Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

Yet another problem has surfaced that seems to be linked to the latest Diablo.

I use Mplayer for playing videos, but recently the tablet has started to show some strange behaviour. After a Mplayer session, the screen will no longer dim after selecting the "lock screen and buttons" option.

I have set both my screen dimming and screen off time to 2 minutes, as this is apparently the only way to get the tablet to almost immediately black the screen with the aforementioned option. This works almost always, except if I have used Mplayer: the screen will then stay lit, with me needing to go into the configuration screen and fiddle with the screen settings a bit until everything works again.

I'd say it is a Mplayer bug, were it not for the fact that it worked flawlessly in ITOS2007.

Apologies for the probably incorrect English translations of menu options, but I have set my language to Dutch and can't remember the exact wordings in English anymore.

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

Maybe for some reason the mplayer process hangs on exit. Did you check?

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

How? I once tried to start mplayer from an xterm, but I got a lot of weird messages running across the screen.

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

Now if only I knew what that means... :rolleyes:

Funnily enough, on a whim (or a hunch) I installed moredimmingoptions -- to get that coveted 5 minutes before autodimming - and mplayer seems to be behaving now. At least, the screen dims properly, but I haven't been playing videos for long periods yet, so...

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

It just indicates that the grep process was running, with a command line of "grep mplayer"; so nothing to worry about.

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

Just wait. Eventually it will dim. I have experienced the same, but the screen dimmed after some minutes.

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

I just hate every milliwatt wasted to light up the inside of my tablet's case.

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

I am so totally worry-free right now. :rolleyes:

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

For me it takes only about 10 sec. (to be able to blank screen after closing mplayer)

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

I wrote too soon; the problem's still there. The only way I can get the tablet to dim immediately (or after one second) after a long session on mplayer (at least the length of a Futurama feature movie), is by going into Control Panel, change the settings of screen to something else, lock screen and keys and wait for the new setting to run its course (luckily there's a 30 second setting now), unlock it, go back into Control Panel and put the settings back to 5 minutes each. Only then will my tablet dim the way it should.

Mplayer does not appear to hang; at least, neither ps nor top show it running after exiting.

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

Disabling the screen dimming (while mplayer is running) is done by calling a function which blocks the screen timeout for 1 minute; this is called something like (iirc) every 30 seconds, so it would be a minimum of 30 to 60 seconds after mplayer exits till screen dimming would be expected to act normally. Are your troubles occurring in this time window, or later?

Re: Next snafu: Mplayer interferes with screen dimming
 

They are persistent until I perform the procedure denoted above.