Ubuntu – Is screen turning black randomly

14.04macbook proscreenxorgxscreensaver

I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 with xmonad on a relatively new retina MacBook Pro.
During normal computing, my screen will turn black every once in a while. Moving the mouse, clicking, or pressing any key turns it back on.

I am running xscreensaver but there's nothing in the xscreensaver log file about the blackout event. In Xorg.0.log, I see:

[ 30821.541] (II) intel(0): switch to mode 2880x1800@60.0 on eDP1 using pipe 0, position (0, 0), rotation normal, reflection none

When I'm watching full-screen media in e.g. VLC, the screen does not do this. I think that running xset -dpms; xset dpms every minute also prevents the problem.

How do I prevent this from happening in a way that doesn't interfere with normal xscreensaver behavior?

Best Answer

I just researched Apple to find out many people have a problem with this particular screen https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4441040

you could try to replace the current display manager like this:

press Ctrl+Alt+F2 now login and type:

sudo service lightdm stop 
sudo apt-get remove lightdm
sudo apt-get install gdm
sudo service gdm start #or sudo reboot

and yes Gnome all the way please post your results.

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