Need help suppressing automatic monitor standby while playing online videos

[matogoro]

Hi all, I've been using Pale Moon on Linux for some time now and I really like it. I have a quick question regarding functionality while watching online videos (YouTube, etc.)

There seems to be some built-in feature in Firefox and Chromium that actively prevents my monitors from going on standby while watching videos online, full-screen or otherwise. This is handy since otherwise I'd have to be pressing keys or moving my mouse to keep the screen awake if I want the monitor to stay on longer than 10 minutes. For whatever reason, Pale Moon doesn't seem to trigger this and the screen falls asleep every time.

I can brute-force this by manually disabling my computer's DPMS (i.e. "xset s off -dpms"), but I feel that there must be a way to do this within Pale Moon as well. Is there some sort of internal setting or add-on that can replicate this functionality?

Thanks in advance!

[New Tobin Paradigm]

We have this capability. I wonder why it isn't working for you.

I don't normally do this but I need to establish a timeline. Could you please test Firefox 52 and see if it works as expected.

[matogoro]

Thanks for the quick reply! I think you're on to something. I downloaded Firefox 52 and tested a random YouTube video, as you suggested. Screen blanks out on the 10-minute mark as well.

I should provide some additional details: I'm running Void Linux, with bspwm/polybar, proprietary Nvidia drivers, triple-monitor setup (using xrandr). Newest version of Pale Moon 28.10.0 (64-bit).

Also, not sure how relevant this is, but when the screen goes on standby with Firefox 52, the audio keeps playing. When it goes on standby with Pale Moon 28.10.0, the audio cuts out (it resumes when I move the mouse and the screens turn back on).

Definitely would appreciate any further insight you may have into this. Thanks!

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Is the video full screen when you expect it to block the display going off?

[matogoro]

Yes, the screen blanks when the video is full screen.

[EMH_Mark_I]

I've tested this from a few of my systems and the SessionManager inhibitor is working as intended with Pale Moon.

Ubuntu 20.04 GNOME desktop


MX Linux 19 XFCE desktop


Debian Bullseye XFCE desktop


I don't have an install of Void Linux to test with however.

[matogoro]

Hm, yeah, I think you may be getting to the core of the issue. I don't see any SessionManager inhibitors running when playing a full-screen video:



I think Void Linux (or at least my particular installation of Void Linux) may have some sort of specialized or stripped down version of dbus, which is weird since I honestly just installed it from the main repository. Ironically enough, it was dbus-like errors that drove me to leave the newer versions of Firefox and come to Pale Moon in the first place.

That all being said, do you all have any insight on how to send this sort of inhibitory signal to dbus? If the problem is on my end, maybe some sort of external script is the answer.

[EMH_Mark_I]

I should probably have clarified that the previous images are demonstrating the inhibitor being set then unset by playing and stopping a video from YouTube. Playing a video should be enough to set the inhibitor, pausing a video should also unset.

I did test to make sure that the display didn't blank during the viewing, by setting the display blanking / power settings to idle out at 1 minute and then letting a 10 minute video play out. The video wasn't interrupted at any point.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

So it does seem distro specific. Cause I know it also works on Fedora-based distros from the last time I tried to switch but that was some months ago and I doubt it has busted. Especially seeing as ESR52 for you displays the same behavior. But I wanted to see if our resident hologram could figure out the nature of this screen blanking emergency.

[The Squash]

matogoro: Do you even have a screensaver application installed? If so, what is it?

Also I'd like to point out that if the monitor is going into standby, the screensaver doesn't deal with that. It's the power manager that deals with that.