, or still sometimes happens.

But, checkout that screensaver setting "Activate screensaver when computer idle" and maybe turn it off?

Maybe also have a look at ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-power-manager.xml
Here's mine:

<?xml version="1.1" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<channel name="xfce4-power-manager" version="1.0">
  <property name="xfce4-power-manager" type="empty">
    <property name="power-button-action" type="empty"/>
    <property name="lid-action-on-ac" type="uint" value="1"/>
    <property name="lid-action-on-battery" type="uint" value="1"/>
    <property name="critical-power-action" type="uint" value="1"/>
    <property name="show-tray-icon" type="bool" value="false"/>
    <property name="general-notification" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="show-panel-label" type="int" value="1"/>
    <property name="show-presentation-indicator" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="blank-on-ac" type="int" value="0"/>
    <property name="dpms-on-ac-sleep" type="uint" value="0"/>
    <property name="dpms-on-ac-off" type="uint" value="0"/>
    <property name="lock-screen-suspend-hibernate" type="bool" value="true"/>
  </property>
</channel>

And here's what I had on Boron:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<channel name="xfce4-power-manager" version="1.0">
  <property name="xfce4-power-manager" type="empty">
    <property name="power-button-action" type="empty"/>
    <property name="lid-action-on-ac" type="uint" value="1"/>
    <property name="lid-action-on-battery" type="uint" value="1"/>
    <property name="critical-power-action" type="uint" value="1"/>
    <property name="show-tray-icon" type="bool" value="false"/>
    <property name="general-notification" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="show-panel-label" type="int" value="1"/>
    <property name="show-presentation-indicator" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="sleep-button-action" type="uint" value="1"/>
    <property name="hibernate-button-action" type="uint" value="1"/>
    <property name="blank-on-ac" type="int" value="15"/>
    <property name="dpms-on-ac-sleep" type="uint" value="0"/>
    <property name="dpms-on-ac-off" type="uint" value="0"/>
    <property name="lock-screen-suspend-hibernate" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="logind-handle-lid-switch" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="inactivity-on-ac" type="uint" value="14"/>
    <property name="dpms-enabled" type="bool" value="true"/>
  </property>
</channel>

You might want to see what difference adding that "dpms-enabled" line makes? Or explicitly setting it to "false"?
Dpms is connected with turning off the display anyway - try searching "xfce4-power-manager dpms" or the like.

JasonMehmel · Today 03:42:57

Well, that was an interesting rabbit hole to go down.

I tried setting the boolean of dpms-enabled to "false" and didn't get any joy.

But I did start doing some googling about DPMS and came across posts indicating a similar problem; the display shutting off / locking more in a shorter threshold than it's been set for.

https://forum.manjaro.org/t/monitors-go … tes/176525

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xfce#L … gs_ignored

From what I can tell at the moment, there tends to be issues around this but no one has nailed down the particulars.

I get the sense that there's some layer in the process that's still imposing it's will re: blanking the screen.

What I did discover as a workaround, was turning on 'presentation mode' from the tray icon. So far, that's done the job at not locking the display.

#1 2026-08-25 17:26:52

Carbon screen lock management issue

#2 2026-08-26 05:49:20

Re: Carbon screen lock management issue

#3 2026-08-26 23:50:49

Re: Carbon screen lock management issue

#4 2026-08-27 05:04:53

Re: Carbon screen lock management issue

#5 Today 03:42:57

Re: Carbon screen lock management issue

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